The Great Turkey Massacre of 2009

A great weekend, blood and guts not withstanding.

This has got to be the most autumny autumn that I ever autumned. The air is crisp, the mountains are turning red, and last week they got their first dusting of snow when we had an early first frost. I was driving East early one evening (the "blue time of night" my mom calls it)and looked up at the Bountiful temple midway up the mountain. Red and orange blazed above it, snow-capped mountaintops gleamed above that, and a gorgeous full moon shone just above it all. I almost drove back for my camera, but knew it would quickly be gone, so I just had to live in the present and take it in.

I'd planned on doing about four days worth of fall-prep on Saturday, complete with 12 tasks on the checklist. But I knew that harvesting four turkeys, which my book said would take an hour a piece, would likely end up filling up most of my day. I was right, although the last one probably did clock in at about an hour. And the book was correct, it was just like harvesting chickens, just 5x bigger. The three I plucked came between 18-20.5 pounds by the time they were "fully dressed" (i.e., ready for the freezer). I skinned one and chopped it up into breasts and legs for four meals later, and the meat alone was 14 pounds.

David did the killing, and I was glad, because the book demanded that you give a sharp blow to the back of the head to stun them before chopping off the head. I've gotten used to killing the offending rooster that crowed too loud at 5 a.m., hanging them upside-down by the feet with a rope in the shed and a mega-sharp serrated knife, but the whacking seems rather brutal. David, to his credit, did not enjoy it much.

I couldn't help but think about how far I've come in the more unpleasant tasks of homesteading. I really feel very matter-of-fact about it all now, and am happy to know where my meat is coming from. [Notes to Lisa, don't click on that link--talk about running and screaming]

Ben, that amazing worker he is, harvested 4 buckets of grapes over the course of the day, so when I wasn't picking and cleaning turkeys, I was picking grapes and steam-juicing them for the canner. I got 17 quarts put up and another 3 quarts to drink fresh. The chickens loved the steamed skin/seed mash that was leftover.

This was my second year canning, and I totally felt at ease with it. Diane, you were right, it really is easy. I don't know why people make such a stink about it. Right now I'm listening to the little pops of the cans sealing (yes, I canned on Sunday, but it was an accident). My mom always said that it was one of the most satisfying sounds, and she's right.

Today I gathered 3 dozen eggs. That's partly because they weren't gathered yesterday and partly because I again found where my free/escaped chickens are laying now (the horse trough in the corral). By the way, eggs can easily last 5 weeks in the fridge or more, and one day out of the fridge is worth three days in. So, if you leave eggs out overnight, please don't throw them away. They can last over a week at room temperature (although I'm not sure why you'd do that).

When I find random eggs in the yard (it really is like an Easter egg hunt--that must be where it came from), if I question the freshness, I just put it in water in a glass bowl--it sinks, it's good. One end up a little, but still touching bottom, use it soon. Not touching the bottom or floating, toss it out.

Here is some other advice you don't need:

1. Get white turkeys instead of bronze, the bronze look cooler, but their feathers are black, so when you pluck them, you end up with a lot of black little bits that you can see under the skin. (We had two of each, I plucked one bronze and skinned the others).

2. Don't dry pluck your turkeys, imagining that you'll find something useful to do with all those feathers. It is WAY harder than scalding, takes way longer, and you can just pluck out some wing feathers (for your quills, of course), just before you dunk her in the water. Finding something big enough to scald a 20 lb turkey in is a pain, but it's worth it. (I dry-plucked two, and scalded the last one. My fingers are so sore.)

3. When you're trying to get out the wing feathers, try turning them as you pull, like a key--they come right out. (This learned after me tugging like a madman in vain at length.)

Anyway, file that away in your "Stuff I Hope I Never Need to Remember" file.

Seriously, pictures of all this are coming (nothing too gory, don't worry). They're on Dave's computer and I hopefully will have time to get down there tomorrow night.

I don't know what, other than genetic memory, could make me feel like harvesting turkeys (which I've never done before) would make it feel like fall, but it certainly did. It was overcast and cool and just felt like fall--my favorite time of the year. Today it rained and rained--a wonderful day to just stay inside.

Conference was great, I can't wait to read/listen to it again with less distraction. I loved just being home for two days and enjoying the family.

I've been reading the New Testament lately and really feeling that although I have faith in Christ, the fundamentals of Christian behavior--just being loving and kind, really are lacking in my life. And without charity I am nothing, right? Conference definitely repeated, many times, that theme, that love of God and love of neighbor are really what is all about, and although I can tout busy-ness or any other lame excuse, when I stand before the Savior, that love is what He will have expected of me.

And I really do have a lot of love to give, but I haven't been giving it any outlet this past year. So, it's time to change that.

