Turkeys

For just about 8 months now I have been vegetarian. I began this as an experiment to see how my health and my weight would be affected. So far I haven't really noticed much change. I have been concentrating on making sure that I take in enough protein and iron, so basically I feel the same. I didn't test my blood composition before I started, so maybe that has changed; less cholesterol, etc. So, I 'm not sure how long this experiment will last.
This marks my first Thanksgiving without eating turkey. I know it will be hard not to eat just a little, but I will give it a try! I am cooking one for the family, so they won't go without!


When I see photos of these turkeys, it reminds me that turkeys are created to be eaten. Though I understand some of you might not agree with me, I speak from a voice of experience. For 20 years we raised turkeys from day old hatchlings to Thanksgiving Day dinner. This was quite an endeavor. We would order 15 - 20 downy soft little chicks and raise them up for our food. The turkeys were not the smartest bird on the farm, let me tell you! The stories that you have heard about turkeys drowning in the rain are all true! I never really had one drown, but they do tilt their heads up towards the sky allowing the water to pour down their throats when the rain starts. It is the weirdest thing! After spending umpteen dollars on feed, they were ready to butcher. Some years I fed them better than others and they would get too big too fast. They would be ready to butcher in October! We would still have to feed them for another month. Our recorded largerst butchered out, cleaned, ready for the oven turkey was 36 lbs! No lie!! We had to cut it in half length-wise to put it in our little oven. Many times we would let several of them stay "on the hoof" so to speak, keeping them alive until Christmas dinner or New Year's. Once or twice we got lazy and didn't get around to butchering them in a timely fashion and by March or April they would be having leg and feet problems. We had one go blind once. It was hard to butcher her, but we didn't want to let the meat go to waste when she got to be 10 months old or so. We had one that we called "tweak beak" because it had a deformed upper beak that went sideways instead of straight forward over the lower beak. He had a hard time eating, so he didn't hang around until November; we ate him early!
Ok, that's enough turkey stories. I have more, but you get the idea! I encourage all of you to have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, turkey or none!
Give thanks with a grateful heart!!!