He has never liked turkey at Thanksgiving, and always wanted me to make ham instead. The last two turkeys I made though, I brined for three days and they were very, very good, and so he wanted a “traditional Easter turkey” this year instead of lamb. Ha!
Now that he is a full time farmer, he has been working and working on a turkey coop, which is almost finished. I have been less than enthusiastic about the whole operation even threatening that I won’t feed, water, babysit, slaughter, gut, brine or cook any of those birds. This place is such a disaster with so many projects undone, I resented the whole turkey thing. hmmmmm.
He wanted 30. He got 12. They are heritage Narragansett turkey poults between 5 and 10 days old. He is so happy about them. 🙂
And, yes, that big metal cattle trough they are in, is inside the house.
I am of course the designated babysitter, as both of them are heading to Dallas. My role does come naturally, as I couldn’t help checking on them in the night to see what their singing contest was all about.
grassfood. 
Your undertaking of turkeys makes me wonder if you have read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral”. It is I think a great read, but you might appreciate particularly her experience with raising turkeys.
No, I haven’t Hilda, and thank you, I will check it out. Our daughter knows that her dad is not a reader, nor is the one who usually raises/slaughters… and so she opened the chapter of one of her books to raising turkeys for him, but alas, he is too busy to read it. 😉 I think of you this time of year, as I long to go get the spruce tips which I have not done yet. Yikes! I love them so. Anyway, I have been meaning to contact you about a pine tar salve recipe… I bought some from an indian woman and am fascinated by it and it’s healing properties and bet you have made it. I will definitely try and make some this year. 🙂
I haven’t ever tried using pine tar, but maybe I should look into it.
I think you will enjoy Barbara K’s book about her experiment living exclusively on local food, mostly produced by her and her family. Her musings about food culture in NA I found particularly interesting, but the part about raising turkeys was hilarious and very interesting.