I just got back from the turkey farm. Beautiful place high on a hill. There's a great view of the not so distant mountains and a pond across the way. Met Turkey Lady for the first time in person and her husband as well (he popped in and out as he tended the animals). I got the tour of the place and met the turkeys, one of which is mine. They are curious creatures, turkeys. They all came running as we approached their pen, the males puffing up to thwart any attempt I might have made to have my way with their hens. There were the Black Spanish turkeys, the Bourbon reds, a handful of the Broad Breasted Whites...An interesting observation about them- when they gobble, they gobble in unison. There would be a few moments of silence and then a great collective burst of gobbling which died off as quickly as it had begun.

I sort of met Trixie. It was Trixie's job to keep the turkeys safe. A big, puffy white dog, she seemed to take her job very seriously. Too seriously at times, according to Turkey Lady. She was now bonded with the flock and anything that wasn't a turkey (specifically the many chickens that wandered around the property) was strictly forbidden from approaching. Oh, I mustn't forget my secondary guide, Gil, a boxer that attatched himself to the tour early on and occasionally would split off from our entourage to chase the livestock. There was Hoover, a thirteen year old lab who, back in the day, could hump things with the best of them. Now he preferred to lay around on the enormous front porch and pant. I haven't even touched on the pigs. Rhoda, Daisy, Oliver, Tu, and about thirty others that Turkey Lady recognized and could name from a good distance.

I got a look at the killing station which consisted of a few metal cones screwed to a board, some wire for hanging the newly dispatched birds while they bled out, a scalding tank that looked like it could have been a turkey fryer at one point, a couple of propane tanks nearby. This was for loosening feathers prior to the plucking machine, which rounded out the processing aspect. Offal from the butchering process is used to fertilize the garden come spring.

So there we were, standing in the feathers left from the last batch of fowl to give up the ghost, talking about the way things are and the way things should be, how we got to where we are and where we are going from here. Gil was eating feathers and puking up the pig water that he drank a few minutes before. Hoover was tired of trying to bang my dog by now and had settled back into his spot on the porch. The chickens all headed to the coop to roost until morning, and those turkeys, those turkeys would gobble like a choir as we wrapped things up. Another day on the turkey/pig farm came to a close as the sun set behind those mountains. I'll be back on Tuesday evening to collect my hen, puffed up toms or no.

Just six days before Thanksgiving. Geez.