Talking Turkey

This past September I tried to order a pasture-raised heritage turkey for our Thanksgiving meal, only to find that I was too late. Disappointed, I put myself on a waiting list at Nature’s Harmony Farm in Elberton, GA in the hopes that someone would fail to pick up their order. Alas, this didn’t happen. So, off to the supermarket I went to buy a frozen turkey just like everyone else. Photo credit: Curt Gibbs, ExperienceLA, Flickr

A few days after Thanksgiving I received an email from Nature’s Harmony announcing that they were taking orders for next year; I
immediately put down a deposit. Next year I’ll be serving a beautiful and delicious heritage turkey to my family and friends. At $7.00 per pound they are not cheap, but, even though it will hurt my bank account, a healthy, cruelty-free, pasture-raised, naturally reproducing turkey is “priceless” to me.

Wait, “naturally reproducing?” “Don’t all turkey reproduce naturally?” The answer is an unequivocal “No.” Turkeys sold at the supermarket—mainly the Broad Breasted White—no longer reproduce on their own and depend upon humans for artificial insemination. They have been bred by industrial agriculture to develop faster and produce more breast meat. Their large breast, coupled with the fact that they have shorter legs than standard breed turkeys, can make it impossible to stand, let alone climb atop a female for the act of perpetuating the species. I find this very disheartening and a bit scary. Maybe one day soon I’ll have the courage to follow in the footsteps of Novella Carpenter and raise a heritage turkey of my own, but I’m not quite there yet.

If you are interested in having a heritage turkey grace your table next year, go to Local Harvest to find a farm near you.

The Great Escape...

Earlier this week, during a heavy downpour, with flash flood warnings, I received a call from my daughter to tell me that Buffy had made a run for it, or rather a fly over, if you will. I guess she had had enough of being picked on by the other three chickens, one of whom is particularly large and unrelenting in her pursuit of letting Buffy know who the boss is.
You see, Buffy has spent the last several weeks in a state of broodiness, refusing to come out of the nesting box of her own volition, day or night. The other girls took to taking turns in the remaining box, but should two of them feel the urge to lay at the same time, well, one of them was out of luck. Regardless to the amount of scolding, Buffy wasn’t budging. It was pitiful actually. Since a broody chicken won’t lay eggs, she either sat on the eggs of the other chickens eggs or else on an empty nest. We would take her out a few times a day to make sure she ate, drank, and got some fresh air, but she would hastily make her way back up to the box as soon as we went inside.

When she finally did give up her quest to “hatch an egg” and came out of the hen house of her own free will, she was met by three somewhat miffed sisters. They wasted no time in letting her know her club card had been revoked. That first evening, I heard loud squawking coming from the hen house and went over to investigate. Buffy was trying to get up on the perch to sleep (for first time in weeks), but Letty wasn’t having it, pecking at her and trying to knock her off the perch. I’m not sure how it ended up that night, but Buffy has been spending her days with a little distance between her and the other girls.

So, she flew the coop, over the 6’ tall privacy fence, into the alley behind our house. My daughter and her girlfriend found her outside the back gate, soaked and visibly shivering, but each time they tried to get near her, she ran or flew further away—did I mention how fast she is? They managed to get her to the threshold of the gate using long sticks to encourage her along (that way they didn’t have to get too close), but just as they thought they had her, she turned around and flew down the alley into the backyard of a neighbor. This prompted a text message to me stating “Buffy is about to die” as there was a large black lab in residence who was barking frantically from the back deck. Luckily, he seemed unaware of the chicken in his yard, focusing his full attention on Amanda and Rena.

Amanda walked around the block to the front of the neighbor’s house, by this time as soaked as Buffy, knocked on the door and announced that her chicken was in their backyard and would they mind bringing in their dog so she could retrieve it… “Your chicken?” This prompted a brief discussion about where exactly in the neighborhood we lived and help in rescuing said chicken. Traumatized, but none the worst for her adventure, Buffy was caught—after trying to stuff herself through a slat in the fence—and returned to the safety of her own backyard and the lukewarm welcome of her big sisters.

