Preparing for Butchering

We have 5 weeks left until our Freedom Rangers are at the age to butcher.  I am praying they put on more weight in that time.  They sure do eat a lot, and drink LOTS of water.

We are starting to assess what we need to accomplish the butchering of these chickens.  We have never butchered chickens before, so I am relying on advice from those who have.  I plan to set up the outdoor kitchen/butchering area behind the cabin.  I have:

a table
the grill to heat water
picnic table
sink to connect to hose
killing cone (PH made one from plans I sent to him.  I was so excited!  He said it was my Valentine's Day present ;-)
 butchering knives (I cut myself today cleaning the butchering knives and case - glad I have that liquid skin)
2 stock pots for heating water
2 gallon size Ziploc bags to place butchered birds in


I need:

large wash tub
tarp to catch feathers when we pluck
buckets for catching blood

I need to look back over my list to make sure I have everything gathered.  I don't want to wait until the last minute.   http://foodwaterandfire.ludlowsurvivors.com/chickenkill.html

The weather has turned chilly again.  I woke to rain this morning, so coupled with the cold it has been a frosty day, and required the fire in the stove to be burning all day.  I am thankful we have such a large supply of firewood.  I am also thankful that the barn is finished and that the horses and goats now have shelter out of the rain, wind and most of the cold.  I have worried about them for 3 years, though they appear to have done alright.

We are learning about the French and Indian War in our history study, plus we watched a documentary on Israel this morning.  It was very enlightening to me, and I learned a lot.  We also watched an older Disney movie called "The Light in the Forest" with Fess Parker.  It takes place around the time of the French/Indian War, though surprisingly PD#1 said the documentary we watched last week "The War That Made America" was much better ;-) I agree.  We will be receiving Part 2 later this week.  We were recently gifted with two boxes of VHS tapes, mostly educational/documentaries covering foreign countries, world religions, composers, artists, history with a few older Disney movies thrown in.  The school where one of my sisters teaches was getting rid of all their old VHS tapes and she brought me what she could.  We watch a lot of documentaries, and I spent three hours the other evening putting documentaries in chronological order in my Netflix account.

I've been baking a lot lately, and greatly need to replenish some of my food stores (like chocolate chips, baking soda, brown sugar and VANILLA).  Bread is on the agenda for tomorrow.  I fear the cold won't let it rise, so it may end up sitting next to the wood stove tomorrow.

Well, off to bed..

What have you done this week to prepare?