Looking to borrow a chicken plucker
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June 30, 2011 |
Bonners Ferry is a rural community, and through
the years our methods of communicating have
changed. Somehow, word has always spread when a
person or a family needed something ... until
not too long ago by word of mouth.
We've had the Bonners Ferry Herald since before
the turn of the century ... the oldest business
in Boundary County and by far the most
consistent source of local news. But it only
came out once a week.
In the late 1970s, we got our own radio station,
AM 1450, KBFI, thanks to a group of community
leaders, and the time it took to get word out
... almost always a neighbor calling on behalf
of another as we've always been too proud to
call for ourselves, got shorter.
Amazingly, even though it once took a six-hour
buggy ride to get to town, response time is very
little changed. When a family needs help, help
is usually there even before they know to ask.
You can get an officer, a fire truck or an
ambulance to your door quite a bit sooner ...
but in most cases there's going to be a neighbor
pointing the way.
And typically, when they arrive, there's going
to be a table full of food there.
The internet has stepped the response time up
even more. Even when no one knows why, when a
call for help goes out, people are there. Then
there's this thing called "Bonners Ferry Free
Cycle."
I'm a member, but I don't remember how I joined.
It's a Yahoo news group that allows its members
to tell other members, with the click of a
mouse, that I have too much rhubarb this year
and I'm looking to find a good home for it or
the clutch went out on my car and I'm wondering
if anyone has a spare clutch plate for a '57
Chevy laying out in the garage?
Occasionally you come to realize that some
people in Boundary County are catching on to the
new media ... others aren't yet quite used to
what answers they might find.
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What Bonners
Ferry chicken pluckers might look like. |
On Tuesday, this email came to all members,
"Searching to borrow a chicken plucker in
August. E-mail with pictures, price, info to
ttaliomali@yahoo.com.
I thought about responding, but I don't know
what I'm going to be doing in August and I'm not
that crazy about plucking chickens. It's an
onerous job.
And if I did want to rent myself out as a
chicken plucker, I'd have no clue what to
charge.
I've seen it done where all you do is invite the
neighbors over, start with a stump and an axde
at one end, tables and pots of hot water going
in the other, and before you even realize what's
happening, a roost full of old cacklers come to
resemble the poultry aisle at Aikens Harvest
Foods.
With a pile of plucked feathers in the middle.
Somehow, I don't think this is what Tali O'Mali
is looking for, but I'd not be surprised if it's
not what she gets. I've a feeling she's more
tech-savvy than most of us, and knows that
someone up here will have one of those
rubber-fingered machines you plug in that can,
in a minute, take away all the joy of a people
plucking a chicken.
It's purportedly faster, more sanitary, and
plucks even the most tiny pin feather. The
inventor obviously didn't know Mom.
When I looked, there were no responses yet to
Tali O'Mali's request. If she said she needed
help tomorrow, I'm sure Boundary County chicken
pluckers would have flocked to help. In August?
With the fair going?
We might be busy. |
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