Love to all,

Valerie

Why I have time to blog

So, I lied about the Sophie pictures. But, I did get all the pics I wanted to post scanned and will do it this week.

Here's why I have time to blog--because I had just put Lucy and Noah to bed tonight and was going out to move a rooster to a new pen before it got totally dark.

Noah got out of bed, so Lucy got out bed, and they followed me outside (with Ben yelling at them because they were walking on his newly-mopped kitchen floor--remember my love for child slavery?).

When she saw me venturing into the backyard darkness, Lucy was instantly panic-stricken. Her greatest fear was realized: I was going to feed the turkeys.

I wasn't really. But in her tiny, tiny little three-year-old mind, the only thing I do outside at night is risk my life feeding turkeys. This is because about two months ago, I was coming back from feeding the turkeys and was straddling the wire fence between our back chicken coop area and the landlocked lot where the turkey cage was at the time.

I was still in my work clothes, because I'm a slow learner and was (again) doing farm chores in business casual attire. Ben had just come out to tell me that Lucy wasn't staying in bed (David was working in his downstairs office). But by the time Ben got to me, she was on his heels, barefoot in the dark and upset. I commenced to get my foot stuck and fall backward over the fence, getting caught in some barbed wire that we'd pinned back from the crossing spot, and landed on my back with my feet tied up in the fence.

Lucy went into hysterics.

I kept telling Lucy, as I lied on my back in the dirt, that mommy was fine and not to worry, but the hysteria only escalated and she ran screaming into the house in horror. Ben tried to get my clothes unhooked from the wires, but in the end, I had to just pull them free to stand up, ripping my favorite "new" (DI) red shirt and work pants.

I made my way into the house and had to comfort Lucy at length while she cried, "Mommy fine? Mommy OK? Mommy NO FEED THE TURKEYS!!"

Then, at least once a day, every day, for at least a month she again counseled, "Mommy no feed the turkeys, OK?" And, if she saw me going out in the yard at night, she'd run out and grab my hand and lead me back to the house, saying "Ah, mommy's tired, mommy want to go to bed. Mommy no need to feed the turkeys."

It got to be that, even at mid-day, she'd randomly inquire, "Mommy feed the turkeys? Mommy OK?"

Apparently I'd rocked her world with uncertainty and traumatized her for life. Since then she's been treating me like a fragile being. It didn't help that I fell down the stairs a few weeks after that, of course right as she'd wandered out of bed, again, after being officially tucked in, again.

That only fueled her fretting.

So tonight, I shooed her inside while she began getting upset about all the horrific possibilities of mommy going outside at night, worried tears welling up even before we got back to the door. In order to get her to stay in bed, I promised mommy would stay inside.

So, I'm just waiting for her to go to sleep so I can go outside and move the rooster.

How does the story end? The four turkeys, all female, all likely to be well over 20 lbs when dressed, meet their doom on Saturday, because my sweet mother bought me a deep freeze over the weekend.

But somehow I doubt dead turkeys (and the bloodbath that will precede it) will put Lucy's troubled mind to rest.

Little Farm

Downstairs bathroom converted to greenhouse (and turkey nursery)

Sorry, sideways. I replaced the normal vanity bulbs with alternating white and yellow CFLs. Plants love florescent light and CO2, (just the opposite of humans).

This is thanksgiving in it's early form. Four turkey poults (poults=turkey chicks). Two bronze and two whites, here four days old. These are commercial breed broad-breasted, so they can't reproduce due to the awkward physical size they will eventually have. Also, they can have leg problems if allowed to live too long--they've been selected for meat. Next year I am going to get the old fashioned kind that are a little less busty but can reproduce.

The poults look a little like the chicks, but they have more prominent wings, longer necks and a little knobby on their forehead/beak area. They are less flighty and skittish than the chicks and let me hold and pet them. The are very wobbly and awkward when they walk as opposed to the chicks, and tend to just walk right over each other rather than walking around. They are cute and very, very stupid. They are also very fragile, so it's recommended you get 1/2 as much more to double the poults as the number of turkeys you want to end up with because they die easily. Mine are very pampered, so I'm hoping for better odds.

white poult

bronze poult

They are friendly, but love to nip at my fingernails and wedding ring. They'll eat out of my hand.

Here are the layer chicks, 3.5 weeks old, 14 different breeds. Five of the tan ones are buff orpington cockerels (roosters under a year). When I make a weird noise or do something strange like hold a camera at them they all freeze and stare at me out of one eye like this. Notice "skinny-head," as the kids call her, in the back center, with the 'Nilla Ice crew cut.

The lovely hen in the middle is the one we call "red," for obvious reasons. She's beautiful. The Buff behind her I believe must be a cockerel, from the long legs and larger size. The water bottle on top of the waterer is to keep them from roosting up there and pooping in their water, because they are that way.

