No Trading Jobs
By Todd Cannon
Going to St. George at the end of each summer for the Chicken Harvest was always one of my favorite things. This first year we went I was given the job of "Grim Reaper" as Dad put it. I would catch the chickens, chop off their heads, and then hang them up by their feet on loops of twine so that Dad could skin them. The first few years when we were all home we had plenty of people to help and Doug would often stretch the necks of the chickens out for me so that I had a good target for chopping. As time went on and fewer of us were able to go Doug started helping inside with Grandpa cutting up and packaging the chickens before they were put into the refrigerator.
I loved my job. I got to be outside with Dad. Catching, chopping and hanging up the chickens seemed pretty easy work. But after a few years I started to feel a little guilty. It was really only by luck that I got the outside Grim Reaper job and poor Doug was inside doing the hard stuff. So one year after we had driven down to St. George but before we went out to Sage Ranch I told Doug that if he wanted he could chop this year and I would help Grandpa inside. I did not really want to make the switch but it seemed only fair. Doug's response was "Are you trying to get my nice cushy job in the shade working with Grandpa? Because you can't have it. I don't want to be out in the hot St. George sun. I have the best job out there." I told him no I liked my job but I felt bad for him having to do his job and thought that to be fair I should offer to switch. He told me that he liked his job best and actually felt bad for me that I had to do my job but that he was just not nice enough to offer to switch.
Now that last part makes me sound nicer that Doug. That is actually what he said. :-) I suspect that Doug knew I liked my job and since he liked his it never occurred to him to offer to switch. I think if I really had wanted to take a turn working inside he would have let me...but I am not 100% certain.
Going to St. George at the end of each summer for the Chicken Harvest was always one of my favorite things. This first year we went I was given the job of "Grim Reaper" as Dad put it. I would catch the chickens, chop off their heads, and then hang them up by their feet on loops of twine so that Dad could skin them. The first few years when we were all home we had plenty of people to help and Doug would often stretch the necks of the chickens out for me so that I had a good target for chopping. As time went on and fewer of us were able to go Doug started helping inside with Grandpa cutting up and packaging the chickens before they were put into the refrigerator.
I loved my job. I got to be outside with Dad. Catching, chopping and hanging up the chickens seemed pretty easy work. But after a few years I started to feel a little guilty. It was really only by luck that I got the outside Grim Reaper job and poor Doug was inside doing the hard stuff. So one year after we had driven down to St. George but before we went out to Sage Ranch I told Doug that if he wanted he could chop this year and I would help Grandpa inside. I did not really want to make the switch but it seemed only fair. Doug's response was "Are you trying to get my nice cushy job in the shade working with Grandpa? Because you can't have it. I don't want to be out in the hot St. George sun. I have the best job out there." I told him no I liked my job but I felt bad for him having to do his job and thought that to be fair I should offer to switch. He told me that he liked his job best and actually felt bad for me that I had to do my job but that he was just not nice enough to offer to switch.
Now that last part makes me sound nicer that Doug. That is actually what he said. :-) I suspect that Doug knew I liked my job and since he liked his it never occurred to him to offer to switch. I think if I really had wanted to take a turn working inside he would have let me...but I am not 100% certain.
That's a great story, Todd. I remember it basically like that as well except for a couple additions. I had recently had surgery on my right ring finger just weeks before our very first chicken harvest. I couldn't hold a hatchet and therefore it was impossible for me to be the grim reaper. I really wanted that job, and was sorely disappointed when the job went to you. I figured it was mostly because of my handicap that I couldn't be the grim reaper. I think you were actually more skilled at it anyway, so it probably would have gone to you even if I hadn't had the surgery. I wasn't of much use that year (having only one useful hand). The next year, I remember petitioning to be the grim reaper. But, now you had experience (having already dispatched about 100 chickens from the year before) so I was given a job inside as the apprentice eviscerator learning from the master (Grandpa). I was a little disappointed, but it was also a pretty nice job. Each time I stepped outside to help or whatever -- it was obvious that working indoors with air conditioning was definitely an advantage. Grandpa would tell story after story, and it was an interesting place to be.
