- Ninja Mom
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- “Ninja Mom! Ninja Mom!” “Woof! Woof!”
- It was hard to tell who was making the most noise, the twins or Rufus, their black Labrador, and the other dogs that were excited by all the uproar.
- Mort, Frank, Martha and Mike hurried out to see what all the commotion was about. Agnes was still atop the wooden fence, bowing to the left and to the right as though there were a huge audience applauding her performance.
- Mort was the first to speak. “Ag! What did you...how did you...?”
- “Get up here? I'm a grasshopper!”
- “Mom ran and then just jumped up!” Mal said breathlessly. “She’s a regular ninja!”
- “What’s this about being a ninja?” Frank asked what the other adults were wondering about too.
- Mel answered, “Dad, don’t you remember? That program on TV, where these ladies have to jump from one block to another and do other stuff like that. Most of them don’t get too far and fall in the water. That was really funny. Falling in the water was the best part.”
- Stretching her arms out like a bird, Agnes gracefully hopped off her perch and softly landed on the grass. “Ok, show’s over. Let’s catch us some chickens!”
- Everyone could see how happy and excited Agnes was. She had taken quite a chance and could have easily misjudged how high to jump or lost her balance after landing successfully on the top of the fence. Either way, her shins and her ego would have suffered quite a bruising. Most of all, Agnes felt a huge sense of pride in hearing her children calling her Ninja Mom.
- But this was to be her children‘s time for experiencing some aspects of farming. Ninja Mom was going to be simply “Mom,” at least for now. Agnes promised to tell a bit about her background in gymnastics and athletics over supper that evening and that it was probably time to begin “chasing chickens,” as she put it.
- First, You catch a Chicken
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- Martha was so amused by Agnes’ enthusiasm about catching and preparing the chickens for tomorrow’s dinner that she nearly forgot the amazing skill she and the others had just witnessed. “Ok. Frank, would you please start the fire?”
- “Neat! Are we going to cook the chickens out here?” Mel asked.
- No, I’m going to bake them in the oven tomorrow. But you wouldn’t want to eat chicken with its feathers still on, would you? We need to boil water for plucking the chickens,” Martha explained. Neither of the twins said anything, preferring to wait and see what happened next.
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- Frank asked the twins to help him gather up some fallen branches to put on top of some logs that were already arranged for the fire. As Mal and Mel scampered around, piling their branches atop the log, Frank brought out a round metal grate, a few sheets of old newspaper and several pieces of kindling fatwood from the shed nearby. He placed some of the newspaper and kindling underneath the logs, and also in between the logs and on top. Everyone has their own way of starting a fire, and Frank had perfected his technique over many years. The fire lit with just one match and was ready quickly, with minimum smoke or dangerous flames.
- Martha brought out a big pot that was about two feet high and set it down on the grate that Frank placed on top of the fire. It looked old and well used.
- Meanwhile, Frank showed the children how to use the old-fashioned hand pump to draw out water from the well on their property. Frank primed the pump to get the water flowing and pulled up the first bucket of water. The twins had great fun taking turns pumping and filling the buckets, not to mention splashing Rufus, who kept ducking in and out as he tried to lick up water that started forming puddles all around them. Frank and Mike carried the filled buckets to the pot that was just beginning to warm up and poured the water to about five inches below the rim.
- “Lots more trouble this way, but I thought the youngsters might not have another chance to actually work a manual water pump,” Frank whispered to Mike.
- “Great experience for them. Something they’ll remember, compared with just pushing a button on the electric types. You don’t see many of those hand pumps around anymore. Glad it’s still working for you,” Mike responded.
- “Time to catch a couple of chickens,” Martha announced.
- Both the twins were ready to try out this new game. “Let me try. Let me try.”
- “Go ahead, but watch that you don’t fall down and scrape your knees. They move pretty fast.” Martha knew how little chance either of the twins had of actually catching a chicken.
- After a lot of squawking and feathers flying as Mal, Mel and even Rufus ran around trying to grab a chicken, Agnes announced that she would like to try. “How many chickens do you want, Martha?” she asked. “Two of the bigger ones should do it,” Martha said.
