This May Not Be For Everyone

I killed a chicken last week. I went down to Payson to Brent's chicken farm, and he showed me how to kill a chicken, and then I did it.

I took pictures and I'm going to tell you about my experience.

But really, this post may not be for you.

So if it's not, check back tomorrow for a safe, death-free post about community gardens.

I've written before about Brent's chickens. They look as well cared for as a huge group of chickens can look. They're big and clean, and make the noises that happy chickens make.

So that's good.

He has mostly laying hens, but raises other kinds of birds, including birds for meat.

Meat chickens grow really fast. They put on a lot of weight and can be very hefty birds. He sold me a twelve pound chicken about a month ago, and it was a beast.

So, the first thing you have to do when you want to kill a chicken is catch one.

Brent has a whole system for knowing which chickens are ready to be harvested and which ones need more time.

They have colored bands on their legs that let him know how old they are, and since birds go through different feather cycles, he tries to be aware of what state their feathers are in.

There is a window of opportunity, between sets of feathers, when a chicken is significantly easier to pluck.

I just happened to be there during this two week window, and I experienced the difference.

Brent really knows his chickens.

The next step is to carry your chicken out to the chopping block and cut off its head.

This part is not easy.

The knife was super sharp, but I'm not all that strong. I'm thinking I'm not going to go into too much detail here because it got pretty graphic.

But I will say there was a sense of acceptance, and then of accomplishment, and then gratitude.

As the chickens were being caught, I thought about what I was about to do, and I, in typical form, started to cry. It's not all that difficult to make me cry, and watching these hens being rounded up was a little much for me.

But as I geared up to take a life, I accepted the fact that I participate in this act on a regular basis whether I like it or not - I eat meat. I eat it at least once a week, sometimes more.

Sometimes a lot more.

Every time I cook chicken legs or make a turkey sandwich or grill a hamburger, I am participating in this very act, only I'm removed from the consequences. When I pull a bag of chicken from the freezer, I don't have to see rich red blood or touch guts or watch something go from being alive to not being alive. But that's exactly what happens every time I eat meat - something has to die.

And so, I killed a chicken. I didn't cry when I did it, by the way.

I didn't cry because I had somehow managed to accept what I was doing, and recognize it as significant.

And then I felt immediately like I had accomplished something important. I took no pleasure (and I mean absolutely none) in taking a life, but for the first time ever I was present when the food that I would eventually eat moved from life to death for me.

While Brent walked me through the process of harvesting the chickens, I felt like I was tapping into something much older and larger than me. Remember the cave paintings? People have been performing this act, and celebrating it, and ritualizing it for a long time. And now I see why.

The single, quick act of killing the chicken only took a few seconds, and when it happened I felt a huge sense of gratitude. I was thankful for that chicken.

I don't usually feel gratitude when my meat comes from the freezer.

And then there was a lot of work to do.

You hang the chickens by a string and let them bleed for a while.

Then you boil a huge pot of water and dip them in the water and count to twenty.

That's what Brent said.

He learned how to harvest chickens from his grandfather, and while he walked me through the steps, I recognized that he was not just doing work. He was performing a type of age-old ritual, the kind that pass between generations, that is taught by stories and hands-on experience.

It was full of prescribed steps and ordered procedures.

After dipping the chicken in the boiling water and counting to twenty, you remove the wing feathers. Then you dip it again and remove the rest of the feathers.

A chicken has hair, which most people don't know. I didn't know, until I bought the twelve pound beast from him last month.

It had long, ugly hairs on it, and I honestly didn't know what to do.

It has nothing to do with the quality of his chickens, and everything to do with how he processes them.

Industrial chicken processing includes vats of formaldehyde and a variety of other unsavory and even dangerous chemical procedures to remove the feathers and hair. That's why your chicken is all white and smooth.

Brent showed me how to remove the hair without formaldehyde.

You take a newspaper and wrap it a certain way and light it with a match. You wave the fire over the carcass of the bird, making sure to not overheat any one area. He prefers this method because the newspaper doesn't burn very hot, and he doesn't want to start cooking his bird too early.

I couldn't help feeling like I was participating in some kind of religious ritual as I ran burning paper across the chicken's skin. We were silent as we performed this cleansing ritual.

The next step is to remove all the feet and then the innards.

You cut one slit behind the knee cap, and then one in between the knee and the leg, and then pull to remove the legs.

Next, a slit is made at the base of the tail so that the waste can drain out.

