Much like the critters outside, I've been hunkered down for the Winter. We went off to Disneyland and then headed straight into the big Christmas season without a thought of the garden.
Well, maybe there were a few thoughts. While at Disneyland, I took more notice of the amazing landscape. The horticulturists there must have so much fun. They even had a huge area devoted entirely to edibles. It was mostly herbs, cabbage, and citrus trees but it was lovely. They had really limbed up the citrus trees to allow light underneath. It was a great space saver and cute too. It has inspired me to rethink the placement of some of my citrus.
Before we left, the boy and I visited a 4-H and Slow food heritage turkey event. Slow foods has commissioned some of the 4-Hers to raise heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving. The members pay $7.50 per pound! The kids get to keep more than $7 per pound. Slow foods comes out to the family home of one of our 4-H kids and brings all the supplies needed to "process" the turkeys. In one morning they all go from live critters to refrigerated dinner. It was a big morning for me. I was challenging myself. We arrived just in time to help round up some turkeys. They're big and you must approach them quietly. I walked slowly up to a hen, bent over, and sort of hugged her. Then I looked up and asked for help, what do I do now?? Well, grab her legs and hang her upside down, I was told. Wow! She was really heavy but didn't seem to mind being hung that way. Then we sat down under a tree with our turkeys. I was instructed to lay her chest on the ground while holding her legs stretched behind her. She didn't mind, she was just hanging out. A local photographer took our picture and put it in the paper. What they failed to mention in the paper was that this happy looking bird was on death row. Two feet behind the photographer was the truck. The truck with the killing cones, the man with the knife, the boiling water, and the feather plucking spinning thingy.
When it was my turkeys turn, she was carried over to the cone and set in, head down. Her legs were strapped to a post on the truck and the man used a small knife to cut one side of her throat. She didn't even seem to flinch. One or two turkeys flailed and one gurgled blood from it's beak. But most of them just hung there, getting kinda spacey as they bled to death. It didn't take long, it wasn't really very messy, it was a whole lot more peaceful than I thought it could be. The couple of squirting, flapping, screaming birds really left a mark on me though.
From the cone, they go into the hot water to loosen the feathers and then into the spinning thing. I think it was a big washing machine drum with nubby rubber fingers. After that they go to the big steel tables to be eviscerated. This was done by local chefs and members of slow foods. Many of them had never done this before and were challenging themselves as well. When all dressed, the birds went into a refrigerated truck for transport. It was quite an experience and has brought me closer to raising meat birds.
Sadly, it left it's mark on the boy too. When I told him we'd be having turkey for Christmas dinner he looked at me, head down, and said, "poor turkeys". We haven't really talked of it since.
The cheery news is that the seed catalogs are arriving in droves. What is a drove anyway? I have ordered about a million seeds from both Bountiful Gardens and Seeds of Change. I also ordered a soil block maker from Path to Freedom. It felt great to support them since they have contributed to my process. We've decided not to spend money on seedlings this year but to spend an equal or lesser amount on seeds and sell extras cheap. I'll make a list tomorrow.
