Chicken Farm

Today is my 5th day here. So exhausted today. Up at 5.30 feeding hens and letting them out. Layla up at 6 fed her than at 8 Cleaned the dishes in the bakery than go over to the Chicken farm and watch the birds get killed than start plucking than start taking the guts out and than go for a coffee break back out again pluck more birds than layla gets bored. She lasted a long time and didnt mind any of the gorey blood and guts. So bring her for something to eat and let her watch a movie go check on the chickens and hens. I lay down for 20 minute nap. Was so tired. So went back to the chicken farm. So we finish killing , plucking, gutting and packaging the chickens.
Went to look to see was layla ok. Check on the chickens and hens again. Than went to chicken farm and put laybels on and than was finish there. I went to the green house garden trimed all the chives down. Layla and myself went to collect the eggs. Than we went to start cooking dinner well lori did most of it. We were more in her way than anything. So now I am writing my blog before i put the chickens and hens to bed.


This is savideer he is are meat inspector. He has such a gentle soul.

These our the cute chickens. I love taking care of these guys.

 

Layla and mysef collecting the chickens to be butcher.

KILLING

We collect the chickens from the barn than put them in creates alive. We bring them to the butcher farm. The first thing that happens is you get the chicken by his legs and rest the breast of the chicken down so the wings wont be flapping everywhere. Than when you are lifting the chicken into the tunnel have one of your hands on the feet and the other hand on the wing than put the chicken head in first and still hold onto his feet until you grab his head. Get a good grip or the chicken will jump out.
So when you have his head let go of his feet, and get your knife and under the jaw just one cut and dont saw like i did a few times before i got it right.
When you have that part done the chicken is still moving and the blood is still dripping. So wait till chicken stops moving and dripping blood and than put them into a machine. This machine is full of really hot water and one layler of the skin comes off and when that is done put them into the plucking machine.

PLUCKING

Plucking starts off with the machine where most of the feathers is taking off. So the chickens are passed onto to us. So we check the chickens for any feathers that were missed by the machine and than we passed them on to the next stage.

GUTTING

The first stage of the gutting is the neck. You scrape all of the fat and the feeding tube behind the neck  and when finish that you start on the bum part and start taking all the guts out. Just be careful with the heart and liver. Keep it intacted. Pass the liver, heart and neck over to the meat inspector and has a look to see is the chicken ok. The last thing to do is make sure you scrape out everything and than the chicken goes in the bucket of water.

PACKAGING

This is the last stage. You get your chicken out of the bucket of water and put the neck, liver and heart into each empty chicken and than you bag weigh and tag them all and sell it to your customers.

 

I must say it was amazing experience for myself and Layla to be butchering ladies. Layla enjoy it just as much as I did. Every one was so impressed. They said this was the first time a child has work in here and didnt get scared or cry about anything. she was so interested in everything asked loads of questions. Worked with all the guys. She was brilliant. So proud of her.

So when we go out to check on the chickens or the baby chickens Layla goes and looks for dead ones and she wants to pick them up and throw them in the compass area.


Lori is the owner of all the chickens. She has been a great teacher. She has taught us so much she has so much colour in her personality.

Gluten Free Bakery

 WHISKEY CREEK FARM

The night before we arived on the farm on the 7th of June. I was really scared, dont know why and I was hoping Layla would'nt notice. Than we met Lori's partner Biran and he collected us from the bus stop and i wasnt so scared anymore.I suppose it is scary not knowing where you are going. When we got there I loved the place it was so beautiful and felt so at home. We meet Lori very  quickly. She was busy with the baking and her customers. So we than were introduce to Conny and she is from Switzerland.  She showed us around and told us that we work all day and there was always things to do.
I was looking forward to this as i love working and love to keep going with things to do. We fed the chickens and water the plants and than we meet Shemus the dog that didnt like Layla. He was trying to bite her and he nip her a little too.  I was so scared. Layla was braver than me.
She was trying to make friends with him by thorwing sticks so he could go fetch. I was so impressed with her bravery. He still wanted to attack her but she got over it and had a great night sleep while i could'nt go asleep with worry thinking he is going to grab and bite her so bad. Just dreadful taughts were going thourgh my head.

 

This is the beautiful Gluten free Bakery 

The next day i got up at 5.30 to feed the hens and all the chicks. Than lay down until Layla wont up. It is bakery day today. Everything in the bakery is gluten free. I would love to have a little place like this of my own. It is so beautiful and Lori is so colourful and such a artist.
She bakes everything herself. In my eyes she is pretty amazing. Layla and myself started working I did the washing while Layla was helping lori with the cooking and doing the dusting and eating some of the cakes and licking the bowl clean.
I put all the toppings on the pizza. Looking forward bringing some of these receipes home with me and experimenting with them.

Layla myself and Lori working away in the bakery.

It is 7.30 and we were up since 6. Got to the hen house and usual ever morning a chicken dies of a heart attack. I taught it was very strange but it seems to always happens and quiet normal. So fed the hens, chickens and the older chickens and let them out. The weather seems to be nice today. We just got our breakfast and now we are going to do some weeding when I am finish writing. We did loads of the weeding and we cleaned out the chickens house and made it all clean. That was a dirty job. Conny the Switzerland girl helped. Today was her last day. Will miss her a lot and Layla will too. She is so easy to talk to and so friendly.
We were taking loads of pictures of us doing all the work. Layla was hanging around Lori alot. They were making friends with the dog. Layla said to me today that she wanted to live here forever. Layla was on the tractor. She loved that. She went into Lori's mum and spent some time with her as she is so lonely.