- Agnes stood up. She watched her children as they chased the chickens, then suddenly leaped forward, stooped down and scooped up a chicken with both hands. It was over in an instant.
- “There. What do I do with it?” Squawking and putting up a fuss, the chicken tried to squirm away but Agnes held the chicken’s wings tightly against its sides, its head and beak facing away from her.
- AFTER You catch a Chicken
- CAUTIONARY NOTE: the next section between the dotted lines graphically describes how chickens are often killed and cleaned on a family farm – not for the squeamish!
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“Here, give it to me.” Martha took the chicken by both legs. Holding it upside down, Martha walked over to a large tree stump that was about the height of a kitchen table. She positioned the chicken on the stump so that its neck was in the center and held it fast with her left hand. With her right hand, she took the hatchet that she brought out from the kitchen, lifted it over her head and with a swift motion cut off the chicken’s head. The twins were amazed to see that the chicken was still moving around and trying to flap its winds.- Martha then took some twine out of her apron pocket, quickly tied the chicken’s legs together and hung it from a nearby tree branch to allow the blood to drain. “Do you want to catch another one?” she asked Agnes. “Sure. You okay, Mel? Mal?” The twins nodded.
- So Agnes did an encore performance and captured another chicken, this time holding it by the legs upside down as Martha had done, “Here. But I’m not quite ready to swing the hatchet yet.”
- Martha cut down both chickens when the blood stopped draining. The big pot of water was hot, but not boiling – just the right temperature for “dunking and plucking.”
- Martha explained that you couldn’t just pull the feathers out. You need to dunk the chickens in the hot water to loosen the feathers. Like people who have different views on making the perfect fire, people have different ideas about how hot the dunking water should be. Martha’s view was that if you wore rubber gloves, you wouldn’t be overly worried about how hot the water was, so long as it was well below boiling.
- Martha showed Agnes how to dunk the chicken, making sure that all the feathers are soaked but not keeping the chicken in the hot water long enough that it starts cooking. Much to the twins’ relief, the two women agreed that this was not children’s work.
- “Gross,” said Mal. “Yuk,” his sister agreed. Neither of them much liked the smell of hot, wet feathers either and they were both immensely relieved when they were allowed to go back to the business of being children. It had been a full day for the twins, so Frank went quietly off to milk the cows by himself. There’s always tomorrow, he reasoned.
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Over that evening’s supper of Martha’s “secret recipe” meatloaf, steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes, everyone’s attention turned again to Agnes, so she related how she had a knack for tumbling and gymnastics from early childhood and had won a number of local tournaments in grade school. However, her parents did not have the means to pay for private training or for travel to out-of-state competitions. They recognized her native abilities and encouraged her to participate in whatever school sports interested her.- Agnes eagerly participated in many different sports between grammar and high school, including soccer, basketball, track, softball, volleyball, ice skating and even rowing. She loved them all, despite having to arise early for before-school practice. “That Daly girl could be a real winner, if only she’d settle down and pick one sport to concentrate on,” was the consensus of her coaches.
- Agnes turned her attention back to the twins. “Now you know where tomorrow’s chicken dinner is coming from, right? It’s a bit messier than it looks from the supermarket packages, isn’t it?”
- “Yep. It was interesting, but I liked chasing them best.” Mal didn’t seem to mind the process he and Mel had seen for the first time.
- “I didn’t like the smell of the wet feathers. That was icky. Baked chicken tastes really good, though.” Mel didn’t seem to be disturbed by the process either.
- The twins looked drowsy. Despite getting up late, it was a long day. There is something about city folks getting out in the country, with all that fresh air and lots of activity, that makes for a good night’s sleep. “Since you didn’t get a chance to help Uncle Frank milk the cows this afternoon, why don’t you think about going to bed early tonight and getting up early tomorrow morning? You’ve heard the saying ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealth and wise.’ I’ll come too.” Mike thought it would be good for the twins to realize the commitment that farmers make to their livelihood.
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LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION
How to Pluck a Chicken
Farm Life
- LINKS: BOOK 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION TO THE BIOFABLES SERIES
BioFables 1 Teaching Brief
BioFables 1 & 2: Word Counts, Reading Levels
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