ReplyDeleteEach year I got better at it. I still remember how grandpa started by showing me how to separate the drumstick from the thigh, and with rinsing and packaging, that was my only job that used a knife. Eventually he would give me the part of the chicken with the neck still attached to half the back and I would separate the 2 pieces. I was also taught how to separate the two breast pieces with a knife and then a hacksaw. Then, I could separate the wings and the legs from the chicken as the first step when a new chicken came into the kitchen. Eventually (and this is over several years) Grandpa showed me how to make the first cuts into the body cavity and remove the entrails, get the heart, gizzard, etc, and I was finally able to completely process a chicken from start to finish.
Somewhere during those several years of instruction is probably the time that you came to ask me if I wanted to switch jobs. I might have still been bitter (not at you, just at the situation) that I was not chosen to be the grim reaper on the first year. But, by then, I was in the middle of my eviscerating lessons and I really enjoyed sitting down to work in the air conditioning. Ha ha. Also -- I do remember that we did switch for at least 10 chickens one year. Neither of us liked the other job as I remember it. It was hot out in the St. George sun, and you didn't have a few years of instruction for the eviscerating. We were both terrible, and we switched back permanently.
Since that time, I've raised my own chickens and any time I have the opportunity to cut one open, I can hear grandpa's voice teaching me the various steps, and I still follow his instructions. I have only made one change -- when it comes to separate the two breast pieces with a hacksaw (yikes!) instead, I make breast fillets and remove the pieces completely from the bone. This gives 2 large boneless pieces, and 2 small breast tenders where the meat separates naturally. I prefer this method.
Later, in Eagle Mountain dad taught me how to skin a chicken. I never got as fast as he was, but it was a good skill to learn! With the evicerating I did get faster than grandpa, but mostly because he would need more rests, and then Karl and I, or Jona and I would basically do the whole job. One year Shannon came to help with the eviscerating and that kitchen was cleaner than it had been in 20+ years.
I remember my first year (I think I was 9), I was the one who would stretch the chickens neck for Grim Reaper Todd. And I would hold the skinned chicken while Dad pulled off the remaining scaly foot skin with a pair of pliers. Then I would take the skinned bird to the kitchen to be eviscerated. I was not allowed into the chicken because I had to walk on a lot of chicken poop. I was told that I was supposed to yell, "Chicken maaaaaan!" but I was embarrassed to yell that for some reason, so I would just yell, "Chicken!" And then Doug would come out to get it.
ReplyDeleteDad was so fast at skinning the chickens that I could feel the heart beating still, or maybe it was just muscles twitching or something. But in my mind, it was the heart beating and it made me a little queasy. But I got over it eventually.
At some point I was the chicken catcher. I got in trouble at first for getting all the chickens riled up and stirring up the dust when I went in to catch one, but I got better at that too.
The years kind of blur together, but at various times, I did pretty much all of the outside jobs, including the grim reaper. I can't remember if I skinned chickens at Sage Ranch, or if Dad or Doug taught me to do that later in Eagle Mountain. I want to say I learned it at Sage Ranch, but can't be sure. And Doug taught me to eviscerate the chickens in Eagle Mountain. I imagine he emulated Grandpa in his teaching methods, especially when he showed me the right way to clean the gizzard and to remove the gallbladder from the liver. So I can also harvest a chicken from start to finish.
I remember the trip that Shannon came. Mainly because you guys were living in Spanish Fork so Dad and I were going to pick you up on the way to St. George. With just me, you, and Dad It would be our smallest crew ever. Then Dad missed your Exit on purpose and told me you weren't coming and that he had not wanted to tell me for fear I wouldn't come either if it was just me and him. I remember thinking that we would need to spend extra days. There was no way we would finish in two days. Finally he told me Shannon was coming to and that you guys were driving down in your own car.I was so relieved but kept wondering if this was another trick to keep me from hitchhiking home the first time we stopped. I was not totally relieved until I saw your car at the Hotel in St. George.
ReplyDeleteHa ha! I had forgotten that, but remember now that you mention it. Dad, always up to his tricks.
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