I'll try to include some pictures and diagrams as this topic expands.

Boil a canning kettle full of water.
1. put about a 4 foot section of a 7 inch dia log at the bottom of your garden near a sturdy tree. Screw a 1 to a 1-1/2 inch enameled hook into the tree. Place the pan of boiling water next to the log. Get a 2 foot piece of string.
2. lean a boy scout hatchet against the log.
3. This is the hard part. Catch the chicken.
4. pick up the chicken holding both feet in your left hand if you are right handed, then hold the chicken upside down.
5. gently swing the chicken to and fro while walking back to the log. This kind of hypnotizes the chicken.
6. when you reach the log, pick up the ax in your right hand and smoothly, still holding the chicken by its feet, drape its head onto the log and immediately chop its head off. This should be a smooth operation.
7. As soon as it stops flapping dip the chicken into the boiling water still holding it by the legs. While it is in the boiling water tie the twine around its legs. By the time you get the twine tied around its legs it is time to take it out of the hot water. Hang it on the hook on the tree.
8. Pluck the chicken. If you want to save the feathers, put them in an old pillowcase. Fancy rooster hackle feathers can be sold (once they are cleaned) to a bait shop for fly tying fishermen.
9. Using a heavy pair of sheers, cut the chicken's stomach, starting at the vent. (a-hole to those who don't know what a vent is) DO NOT STICK THE SCISSORS WAY IN.!!! You don't want intestinal spill in the cavity and you definitly don't want the gall sac (which is right under the liver) ruptured. If you do, you might as well throw away the meat. If you are careful, you will have very little salmonella contamination. Salmonella is an inhabitant of the intestinal tract of chickens and other poultry.