<b>Nice and early yesterday morning it started raining. It rained solid and hard for 6 hours, the bulk of the butchering time. About 8:00 am I got the scalding pot heating then about 9:00am headed over to the cornish pen and picked out the biggest. I started with 5 birds and lopped their heads off then hung them to bleed out until the carcass stopped moving. The birds are over 9 weeks old now and some are really big, the roosters mostly. 

![IMG_20201010_095013.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/GBuHduuY-IMG_20201010_095013.jpg)

While dealing with the rain that was seeping into my garden shed I was in the tool shed, looked up over the door, and another cocoon was hanging. I popped it off of the 3 threads holding it and took it inside. I dove into the National Audubon Society guide to butterflies and I found that I have myself some Western Tiger Swallowtails.  

![IMG_20201010_103622.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/ZV2vxa7G-IMG_20201010_103622.jpg)

This is what they will turn into.

![IMG_20170623_1210410541.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/tlxV4isi-IMG_20170623_121041054-1.jpg)

Each attaches to the surface with 2 threads in the front and the tail is attached. I have 2 of them now and I am going to be putting them outside under the overhang where I will be able to see them for next spring when they hatch. I could probably just put them in the fridge with the ootheca and pull them out together. 

![IMG_20201010_103630.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/VSnmrq7b-IMG_20201010_103630.jpg)

5 birds scalded, plucked, and singed ready to be gutted. 

![IMG_20201010_103309.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/miIp1E7x-IMG_20201010_103309.jpg)

With the first five inside I worked around the farm on clearing the roof of a couple of sheds in hopes of having less water leaking through the roofs. They are older sheds and the roofs aren't the best condition. Once @stryeyz had a couple of birds left to gut I went out and picked the next five birds and bled them out. They all got scalded, plucked, and singed then taken inside. 

![IMG_20201010_120056.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/flemingfarm/66gQMjXk-IMG_20201010_120056.jpg)

It stopped raining at 1:00pm and the storm dumped 0.52 inches of rain, nearly a tenth of an inch an hour. 

In the later afternoon we headed up the hill to where the winter squash garden was and took Anita a big box of food. Her daughter and grand daughter are vegetarians and so I wanted to give them a good amount. The box was filled with summer squash, kale, chard, NZ spinach, malabar spinach, mixed beans, grapes, winter squash variety, cherry tomatoes, a half of a frozen chicken, then some small amounts of llama fiber roving for her to spin with. She was over joyed by it as she didn't expect anything but I wanted to giver her a bunch for the chance to grow on her property.

We had one of the chickens for dinner which was super tasty then after the boys went to bed we continued watching The Handmaid's Tale series which is insanely prescient.

Today we are going to spend the whole day butchering. The 9 birds from yesterday need to be cut up and packaged first to get them out of the water then I will be continuing with the largest of the 30 birds and try to get through at least another 10 today. That will get us through half the birds and leave the smaller to continue to grow. We won't be able to butcher again until Halloween which will have the birds at 12 weeks old and at about the max age for the cornish.

We have a busy week ahead as we prep for our trip to see family.


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