Chicken Coop and Run

Free range chickens are a beautiful thing, but if you’re an urban farmer these free spirits can wreak havoc on your garden. We (aka Mr. Man) built gates to enclose and protect the vegetable garden in the spring, but the girls managed to nibble at everything planted at the perimeter as well as those plants that grow tall; they just perch on the top rail and snack at their leisure.














We loved letting them have the run of the yard, until they decided to nap on the backsteps and poop all over the patio, and then there’s the disturbance of the landscape plantings—mulch kicked onto the paths, holes dug around new plantings, leaves eaten from bushes. Early this spring I laid a flagstone path along one side of the shed leading to the utility area where the compost is. I planted this with ferns and hostas as it doesn’t get much sun—my own secret garden. It was lovely, until the girls discovered it. They nibbled every last needle from the asparagus ferns and have torn the hostas to shreds. Enough!

Over the last two weekends Mr. Man worked to build a run for the chickens (that shed was the best investment we have ever made!). They still have a large amount of space, extending from the coop to the shed and behind, all the way to the other side. Mr. Man added a new door to the coop that leads to the run, providing them free access to the compost and the decomposing vegetation and fat worms that live there, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the yard and my secret garden.

In my quest to eat food that is grown/raised locally, without pesticides or added hormones, and in a manner that is cruelly-free, I made a trek to Calhoun, Georgia this morning to a small processing plant to pick up half a side of beef (about 180 lbs). The drive was pleasant and made all the better because I was accompanied by my friend Amy who is splitting the beef with me. We loaded up four coolers into the back of the Prius and headed out.

The beef was delivered to Sherrif's Meat Processing a few weeks ago by Ford Farm. I have been pestering Mike Ford since last winter when I first inquired about buying his pasture raised/grass-fed beef. When Mike sent me an email in late September that the cattle was finally ready but that he had more requests than they could possibly fill (selling on a first come, first served basis), I immediately sent an email to confirm my order and got a check for the deposit in the mail the next day. I was thrilled when he confirmed my order.

I called Sherrif's a week or so later and talked with them about the cuts we wanted. Being new to this I wasn't exactly sure just how much information they needed. They walked me through with questions like "how thick do you want your steaks?" and "Do you want roasts, ribs, organ meat?" Yes, to all. I'm not an organ meat eater, but the dogs sure do love it. I also requested the bones.

We pulled up to a small concrete building with a small receiving area in the front and a large walk-in freezer, and behind two metal, swinging doors the "processing" area. They brought the meat out already wrapped in white butcher paper, each package clearly marked with the cut of meat, in four crates along with a large box of bones with red meat still clinging to them. We loaded the packages into our coolers and stored the bones in the very back of the car. In so, the smell of blood and meat was a little overwhelming, so we put on the heater and cracked the windows.

We divided the meat and bones at home with each of us filling our freezers with a good amount of steaks, roasts and ground beef. I immediately threw the bones into two very large stock pots when I got home have simmered them for several hours (after sharing a couple small raw bones with each of our dogs) for beef stock. I'll freeze the stock for later use and the bones for occasional treats for the dogs--the largest rib bones I'm sharing with my daughter and her large Bernese Mountain mix.

If you live in the North Georgia area and are interested in buying healthier beef for both you and the cows, Ford Farm is a small family farm in North Georgia. Their cattle "graze well maintained pastures and are fed locally grown hay when grass is not available." They sell by the half and whole beef, mostly in late fall and early winter.

Here is their contact information.

Ford Farm
Mike and Beth Ford
1275 Emerson Road, Cohutta GA 30710.
(706) 694-4695.
E-mail: fordmb1@windstream.net.
Website: http://www.purebeef.onlinelocalweb.com/