may 2nd

So it's the second of may already, sheesh. I'm waking up slowly today. The coffee maker is groaning and hissing at me and the window beside me is leaking in just a bit of morning air. I have that just showered clean feeling, which isn't going to last long as I have to go to work in the greenhouse today and by the end of the day, I'm usually covered head to toe in 3 different types of potting soil and I've watered my feet more than I have the plants. I'm a terribly clumsey person and I'm extatic that all I've dropped so far have been hearty plants that just kinda bounce and I just sweep up a little dirt.

Collage night on Monday was fun. I like getting out a ton of magazines and strewing them all over the floor while drinking wine. Bethani brought her new friend Nick and he has really interesting stories about working with deaf kids and camping, which was nice for Jason as meeting interesting people who actually do stuff around here is rare. Norm came along too and I guess he is getting along with his girlfriend and feeling better about himself. He sent out the demo to a couple of places, which was cool, and he's excited about the new ducks that I got him for his mom for her birthday. It's going to be funny to see what he constructs for a duck house as he is not very construction savvy. Maybe his dad will lend him a hand.

Also, last friday Jason and I took a trip up to Amish country to pick up 30 turkeys. He kinda scared me as on the way there, it sounded like he was getting nervous and didn't want to do it. It was all my idea and I've been talking about it forever and I was really excited to meet a guy who was close that would sell me birds for 4.50 each instead of having them shipped from a hatchery for 7.50 each plus shipping. So I ordered thirty and the trek up there was a real pain in the ass. He was going to meet us in mount hope to deliver Norm's ducks and the 30 heritage breed turkeys. He got a flat and couldn't meet us up on Friday, so we drove around Amish country staring at the scenery. I agreed to trek back up there Saturday before work (I had a training meeting at 8:30am) and I was hoping that Jason would go with me, which he did, however sleepy eyed he might have been.
The birds are beautiful already and they look like very smart, quiet birds. While I was at work that day, Jason did some research on heritage breed turkeys and found that they are under this international blanket preservation group called slow foods. Nearly 90% of all the birds sold in America are Broad Breasted, which is a hybrid turkey that cannot fly or mate naturally and has terrible health problems associated with rapid growth. Most storebought turkeys are constantly fed antibiotics as a preventative measure to try to keep as many turkeys alive in as small of space they can, thereby maximizing products. The downfall to the factory farmed turkey is that their extra white meat and large breasts have little if any taste, and that's not even mentioning the quality of life for the bird. The good thing about heritage breeds is that they are naturally pretty disease resistant to the North American climate and are very agile and hearty birds. The bad thing about heritage breeds is that they are slow growers and it is hard to turn a dime or even cover your losses unless people are willing to forego the 59cent per pound freezer turkeys for the 4.50 per pound price of a heritage breed.
The crazy thing about all of this is that turkeys raised on pastures or "grass fed" turkeys go for a lot higher. Jason printed out something from a website that a grass fed heritage breed turkey similar to the one that we raised and ate last year (our dearly departed Doug) would have sold at a price of $143.87. Dang.

So after all of this research and learning about the Narragannsett turkeys that I bought (they are gorgeous full grown) Jason was really excited as well.

Now the funny trick to all this is that I never told my parents about this endeavor. Dad says no more birds and mom said that Doug broke her heart. I say I found a place that will kill them for $5 per bird so I don't have to and we've got the room and I've got the time and we all have certainly got the market. So Jason printed out some price sheets from what other people were selling their turkeys for, some were just broad breasted grass fed turkeys going for about a hundred dollars and some printouts were just talking about the slow foods movement. He highlighted the prices and put the $143.87 one on the top and while I was up at my parents house, I just happened to leave it on a counter in the breakfast room. We had the turkeys in grandma's basement for a few days and no one knew it. Jason kept saying that no one has ever been that close to 30 turkeys and not known it before. But then during Sunday night dinner with grandpa, dad brought up my meat birds that are grazing out in the field and how much more he would pay for those birds and that's when I happened to bring up how much our dear old Doug would have cost us. My whole family started chattering, my mom kept saying that Doug was delicious, the best turkey she's ever eaten and I put the articles on the table. My dad started leafing through them and musing about one thing or another, not really picking up on the fact that I already had 30 of them peeping in grandma's basement and even stoic grandpa seemed impressed by the birds while repulsed at what dumb people will spend their money on these days.... but of course, that's coming from a "millionaire" who eats meat out of a can.
A few days later, dad said that he has a mind to let a bunch of turkeys run around grandpa's place out in the country and mom was cackling with her friends about how delicious Doug was some more. Jason just gave me a high five and grinned at our cleaverness.

In any case, I've got thirty turkeys in my grandma's basement and I just made them an outdoor enclosure, so they are getting out and seeing the sun today.


Ok, time to get to my feeding rounds. In other news, everything else is going quite well.