a hundred birds

it’s amazing how much my life has changed in two oh ten, and it’s important that i ferris bueller myself around every once and a while, so i don’t miss it (the whole scene is great, but 1:12 is the line you’re looking for).  it’s a sunday morning, seven thirty am, and i’m scrubbing down a chill tank that will receive over a hundred  birds before ten.  that’s a hundred birds i will have a hand in killing, chilling, and bagging.  a hundred birds on a hundred plates for a few hundred mouths.

sunday morning, two ought nine, up in brooklyn.  i’d wake up in my steel building and take my dog on a concrete walk.  working out in the gym, tired.  six am, suit on, subway. 

as i was humming along on the evisceration table, i took a second to bueller my surroundings.  although the video is short, there’s about a hundred things that make me smile in it, and i’m damn glad to be here. 

i love the slow motion, small scale—but entirely epic—war that these chickens wage on the pasture.  huge chicken-run machines inch forward, day by day, completely clearing their paths.  for the grass, it doesn’t have much of an option as far as the fight-or-flight response is concerned.  it just stands there—rooted to the ground—proudly fighting till it’s last day when it’s pecked to all hell by the chicken machine. 

i can’t help but laugh when i look at this picture of matt and jake (farm255’s chef and sous chef) and think about the austin power’s steamroller scene.  i can see the headlines now.  cmon, watch the scene.  and look at the picture.  now laugh.