Going to the Salon

My first trip to the "Salon" with 20 birds was a tense experience. First of all I have to drive out to the mountains with the prospect of going to this place alone. The 20 birds in the back of the truck do not count as company. After a few of my experiences driving to other farms for birds, lets just say I'm a little leery, to say the least. Of course Bruce was not helpful at all. He is winding me up by telling me to "be prepared for the smell". What the heck does he mean, farm smell, animal smell, red neck smell? So now I'm picturing crazy people out of the Chain Saw Massacre movie, running around with hatchets. There would be animal bodies all over the place part and pieces here and there. He calms me down and tells me that he meant farm poopy smell.

Well what the heck, I'm used to that, so off I go to the Salon. I finally arrive at the Salon, which could pass for a combination of Deliverance and Texas Chain Saw Massacre without the body or animal parts in piles. Getting out of my truck I notice a flock of 20 or 30 geese looking at me. These were big huge white geese, all watching me very closely. The building that I need to go into is past the geese, which can be aggressive. Slowly I stroll past these creatures, talking nicely to them like that might help. Suddenly a very large Pig, from out of no where runs up to me. I don't know if you have ever seen a very large pig, person to person, without a pen, to separate you from it, I do not recommend it. Mr. Piggy came up to my waist, now the geese do not seem so bad, they don't have teeth. This behemoth sniffed me, gives a snort and goes oinking away. Now I'm almost to the building and can see nearest door that looks like it might open. The other door I just passed walking with Mr. Piggy had a lock on it.

Finally I get inside the building. It is a small room with a furnace, a door and no one in sight. Usually I'm not the type to panic but I hate going to strange places alone, especially in the mountains, on a farm, with lots of animals that could make all your body parts disappear easily. I have no choice but to go thru the next door. This door leads to a long hallway with more closed doors, oh joy. I choose to go left, entering the farthest door on my right. I'm in the right building this is the room where the animals are kept until the salon is ready for them. Now I start to relax, this is interesting, all stainless steel equipment. I start to back track to pick another door, I'm getting brave now and I can finally hear voices. Slowly I walk up to the door I picked and call out, no one answers, so I knock on it. Still there is no answer so what the heck I just open the door and peeked in. There were three men smoking and telling jokes, I walk in and introduce myself. The big guy who seems to be running the show promptly tells me to leave my birds and come back later. They will not have a chance to process them until much later in the day, telling me "that’s what your husband always does".

Now I know this is a lie, Bruce has never let out birds out of his sight. We have been warned that certain facilities will switch out the birds after they have been processed with birds of a lesser quality. Our birds are raised humanely, with an organic soy-free diet in a very well cared for environment. Most other farms do not take the care to do this, no matter what they are advertising. Believe me, we have seen these farms first hand and this place was one of them.


So now I have to act blond and yes it does help that I am a blond. Responding to Porky (the man) I tell him that "it was such a long drive, I'll just wait in my truck until he has the time to process my birds". I did bring a book with me just in case this did happen to me. Bruce warned me that he would try to convince me to leave the birds on the farm, unattended. The other two men in the room start to grumble how none of the other customers for the day have shown up yet, so why not start on my order first? Porky starts to grumble along with them and after a few minutes of this crap, he decides to process my birds first. Imagine that, I'm the only customer there (which is not comforting to me at all) and suddenly he can now process my birds first, especially after I told him that I was not leaving and would wait for them.

While cursing Bruce under my breath, I now have to figure out how to unload one hundred pounds of birds by my self. I decide to ask one of the less scary looking guys, who agrees happily to help me. Okay, I'm feeling a bit better, the first step, third steps or what ever steps are done. I've made it to the farm, made into the building, alive and now the birds are unloaded. I just have to get through the actual "processing".
The two nicer guys are the ones who do the all the dirty work, Porky keeps to him self in is room acting important. I stuck it out all the way through the whole procedure. The rooms are all cement, stainless steel and clean. The two men do a fast and excellent job, telling me how great and healthy my birds look. This I thought was a harmless comment, later I found out my response led to much entertainment for all three of them. Stupidly, I thanked them for their comments about my birds. Then I mentioned the care and feed for our birds is important to achieve the quality of flavor that our customers expect. Yes I know I'm stupid to even attempt to get this point across to these three people, in the mountains, on a farm from deliverance, where I am the only female or so I thought.

Our birds are all done, bagged, legally weighed and now I have to get the coolers out of my truck and pack them in ice for the ride home. While I'm searching to for the ice machine, much to my surprise I run into a woman working in this place. She was also out of the Chain Saw Massacre movie or was it Deliverance, I'm not sure. She was very nice and pleasant offering to help me fill the coolers with ice, as she cackled with her cigarette charred voice. This was nice to be offered help, by this point I just needed to run, run fast away and go home. The white hair, almost died a color that matched my hair color, didn't bother me too much. The missing teeth, okay, I can deal with that also, but the cigarette voice with the Long Island accent and finding out this old woman was my age, was too much. I loaded my coolers into the truck as if I was lifting empty coolers, slammed the tailgate closed ran back inside to pay Porky.

As I skidded to a stop outside the office door to catch my breath I could hear Porky and his two employees making jokes about special "flavor injections". OMG I know what they are really hinting at and now I have to go in there to pay Porky who is laughing over his lewd jokes at my expense. Now I'm really cursing Bruce out, in figuring that they will never find my body and CSI will have to be called in. Calmly I barge into the office, pretend not to know what they are talking about and ask how much I owe, pay my bill and bolt for the door. Mean while they are still making jokes and laughing harder, thinking that the stupid blond woman does not get their hilarious comments. The worst part is I do understand everything they are saying and I am a natural strawberry blond, this sucks and I'm at a dead run for my truck. Jumping into the cab I lock the doors, start the truck back it up and almost run over a strange little man driving one of those old diesel rabbits. I don't care if I have drive over the top of him, I keep moving, he stops and I swerve around the car and take off out the driveway. All I can think of is next time, if I ever have to come to this hell place again, I'm bringing my mommy with me, that way they can have two bodies to look for when they call in CSI.

Now the good part, much too every ones relief, we have a new salon to take our birds for processing. This facility is on a nice clean family run farm. No rude remarks, only intelligent, polite conversation with kind people who love their, farm, children, work and life. Some things happen for a reason, even if it is hard to see at first.

If any one would like more information about which markets are supplied by this farm, let me know. You will be shocked.