Then you cut a larger hold, reach in, and pull everything out.

As each organ was removed, I examined it and asked about it, wanting to understand better how everything inside this chicken had worked together only minutes before to make it walk around and cluck and eat and remain alive. I don't know what I was expecting, but the inside of the chicken was really warm.

Brent doesn't choose to save the innards for food, and since I don't really know how to prepare them (or any desire to know how to cook a delicious chicken heart or liver), we put it all in a bag. I'm not sure what he does with them. I wish I hadn't forgotten to ask.

Once the inside of the bird is clean, you place the whole thing in a bucket and rinse it with cold water. The bird is still really warm from when it was alive, and needs to be cooled down as soon as possible so that it doesn't develop salmonella.

Then you let it drip dry for a few seconds, place it in a zip lock bag, and put it in the freezer.

I asked him how he prefers to eat chicken, and he says his favorite thing is to roast it with onions and apples stuffed inside.

The way we eat is governed quite rigidly by traditions and rules we've learned over the years.

This is as it should be.

Michael Pollan writes about the rules of food regularly, but especially in In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto and in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

But there are equally important and timeless rules governing how the food is grown, raised, harvested, and prepared. Most of the time-honored traditions have stuck around for a reason: they're important. They're the best way to do things.

I was really glad to have seen and experienced these tradiations first-hand.

After all of this, I will tell you that I absolutely hated killing that chicken. Yes I felt grateful, and I felt like I had accomplished something important, and yes it was a sort of land mark for me.

But I hated it.

I'm not sure if I will stop eating meat, but I certainly have a better sense of what goes into that delicious sandwich.

And I will not take it for granted.

Green Map

Mapping is very popular these days.

I'd like to think that I came up with the idea for this project on my own, but that simply wouldn't be true.

Besides the heaps and mounds of people who helped me work through various ideas, my thinking on being an artist is that, generally speaking, I am simply a synthesizer of collective thought. All artists basically are. We can work all day long, alone in our studios, making work with our own hands, but in the end what we have to say comes from what's around us. And what's around us is our community. When approached from that perspective, you could say that all art is community-based in one way or another. Who I am and, in turn, my work is the result of the people and attitudes and culture around me.

And right now, the general attitude points to an invigorated interest in food: where it comes from, how it's grown, how it's eaten, and who grows it.

And by the general attitude, I mean I can't turn on NPR without hearing about genetically modified crops, the import and export of produce, the environmental impact of shipping, particularly of food, or the effect of corn syrup on the cognitive processes of children. Most of the major environmental, social, and political issues right now have their fingers somewhere in the agriculture pie.

And that's probably the way that it should be - food is the great unifier. It is important to one and all. So any system involving people will inevitably touch on food in one way or another.

And like I've said before, food brings people together - it takes communities to grow it, and families to share it, and loved ones to make it worth cooking.

I don't believe that this growing interest in food is a fad. I believe that it's a reinvestment in something humans have always known was important. We've just lost focus for a while. This interest is not new, but very, very old. We're just remembering.

And we're assessing. We're figuring out where we went wrong, and what we need to do to get things back on track.

Like I said, mapping is huge these days. It's a practical thing - if we want to find food that's grown near us, we need to know where it is.

But it's also an emotional, spiritual thing. We don't just want to know where we are, we want to know who we are.

And it's effective to create a definition of ourselves based on what's around us.

This project is practical - we're seeing where the food is grown.

But it's more than that.

Together we're creating a definition of ourselves.

We're making a sketch of where we come from and who we are because of this beautiful place.

Check out the Green Map Project. It is one of many projects in this vein that have influenced me.

When the summer is over, we'll have to create a Green Map for our town.

Jail Birds

We are all connected by food.

I really believe that.

People come together to grow it and eat it and celebrate it.

My project is in part an effort to figure out where the food is grown, to collect stories about the land and people that produce it, and to make our agricultural systems visual.

Because in some ways we are disconnected from where our food is grown, and in other ways agriculture is our rich heritage, the lasting legacy of this valley, a connection we can't avoid.

July 17, 1917, Utah State Prison Garden, Salt Lake City

Published by the Utah State Historical Society

At the farmer's market, I learned that the Utah County Jail has a very prosperous gardening program.

Last year they harvested over 50 tons of produce.

These are the kinds of wonderful bits of information that are so effortlessly gleaned while talking to people at the market.

