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Turkey Anyone?

So turkey day has come and gone. I wanted to mention that the turkeys we raised were delicious! We ate the hen for our meal on Thursday and she was great! Weighing in somewhere in the low-mid 20lb. range she was the perfect size for our small group to enjoy and then take home plenty of leftovers (which are completely gone now!).

The young Narragansett Tom we did was closer to 15lbs. He was a beautiful bird and we look forward to honoring him at a great meal! The other 3 Toms we did were all the commercial white turkeys. They were quite large, ranging from low 30 to low 40 lbs. each. We opted to cut them in half and freeze them in halves - not so certain our oven could handle a 40+lb. bird!!

We'll raise them again next year to sell for certain but we will definitely order our turkey poults a little later so that they are not quite so large come time for the big day. Not many people want to buy a 40+lb. turkey!!

Now our freezer is full of enough of our own duck, chicken, and turkey to see us through the winter and then some! Time to focus on the pig, although I think we will need another freezer! Sausage anyone?

Tairish Kellee Belle

Thanksgiving brought sadness to our household with the sudden loss of our beloved sheltie, "Kellee". We lost her quickly, seemingly fine Tuesday, under the weather Wednesday morning and after a steady decline, she died in our arms Thursday night. The first diagnosis was pneumonia which turned out to be incorrect (although we now understand that it was an easy enough mistake). She was suffering from metastic lung disease and we think a heart attack took her quickly. We are heartbroken at her loss but also very thankful. Thankful for the wonderful gift she was. She didn't back down from any fight, whether it was a squirrel, a raccoon, a woodchuck, or even a skunk (unfortunately!). And especially thankful that she was only apparently ill for hours compared to days or weeks. As these pictures show, one of her favorite spots to sun herself was in our oak barrel planters on the deck - winter or summer, flowers or not, you often found her there - they were a perfect fit!