Death Becomes the Turkeys

Last Saturday was the end of the turkey's living life. They now will live out the remainder of their exsistance in our freezers until they are consumed.

My brother and dad and my brothers father -in-law were in charge of killing them and de-feathering and gutting. I and mom were in charge of packaging and grinding up 2 birds for ground turkey.

My brother and dad were surprised how strong the birds were. Well duh, these arent spring chickens we're dealing with. For the most part killing them went on without a hitch until the last bird, when Nick didn't quite have it killed by ringing its neck and when they chopped the head off....blood sprayed everywhere....but i guess one bird out of 10 isn't too bad???

Plucking is an area that needs improvement. We did the water dips and had a machine to take the feathers out easier but I found it messed up the skin too much and one bird even lost its skin -completely but mom took that bird and we ate it on Monday -tasted like turkey!  So if anyone has any tips on an easier plucking method I'm all ears.

Gutting went well too. Except dad isn't as tough as he says he is and was a little green when he decided to step in when Nick (my brother) took a break.

We also had the "help" of a couple young folk, Nick's in-laws were babysitting a 8 and 6 year old and they jumped right in to help and jumped from one thing to another. They were right into the whole process and was quite a learning adventure for them. They played with the guts separating the organs, playing with the leg tendons to make the foot open and close. Their parents thanked us for letting them help out saying its important to understand where our food comes from, which is something I agree with.

I forgot that raw meat smell was like when we were grinding them up in my kitchen...grinding went well with the help of my kitchen aid stand mixer with the meat grinder attachment. We did loose a tad bit of meat when mom used a wooden spoon and it got chewed up in the grinder...oops. And I only gagged one when I was trying to remove a blood cot from one of the bird's legs -one of my birds had been limping the last couple of days...I had to call one of the guys in to butcher the clot out.

All in all it was a sucessful turkey raising project. Our largest bird was 18 pounds and smallest 12 pounds, most averaged 16 pounds. And because of 3 birds dying and our start up costs the birds cost us $3.21 a pound. Next year we should be down around 2.20 a pound mark, which is a decent price for fresh turkeys around here.

Wrathful Wednesday

A couple updates before getting to my main story.

Bird phobia is still in full swing. However the turkeys and I seem to have worked out a system of sorts. Not entirely sure how this is going to progress as they continue to get larger. I may be calling in a support team. I'm also down another bird, so 11 turkeys left.

Work has been busy. On top of my grooming I'm helping with some re-organization and the store is in desperate need of it. Plus the manager and I are trying to get it all done before Friday so it will be all set before we go to our conference and before she goes on holidays. We're getting close.

Now to my main story:

Back in May a local man was attack by a black bear. The bear allegedly attacked his livestock(chickens), his dog(killed it), then went after the man. The man suffered many laseration wounds to his head and shoulder. To me the story sounds fishy, there's something just not right about the whole situation. Here's an article in the Timmins Daily Press http://www.timminspress.com/2013/05/12/man-injured-in-bear-attack. The bear was suposedly killed by the MNR. There has been no coverage as to whether or not there was something "wrong" with the bear or if it was a freak accident/attck.

Since this attack the paranoia over bear potentially attacking at random has sky rocketed. I think people are insane. Sure we should be aware of bears and educate ourselves on bear safety but really having arms at the ready just incase a bear strolls through your yard. I keep going back to "they are more afraid of you than you are of them", make loud noise to scare them away, let the dogs bark at them, keep garbage inside, clean up bird feeders etc. bear safe common sense seems no need to apply these days. Sure maybe the re-instatement of the spring bear hunt may help keep the bear population at bay, but I also think that we can learn to better co-exsit with them. Don't want to co-exist move to down town Toronto (or other equally large city).

Into thin air

So I was working away today, grooming my heart out. There's not much to concentrate on while grooming so my mind tends to wander while I'm going through my steps to beautify dogs. I had 2 or 3 great ideas for blog posts. Now that I'm at home; nothing.  I am going to have to start jotting down my ideas when I have them instead of filing them into my mental space to retrieve at a later time.

So in the mean time....

The turkeys turned 4 weeks old on wednesday. I had ordered 12, got 13; one died last friday so I'm back down to 12. They arent as ugly as they were, theyre starting to get their adult feathers and look less like naked chickens. This weekend I'm going to be brave and let them out of their pen while I clean their shed, its not terribly dirty yet but I want to get into the habbit of letting them outside while I clean the shed and I think them exploring their pen should be fine, they're big enough not to escape through any holes in the fence.

This weekend I get to work again...I need the money soo its not too bad. And i have no life, plus I'll have 7 dogs at my house so a couple hour break saturday morning will be nice. I'm also on stand by for our new student if she runs into any trouble she can call me and I'll go to her rescue. Shes also kind of being thrown under the bus this weekend too. As the manager is out of town for a fishing derby and the student who usually works weekends has her prom and is apparently not capable of working the day after prom, nor even coming in on Saturday at 1 to work for 4 hours. Whatever happened to going to work hung over or still drunk? Kids these days...I do have full confidence in our new hire, she just needs a little more practice time and her confidence will improve as time goes on too.

I am looking forward to the 24th. Sam, the manager and I are headed off on a mini work vacation/conference. We're headed to the big city of Guelph to visit the Royal Canin pet food plant. The trip is entirely paid by Royal Canin, meals, hotel, gas money, plus once all the business seminars are done we get to go on a wine tour for dinner. We're only gone for 3 days but who can say no to an all expence paid (plus our wages) oppotunity to get away. Then on the 29th I'm on the road again for my aunts 65th birthday party, then home on the 30th for my friends parents anniversary party, then Canada Day festivities on the July 1. And then 8 days of work and I'm off to my best friends wedding.

Busy busy. And I should be tidying the house(house proofing for 7 large dogs and 1 small dog), and getting myself organized. Hopefully I won't loose too many more ideas for interesting blog posts.