The jail's gardening program is part of their Jail Industries Program, which is a hands-on training program that gives inmates skills to be competitive in the job market when they are released.

The garden is also therapeutic and community building.

The County Jail's website describes the program:

"The inmate's first level, after our orientation that explains the rules and expectations of each inmate, is to work in our seven acre garden. We produce a multitude of vegetables, have a small orchard, grow flowers and work with a small hive of bees. We like to call our garden our Zen Garden. It is a peaceful place where the inmates can get some sun, enjoy the panoramic mountain view and work in the soil."

First, I'll say that people need to experience beauty. Inmates need it as much as art students do. Also, both art students and inmates feel the satisfaction that comes from creating something from raw materials, from making and shaping and producing something with their bare hands.

I've written before that art is symbolic - it means more than what it actually is. The work is physically made up of materials, but generally it is not valued because of what it's made of, but because of what it means, what it represents. The deep symbolism in gardening is made abundantly clear when seen within the perimeter of the county jail.

"Each year we produce approximately 100,000 pounds of vegetables. These vegetables are donated to the jail kitchen, to give fresh organic vegetables to the inmates to eat. We also donate to the Food and Care Coalition and to various senior centers. On one occasion after dropping off a truck load of vegetables to a senior center, one of the inmates was very quiet. When he spoke he said, “That is one of the coolest things I have ever done.” We often talk to the inmates about this being their opportunity to give back to society for the crimes they have committed and to walk out of our jail with confidence that they have done well. This is not only a productive time for growing vegetables and fruit but for growth and self evaluation from the inmates."

These prisoners are in jail because they didn't take care of themselves properly. They probably tried to fulfill a basic need in an unhealthy, illegal way. But in prison they are working to nourish themselves, and are learning how to care for their bodies and their minds and their spirits in a better way. And in the process, they are providing for other peoples needs as well.

One article about the program wrote:

"It is the intent of the Sheriff's Office to continue this program each year in an attempt to reach out to the poor people of our community. Many prisoners that are incarcerated for non violent offenses are permitted to work in the garden. They feel this is a great opportunity to give back to the community as well as help people who were once in their position. This has given each inmate a great sense of pride in taking ownership of the garden. Inmates seem to work harder in the garden because they know they are helping others who are in need. This also creates a great work ethic that helps them when they are released from the county jail and it appears that they transition more successfully back into the community."

In 2007, Orem experienced a debilitating infestation of Japanese beetles. The city was sprayed with pesticides, but people were not able to grow crops that summer. That year the jail was expanding their kitchen, and the construction prevented them from being able to prepare their own produce, so they donated all of their crops, every tomato, cucumber, and pea, to charitable organizations.

Talk about sharing.

Most years, they use about half of the produce in the jail kitchens, and the other half is given away, but that year 41 tons of food were donated. And during this particular season, the food was not only convenient and welcome, but desperately needed due to the beetle infestation and ensuing food shortage.

The community was enhanced because of this gift.

An article by Becca Stranger (which is entertaining and worth a read) on Slow Food USA's blog describes the benefits of jail gardens:

They help inmates develop essential social and life skills.

While planning the garden together with organizers and other prisoners, inmates learn how to work cooperatively.

The garden allows them to nurture both their mental and physical health.

Learning gardening skills helps prisoners prepare themselves to find jobs and support themselves upon their release.

Garden produce helps cut the cost of feeding prisoners, "which is not insignificant," writes Stranger, "considering prison costs are rising and states spend nearly 7 percent of their budgets on corrections after only health care, education, and transportation."

Large amounts of garden produce are also sent to nearby food banks, which have proved crucial to organizations across the country during this economic crisis.

The therapeutic and emotional benefits of growing food are universal - from Michael Pollan to Barbara Kingsolver to the Utah County Jail's blog, people write regularly about this phenomenon. It seems to have to do with what the act of gardening represents - a connection to the land and the powers that created it, freedom and independence, emotional and physical wellness, abundance and health, personal and community growth.

But there is face-value as well, immediate benefits that are tangible and delicious.

One article in the Daily Herald said that the inmates love eating the food that their garden produces. "When they can get tortilla chips, the inmates have been known to pick the ripe tomatoes, onions and jalepenos and make homemade salsa in the field."

What a great way to eat.

God Bless the Whole World

I saw this sign on my walk to the library. It's on 700 E and 200 S.

I hope that God does bless the whole world. Starting with my dog and chickens and garden.

The secret to a good garden is praying. A lot.

That’s what I really think.

