Workshop on raising chickens: not for the squeamish

CORNWALL — In an airy barn next to an ivy-covered silo, pretty brown jersey calves loll in hay-filled stalls. Nearby, the red glow of a heat lamp bathes newly hatched chicks. In another hay-strewn room, a small group of people is finishing lunch.

And preparing to kill a chicken.

It is a snapshot of farm life. Some could find it offensive. But those attending a Motherhouse workshop at Local Farm on Saturday were there to learn skills that were part of everyday life not many generations ago.

One participant said she feels a sense of discomfort at being so completely reliant on others for food and other necessities.

The nurturing spirit that defines motherhood, and farming, is the basis for Motherhouse Inc., a nonprofit officially established in 2003.

It began, not as a home for unwed mothers (as some assumed from the name), but as a way to share the peace and sense of comfort that former teacher Debra Tyler found on the farm, particularly while raising her own children there.

Attaining the state of mind that allows for nurturing spirituality isn’t easy. It comes only after hard work — and sometimes, ironically, through a lot of stress.

The Motherhouse workshops, programs, contra dances and a specialty marketplace all began as mother/daughter retreats just a few years ago.

The most popular offerings these days are the Old Style Life Skills workshops, which attract young and old, female and male, the curious and those intent on finding a degree of self-reliance at the most basic level.

Amidst the pickle-making, yarn-spinning and family cow workshops is a sort of make-it-or-break-it attitude approached by some as a means of testing their mettle.

Participants last week had spent the rainy morning in the barn, learning about the art of raising chickens.

Now it was time to get down to the part that was described by one as “not for the squeamish.�

Tyler’s daughter, Margaret Hopkins, explained each step of the process, from the first step of using a knife in the bird’s mouth to quickly sever the spinal cord to the final step of gutting and preparing the bird for roasting.

Just outside, a pot of water was heating to a boil over a campfire.

Margaret, a teenager who is home-schooled, headed to a cage in a field where a group of chickens seemed not to know how to react. Were they being fed? Did they know one was leaving, to never come back? They huddled in a corner as Margaret stepped into the cage.

“It doesn’t matter. Whichever one I can grab,� she said, when asked how she would pick the one whose life was about to end.

You don’t get attached, she said. You keep your perspective within the food chain.

Holding the chosen one by its feet, she let it hang so the blood could drain into its head, which has a calming effect, and allows it to bleed out faster.

As she stood in the barn holding the doomed chicken, she continued to explain the process while a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl crouched down to talk to it.

With her parents close by, she said yes when asked if she liked chickens, and said she likes to eat chickens. (Her mom said she is in a stage where she will say yes to everything). Still, she knew what was coming and reacted only with curiosity as the chicken was killed, bled and dipped in boiling water to loosen the feathers for plucking.

Her young, attentive father remarked that he grew up with deer carcasses hanging from the porch rafters.

“It didn’t harm me,� he said.

His wife explained that they live in the city of New Haven, where they are hoping to acquire more land. For now, the city allows them to keep up to six chickens. They plan to raise them for meat and eggs.

“We really wanted her to see where her food comes from,� said her mom, who preferred not to have their names used. “Kids only know that you go to the store and buy chickens wrapped in plastic. They need to know there is a step before this.�

Nina LaPorta, who grew up nearby on Popple Swamp Road, has been studying sustainable agriculture in college. There, she helped with slaughtering, but was spared taking part in what she thinks would bother her most.

“I never had to actually kill any chickens,� she said. “Once they were dead, my job was to cut the head off.�

She was very hands-on at Saturday’s workshop, using it as a way of being sure of the track she is on.

“I really want to be able to do this on my own.�

And that pretty much sums it up.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less