Ugly turkey
Monday was turkey pickup day. Our friends
let us drop by early so we'd be sure to get home before dark, which
means we got to see the whole butchering operation in action.
The farmers apologized
profusely because...the turkeys are too big this year! "That's good,
right?" I asked. "More money for you?"
"No," they answered. "We have to give people a discount to get them to take the bigger 
birds since most folks don't know what to do with leftovers."
"I love leftovers," I replied. "Give me the bird that's going to be the hardest to move."
They hemmed and hawed.
"You really don't want that one. We can't really sell it. It has a bit
of skin torn on the back due to the plucking process...."
"Looks a lot better than some of our birds," I answered. "Hand it over."
By way of apology, they
offered a pack of last year's bacon. I think I know who got the sweeter
end of that deal. Thanks for the awesome pastured meat!
(Moral of the story: If you're buying meat or produce from a real farmer
and don't mind a few cosmetic blemishes, you'll make their day if you
tell them so. Americans eat with their eyes, and delicious grub can be
hard to move if it has a spot. You'll probably get a discount too!)
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Kayla --- The one we got was 22 pounds, but I think they said the biggest was 24. Yeah, that's a lot of turkey.
But delicious if it's anything like last year's!
I'm glad to hear from you! I was just thinking of you today --- missing seeing you this week!
They felt like they needed to apologize for giving you more food? That seems so backwards. But if it's bacon...apology accepted!
Maybe you should write an e-book about how to use up leftovers; apparently there are plenty of folks who could use the advice!