I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is say Please Bless.

Because I love these plants and animals, and I think that at a certain point I am not totally capable of caring for them properly.

I mean, I do my very best.

But I think God cares about my pea plants and potatoes and puppy, too, and wants to help.

So I ask for a little extra goodness to come my way.

This has become part of my ritual, my routine.

Here are some thoughts on the ritual of gardening by Jessie Eyre, a Provo native and contributor to the Utah People's Post

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I think that art and gardening are connected by ritual,

and Jessie's gardening practices are a lot like my art-making practices.

This article is beautiful and definitely worth reading.

Marks and Larks

I walked to the library today, and passed this sweet little painting.

It's on the sidewalk at the intersection of 200 East and 200 North.

I imagine that it was first just a paint splatter, like someone dropped a paintbrush or spilled some paint. And then someone else came along and added other markings that transformed the drips and spills into something quite pretty and with a little more meaning.

It looks like a lark. Or a bird of some kind.

I quite liked that little image. It made me think about how human beings have been making marks like this for a really long time.

As you can see from the text at the bottom of the image, this cave painting dates back to somewhere between 15,000 B.C. and 10,000 B.C.

I mean, that's a really long time.

What is it with people? Why do they feel compelled to draw with burnt wood and squish up berries and like spit ink on walls and stuff?

I took these images in Moab last year.

No one can be sure how old these carvings are because people have been vandalizing this area for a long time. But they're probably older than pioneers and America and whatever we think of when we think of Native, and possibly Jesus, even.

Apparently Marty and Dick had to get in on the action, too.

Where does the need to make marks come from?

Scholar and author Ellen Dissanayake claims that art is actually a biological imperative. That the need to "make special" as she calls it is just as fundamental as eating food or finding shelter. That it is literally hardwired into us.

People have been changing the materials and tools around for centuries.

Ash and animal fat, berries and clay, carvings and sculptures, paint and bulldozers, sharpies and laminated maps.

It's all essentially the same.

Human beings need to make marks. We need to describe the world around us, and demarcate it as something other. We need to set certain things apart from the every-day, to make them special.

Carvings and tattoos and bunches of rocks piled in a certain way and tiny blue paint-larks all point to the fact that human beings from all times and in all places have felt compelled to do essentially the same thing.

We all just need to make art, people!

Local Chocolate

So Utah is home to a world-class chocolatier.

Who knew?

Amano Artisan Chocolate is located in Orem.

I can now rest in peace, knowing that my favorite food is made so close to me.

Chocolate may seem antithetical to this project - I'm interested in locally grown food and its lovely local growers and consumers.

Cacao is not grown here. It's grown really far away.

But I love it. Chocolate, I mean

So I guess in my efforts to support food culture in this area, the best I can do in this case is support a local business.

"Amano" means "by hand" in Italian. It also means "they love."

Both meanings resonate with me.

I will be visiting them soon, and will take pictures.

Just FYI, they're having a contest. They're coming out with a new chocolate bar, and all you have to do is guess the origin of the new cacao bean they're using.

A years supply of chocolate is totally worth a quick stop at their blog.

Just saying.

Proud and Full

I ate from my garden last night. I picked baby lettuce leaves, and they were delicious.

Lettuce seeds are just so dang small, so instead of planting them one by one, I just sprinkled them along the row. They're all really close together, and are now big enough that I need to thin them. Which means I get to eat them. Which is fantastic.

When I pick my lettuce, I have a feeling that is unique to gardening.

There is something almost indescribable about picking something that you are responsible for producing, which will in turn nourish you.

I rarely feel so completely involved in a process, especially one that is so essential and necessary.

I must eat.

I have to.

And participating in the cycle of planting, growing, and eating food nourishes me in deeper ways than just physically.

I feel more gratitude, and I feel more complete, somehow.

I imagine myself connecting to something larger than myself - there is a history and a tradition surrounding food, and gardening makes me feel hooked in to this age-old practice.

I feel more like my mother.

I imagine other people who have kneeled and planted tiny seeds, like my grandparents and pioneers and Adam and Eve.

I'm not sure it will make sense to say I feel more love when I garden. It may sound a little unreal. But when I pick those plants, and I think about the miracle that they are, I do. I feel more love.

Gardening comes as close to a religious experience as, well, a religious experience.

When I eat the food grown by the sweat of my brow, I feel proud of my accomplishments.

And then I feel full.

Proud and full.

What an excellent combination.