Another photo of the, "What the "%&*@" is food-lady pointing at us?" freeze-and-stare pose.

I keep the greenhouse/turkey nursery/bathroom locked and let myself in with a hairpin because I'm the only one in the house that can figure that out. This is spike, our gorgeous boy-kitty, saying, "Please, please let me in here just for a minute. I just want to look at the turkeys, that's all."

Girl-cat Bella smiles for the camera. She doesn't even bother trying to get in to the chick or poult rooms anymore. You're asking if my house stinks, aren't you? No, not really. Not any more than the barf fest we had over Easter weekend and the daily diapers. And as any good book will tell you, proper litter management means little to no smell.

Because there is no way I could properly manage all the litter these gargatuan 3.5 week old fryers are putting out these days, I had to move them outside, even though it is a little early. David built an 8x8 pen. At this age, they need about 1 sq ft of space each, moving up to 3 (min) -5 (cushy) sq feet each as they grow (on soapbox: commercial chicken batteries give them a space smaller than a piece of paper--six hens in a file-drawer sized cage--they can't even sit down most of the time. This creates disease and pecking, so they often have to debeak. It is not uncommon for one of the six chickens to be dead and trampled long before anyone gets to it. They live that way for two years. off soapbox). I have 21 fryers now, as some died, which chicks sometimes do. So 64 square feet gives them a very comfortable 3 feet each. They will need a heat lamp until they are harvested at 8-12 weeks. Chickens eat grass, and having chickens on grass reduces feed costs.

The Easter bunnies came to our house this year! Here are our four bunnies. The white ones are Goosey (named on behalf of Lucy, aka, the Goose) and Susan (named by Sophie). The black one was named by Noah: Blacky Taffy. The grey stripped one you can't see on the right is Ben's, Hoppity. These are all New Zealands which are a good pet or meat breed, the white ones are a good fur breed also. Theoretically we have one white buck (Goosey) but in all honesty it is too early to tell. If we do, it is possible that 150 rabbits a year can come from just these four innocent little things. A rabbit ovulates upon intercourse, the latter causes the former. They can start to reproduce at 8 weeks, have around 8 per litter, and can start over 8 weeks later (and so can their babies).

They can eat pellets, which are expensive, but are very happy on 70% alfalfa and 30% mixed grain, which is way cheaper. We got a starter bag of pellets and (my first!) bale of alfalfa hay. Alfalfa is a legume, which means the hay is high in protein for them (also Alfalfa feeds nitrogen to the soil and is a good crop to rotate before or after you plant your garden).

These guys are in cages, but we give them outside play time (when it isn't raining) and will build them an A-frame outside hutch for the summer so they can eat grass and save us even more on feed. These cages are old and free, given back from a family in the ward, whom my cousin lent them to a while back. This is in our shed/mini barn.

I can't show off my cute hair because it has been rainy and this picture was taken after doing chores in the rain--I had to clip my new bangs back because water turns them back into a fro--all the straightening-iron magic is gone. But here are me (tired, as you can see from the circles, and cold, as you can see from the red nose) and Goosey.

Will we eat the rabbits? We won't eat these, our breeders, which is why we can name them. We'll raise a few and try it and see how it goes. They are higher in protein and almost fat free in comparison to any other meat, and many say they are very good. Is it okay to eat cute things? Well, I think my chickens are very cute, and cows are just beautiful, with those big brown cow-eyes. This whole experience has definitely led me to be more mindful of the meat I eat, and we eat less. Rabbits are great food storage, as they convert feed to meat more efficiently than any other animal and breed fast and easily. Plus, I'd rather eat a cute rabbit that I gave a happy life than a miserable and factory-farmed chicken that is 10% fecal soup (sorry, off the soapbox really now). We can always keep the buck separate from the does to slow things down. And we can put the extras on ksl.com or craigslist and get rid of them.

We now have about 66 animals. I'm finding I really, really take a lot of joy from these animals, in a very satisfying way, not just like with pets, but another way I can't verbalize very well. I appreciate them and love them, and it doesn't wig me out that they are food animals, because I know that I really have a lot more gratitude and respect for food animals than I ever have.

So, our Easter was fun, with new animals and a big egg hunt in the yard with lots of our friends, including the Hunters from Pasadena, whom we miss terribly. It was so great to see you guys.

Work is fine, life is fine. I'm trying to walk that fine balance between striving hard and praying hard for the things we need but being accepting, thankful and satisfied with what we have. There are issues, some big, that aren't really blog fodder, but overall, we are very blessed.

I have to go because I promised Sophie we could watch "her video." Yet again. Ever since she saw Emilie Simon on my blog (my hair picture) she has been obsessed with this video. It is actually very cool and visually interesting. Don't wig out that it shows her back for a second at the beginning--it represents the beginning of spring, but it doesn't get all nudie. Watch--it's a fun song.