 

Conny gone yesterday really miss her last night. She was great company and always help me with all the chores. So it is a bit lonely without her. Layla and myself always collect the eggs together after 4 that is when all the hens have laid there eggs. We saw a grass snake today. I forgot to bring my camera to take a picture. Have to put the hens to bed before i can go to bed and before I fall asleep I listen to the frogs every night.

as have

CANADA

We arrived in Vancouver on the 28th of May at 5.30 pm. There waiting for us was Emilie sister Clarie, thankfully as Layla couldn't take no more as she was so tired and she only slept for a hour on the plane. She was so exhausted that she got sick in Clarie's mothers car. It didn't take long to arrive at Emilie's mothers house. That is where we meet Nikolai and Emilie and the first time to meet Uiliana. Layla suddenly got more energy as she played with Nikolai for a little bit before going to bed. I went to bed not too long after.

The next day we got up early and left Emilie's mother house to go to Emilie's house in Victoria on Vancover island. So first of all we had to get a train than a bus and than a ferry and than a bus and than walk the 4 blocks to Emilie's house. We didnt do much afer as we were jetlagged.

Emilie has been a great host, she took us to see the fondo beach, legislature, fisherman warf, moss street market, beacon hill park, oak bay tea party, Royal Museum of B C, Gonzales beach, Elk lake. I will tell you later about each of them, well maybe some of them with some pictures.

 This picture was taking at fisherman warf. There was small house floating and people lived in them. we fed the seals and that was so cool. The seals would nearly touch you to get the food and there eyes were so big and beautiful. It was so hard to say goodbye to them as we all just wanted to look at them forever.

 This Picture was of the Fondo beach and Layla and Nikolai went through the long blades of grass pretending they were lions and hunters with there sticks. They have such great imagination. They were so cute.

 This picture was the amusement park in the oak bay tea party. They really enjoyed this one. We saw planes in the sky going around and around. We saw guys jumping out of planes and parachuting from the sky and landing on the beach beside us.

We have been eating really great dinners and some healthy deserts without sugar. Emilie has been giving me great recipes so I will take them home with me and share them with my friends back home in Ireland. Nikolai and Emilie have allergies to certain type of foods. So i have been learning so much about food and adapting how they live there family life and how they do things. Layla is finding it hard sometimes to eat as she is use to going to peoples houses and not eating everything as i am usual not as hard on her when we only visit people for a day. But while we are in Canada for a while i will tell her to eat everything that is serve to her as if we were home in our own house.

The dinners that Emilie has cooked  some beautiful Mexican food, macaroni & cheese and that was not my favourite dish, Brad cooked chicken drumsticks with fried potatoes and salad, I cooked sweet potato soup with roasted peppers and Lentils with goats cheese. Desserts we had were rice pudding, chocolate balls my favourite and Layla's too.

Layla has been brilliant, she just seems to get on with things never really moans about anything and if she is cross she would take it out on me and say I was mean. I don't really mind as she needs to let some of her frustration out.
But when i ask her does she miss home she tells me yes she missing s her room and toys and her aunties and all her friends in school and her daddy.

Nikolai and Layla having been getting on brilliant. They don't really fight and if they do they sort it out among themselves and if they need time to have loan time they seem to understand each others needs and they work really well together. I think they will really miss each other when we leave to work on the farm on Friday. But you never know they just might be ok without each other as they seem to adapt with things easier than us older folk. 


This is a picture of the kids on the Gonzales beach. They dipped there feet in the cold water and made sandcastles and helped a lady on the beach to collect sticks as she was collecting them to do some art work outside her house.

 These pictures our of the Royal Museum of B C. There was so much to see in this Museum. It was really exciting and boring for Layla part of the time. But her favourite part was the horse and she was scared of the pirate ship and the sound effects. I did think it was quiet cool and my favorite part was when they were doing a exhibition at the Museum about two guys racing to get to the Artartac . One guy was from Britain and the other guy was from Noreweign . So Layla choose the British guy the reason for that was Layla wanted the blue color paper and than i had to choose the Noreweign guy. So we went in not knowing who got there first and as we went along we slowly found out who the winners were. The Norweign team won so that meant i won, but secretly i was delighted and Layla wasn't too happy. But i just said to her they were both winners. But in fairness to what they went through i believe they were. 

Layla enjoying the sun and loving the freedom at Elk lake.

 This was a 5km walk to get to the Elk lake. Layla was moaning at first but soon realized there was no point to it and both Nikolai and Layla found fury caterpillars and they called one the mammy and daddy ones. These are really hated creatures in Canada as they kill the trees. So they let them crawl up them and than we had are picnic and they fed them grass and leaves and we ate are lunch and had ice rooibush tea.

Layla and Nikolai relaxing and dipping there feet in the water.

So we finish up are adventure for the day and brought the caterpillars home and they are still outside the back garden alive and Layla and Nikolai even think they had a baby already. What do you think?