blood, sweat, & tears fueling our dream.
Perspective: going forth because you want to or because it’s His plan.
Chicken posting got quiet around here after Chris Kuhler was injured during our first butcher day. Mostly a pride thing and we didn’t know how we’d keep moving forward. We had moments of “is this a sign”, “Now we can’t finish”, and “Nothing has been easy”. When things keep stacking up, it is easy to stay focused, but hard to believe you are following a calling. I am posting graphic images, so skip if you can’t take blood and injuries—just sayin’!
We were ambitious with our first flock because we ordered more chickens to start raising taking us into November for butchering. Chicken can take the cooler weather, but for us, we needed to wrap up soon after the frost to save our grass. Once the frost comes/ground freezes, your grass doesn’t grow back the same, so if we had chicken still pecking at our grass as we moved them daily, we’d be looking at a 50/50 chance of our grass bouncing back. We were on schedule and the flock grew nicely, so we made babysitter plans and scheduled our hot date to butcher our first flock the weekend of Halloween.
We rose early and set up our station (pic in post). Everything was organized, neat, clean, and we talked through our process over and over to make sure we’d be butchering as humanely and sanitary as possible. We parked out vehicles around us so the neighbors wouldn’t have a “show”, then prayed over our flock, our actions, and our calling. We were making great time with butchering and really got a system down. We were going to wrap up butchering 25 chickens by 3pm. We finished 8 and planned to do 10 before we took a lunch break, and I could take a break to pump and feed PJ without having raw chicken all over me. For every chicken Chris would cut, I would remind him to check his hand placement and we’d say “God Bless”, but this time I didn’t and right after the cut of the 9th chicken, Chris grabbed his hand tightly and said, “I cut myself”.
He remained calm and I started freaking out, and for anyone who knows us, this is quite the opposite of how we usually are! I ran into the garage and all I could think to grab was a dirty glove I found on the bench, even though we had clean paper towels hanging in our butcher station (lol). I grabbed my wallet and keys and hollered at Amy Ritz Kuhler that Chris cut himself and we were going to the emergency room. We only live 20 minutes away from the ER, but it was the longest ride of me checking in on Mr. Fainty Pants every 5 seconds while his fingers began cramping from holding pressure. We got to the ER and you’d think Chris only had a paper cut…they even asked him to sign something even though his hands weren’t free, but whatever.
We’ll spare you the details, but as soon as he removed the glove for the nurse all she said was “L'set’s put that back on there”. 11 stitches later, we were sent home with a pain meds, wraps, and orders to do no dishes or change dirty diapers for two weeks. He had to visit a hand surgeon to make sure he would have feeling in his hand again since he experienced numbness before the stitches. When we got home, Chris’s Grandpa (Bob Ritz) and I finished the chickens we started, but we still had 15 chickens + 25 other birds from our ambitious second flock that would be ready in a matter of weeks. We had no idea how we’d move forward. We thought we were going to have to pay for a processor which was not the best option because we’d lose money. I mean, we have invested a lot in this, and doing it on such a small scale, it will take years for us to “get paid”, so the last thing we need is to haul chicken off to get butchered. I also didn’t have it in me to butcher the chickens. I texted other women farmers asking for advice on how they bring themselves to do it, but for some reason, I couldn’t buck up and do it. Chris ended up double gloving and wearing a metal glove putting pressure on his injury to finish.
Who are we to decide we are going to raise pasture-raised chickens and butcher them for our family and others? We wrestled with this as we were trying to understand if we were doing this for ourselves or if God was guiding us to His purpose. When we pray that we want to do this if He wants us to do this…then something like this happens, does that mean we shouldn’t do it? Then we heard a sermon at Crosslink Community Church that reminded us of trials. This is our trial/setback. We are learning lessons to make us stronger which draws us closer to God. And it did. I was juggling a lot on my own since Chris couldn’t do much at all with the animals, house, and baby. He had his own “come to Jesus” moments, and I had a reckoning of an attitude adjustment. We really had to work to heal and the time it took to heal led us to a better product. We had more precision, time to order a few more tools we wished we had for butchering, and our chickens that grew more over the healing period had reached an average weight of at least 5 lbs.
The weird thing about this lesson is that it wasn’t in material or tangible things. Our knife was sharp (obviously), we were not rushing, and we may have been inexperienced but we did more than watch a YouTube video to prepare. We are 20 something year olds who had an accident and had to pivot to finish what we started. As we continue to brand Shady Hill, we know we need to have prayer at the center of our values because we know we will have trials. We will have trials as God prepares us for His plan. We are just following our passion, praying, listening, and learning.
When you buy Shady Hill products. You are buying passion and a great product. Don’t worry, Chris’s hospital bill will not affect the price per lb; that is our running joke now.
-Ashley
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