Evisceration, at Last?

            “I don’t think it’s going to happen today, Madeleine.  I’m meeting a friend in town for lunch.”

            “Mom, there’s plenty of time.”

            “But, I’ll need to get myself cleaned up, too.”  There’s nothing quite like the fresh smell of chicken guts wafting delicately from your skin.

            “If all you’re after is the evisceration experience, you can just do a couple of birds and be done in a half an hour.”

            Is that all I’m after – the experience?  Will this simply be another tidbit of farm life to write about?  I do remember the promise I made to Dave at the beginning of the summer.  I said I was going to try to really help him with the chicken processing.  As I recall, this wasn’t supposed to have a heck of a lot to do with sitting at the computer. 

            And I do like to keep my promises.  As marital vows go, this probably isn’t one of the more critical ones.  (“Do you, Barbara, promise to love, honor, and cherish David, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others and eviscerating chickens together as long as you both shall live?”)  Still, a promise is a promise, isn’t it?  I would like to think I’ll be crossing this one off my list as soon as I’ve stuck my hand up a couple of birds.  But when there’s nothing left of a promise but its skeletal frame – because you’ve so skillfully managed to gut every bit of its original intent – there’s another kind of evisceration going on, too, I think.

            I kind of like the division of labor we’ve come to in this household.  Dave works his butt off taking care of the animals, the fields, the fences, the ell reconstruction, and the new greenhouse project, and I spend my days sitting and writing – or strolling about in the lovely sunshine and thinking of more things to write.  I clean occasionally or play my flute and whistles, and then I take a break to enjoy the Real Food that Dave’s labors make available to me every day.  Yes, if I’m a little more charitable to myself, I recognize that I do spend many of my hours on necessary, time-consuming things, with scarce little frivolity on the side.  Most of them have to do with our two fabulous offspring.  But the bottom line always seems to be that Dave’s doing the eviscerating, while I’m busy not.

           NEWS FLASH: Dave’s not going to process chickens today!!!  I am off the hook for yet another week.  How ridiculously convenient!  I’m almost starting to want to do this.