Gobble, gobble. . .

So this perhaps should be the last post on the topic of turkeys that we see for a while. . . well at least until the autumn when we entertain ourselves by traumatizing the children! Yes, 200 years ago when you wanted turkey, or chicken or the like for dinner you didn't just run down to the nearest Hannaford's or Safeway, and there were certainly no freezers to grab that handy prefab fake food dinner from. Nope! You want chicken, you go out in the yard in the morning, pick your bird and clean it all yourself. Gooey guts and all.

It's really amazing to me that there weren't more vegetarians back then. Especially the kids. But it illustrates just exactly where the mindset of our society has gone. We can run to the nearest grease pit or chow on a turkey on thanksgiving without taking any responsibility for our food, or where it comes from. For all of the hunting and ranching naysayers out there, who call the practice of killing an animal inhumane yet can willing buy processed meat and eat it without a second thought, i ask, "who is more sick and twisted?"
And yes, the house rule is that if you want to eat it you get to participate in the process from beginning to end (raising to butchering) so that everyone in the house understands where the food that they take for granted comes from. (They only have to do it once. . . unless they want to help again later)

And so it is early June. . . and we picked the hottest possible days of the year to build the new and improved turkey paddock. 97 degrees on Saturday (in early June, in Maine), and 95 degrees on Sunday (again in early June in Maine). So nature drew first blood - we got COOKED!!!! But the turkeys are much happier.

After a month of growing waaaaaay too big for the 45 gallon Tupperware bins that they were in they are now free to roam (mostly). They have a big coop to roost in and a 100 square foot (i think) yard with grass and dirt and bugs and all of those things that make turkeys happy. Even the peafowl, who were really irritated by their new house mates seem to have an improved mood about their conditions.

Now hopefully there wont be anything more to write about them until they are ready to offer themselves for food. So we can find other really boring things to write about . . .