Are we a Self-Sufficient Community or a Community of Self-Sufficient Homesteaders?
So, I have priced Featherman’s Automatic Chicken Plucker. I have looked into Cornerstone Farm’s table-top Chicken Plucker. I have read all the postings from The Deliberate Agrarian’s blog about his DIY Automatic Chicken Plucker. I have wondered about getting an old exercise bike to power a homebuilt Plucker. I have even toyed with the idea of getting a junked washing machine and putting those little rubber fingers in the rotating tub.
In essence, I am thinking about having my own Automatic Chicken Plucker. However, that’s not as simple of a proposition as you might think.
You see, I am not the only chicken-raiser in the universe. More specifically, within a 10-mile radius of us, we know of a few families that are also into rearing their own food, including chickens for eggs and meat. One of which is well known to the Extension Agent, and any other of us “backyard buffet” people as being the most dedicated, equipped, and knowledgeable in our county. He also happens to be a longtime acquaintance of several in our church family and is becoming a good friend of ours.
Steve has been a lone ranger, pioneering grass-fed beef and poultry for a few years now, not to mention the 15-yr soil improvement for his home garden. He is just a few years away from closing the furniture store that he and his wife operate and re-opening it as a local grown, grass-fed, mostly organic restaurant where his main supply of meat will come from his own intensively managed, zero-grain herd that grazes on 200-acres just outside of town.
Such a driven man, especially in an agricultural niche, is usually also a lonely man. Steve has been pursuing this end, and promoting the virtues of local and grass-based farming, almost alone for a while. Now that people like my family are becoming aware of the inferiority of the industrial agricultural system and doing something about it, all of a sudden Steve has company and fellowship.
So the time came in Winter 2006 and now again at the beginning of Fall 2007 that my wife and I have slaughtered a small batch of Cornish cross meat birds (20 to 25 chickens per batch). Having plucked a few birds by hand early on, when the hatchery sent us too many Rhode Islands, and having whined about it to Steve, he told us that he bought an automatic chicken plucker used for $800 and he would be glad for us to borrow it when we process our meat birds. After being delighted by the simplicity and efficacy of the machine, we gave Steve and his family one of our dressed birds as a way of saying “thank you.” This has now become our practice: when we borrow the plucker from him, we give him one of our birds.
Now, here is the issue. It would be very convenient to have our own chicken plucker. My wife and I could process as few birds as we wanted at any time without having to schedule to borrow this item. There would be times where we would prefer to raise fewer birds per batch. There would be other times that we wouldn’t want to process all of our batch on one day. We don’t feel right about holding onto Steve’s plucker for more than a week, and borrowing it more than, say, twice per year would be a hassle. We don’t begrudge the “thank you” gift, just that if we want to use an item frequently, at some point we should pony up and obtain one ourselves.
However, Steve is more than glad to lend it out to us at anytime. In fact, he seems downright excited each time we have asked him to borrow it. He wants to know all about our flock, how we’ve raised them, any trouble we’ve had or ingenious tricks we’ve come up with. Borrowing the plucker from him gives us a good occasion to catch up with him and get better acquainted with him, to find out what he’s learning about grass-fed beef and what works in our area. If we didn’t borrow it from him, we probably would have much less interaction with him, percentage wise. To borrow the chicken plucker then is an act of community building, not just a material exchange.
This brings me to my philosophical query of the week, one of identity: Why do we Homestead? Are we attempting to reform (or at least opt out of) a defunct system of “food” production by creating a self-sufficient, sustainable, and Interdependent Community? Or is our ambition born out of a romantic image of a simpler, more deliberate life where Self-Sufficiency is a measure of honor, sustainable ecology the character, and Better-Than-Feedlot Quality is the reward?
In short, are we who are Homesteaders a Self-Sufficient Community, or a Community of Self-Sufficient people?
I say that the central tension among Homesteaders is this unresolved paradox. We are by nature gregarious but headstrong; we are do-it-our-way people who want others to know the same joy and healthfulness that we are experiencing. We are willing to learn, but unwilling to assimilate. That’s why in each issue of Mother Earth News my wife and I find insight and encouragement but also laugh derisively at all the kooks, flakes, and weirdoes.
So, what is the answer? Do we build our plucker or do we build our community? Where does the drive toward Self-Sufficient Homesteading yield to the virtue of investing in the Interdependent Agrarian Community?
I welcome your insight.
