It's that time again! Over the past few weeks, our turkeys have been wandering all over the place. Flying over the fence and visiting on the deck was a recent treat. This is a heritage breed called "Blue Slate", and we had a batch of four. They are a beautiful grayish-blue color, and unlike Butterball, they take a good 7-8 months to get full-grown. Because our first spring batch died (turkeys really are kindof stupid BTW) we decided to take out 2 turkeys for the family dinner this year.
Like this turkey, we have been enjoying the beautiful colors, warm days, and brisk evenings. Why look at the weather report when tradition tells you that you usually need a jacket at Thanksgiving, but hats and gloves are for Christmas?
The Friday before Thanksgiving was unusually warm. We decided Tuesday would be a good day to do the deed.
Enter Saturday: Winter storm warnings, high winds, and drifting snow. Whaaaa?
Small break from the storm Monday, with a resurgence Tuesday afternoon! The Mister comes home from work early and we head out into the snow, hoping to beat the storm.
Here we are trying to heat up water so the turkeys are easier to pluck. The Mister is pacing and looking at his watch, and I'm hauling the hottest tap water I can manage from the house.
Anyone who remembers the absolute trauma I experienced last year will understand why, without even asking for help, or hinting to the moment, the Mister took the turkeys and stretched them over the sawhorse and whacked off their necks when my back was turned.
We dunked them in the hot water (not boiling) then placed them on our plastic wrapped table. We started to pull out the feathers as fast as we could. After about 30 minutes, the wind was picking up and blowing snow in our faces. YowZah!
Here comes the storm!
It was about this time my hands were losing their open/close functions, so I decided to finish the plucking indoors. Here I am on the deck looking like a homeless person in my sexy work pants.
After plucking all the remaining pieces, The Mister of the House lightly torches the skin with a portable propane thingie-bobber to burn the hair off. Weird right?
So we did it! We had 2 turkeys ready for the big dance. We made a salty brine solution and let them soak for a couple of days. We decided to cook one with a spicy rub in a dutch oven, and the other in a turkey fryer.
Here's our buddies Janis and Greg. Janis is a volleyball queen and Greg is a sucker for home projects. He also is a dutch oven guru. Here's his spicy turkey rub recipe that you can use for a small/medium turkey or a big roast chicken. The meat will fall off the bone...it's delicious!
So mix all of those spices together, and then prepare to massage that turkey like a Thai Princess.
Pull the skin away from the meat and rub between the layers. Rub inside the cavity. Rub the skin. Love and rub and love that turkey!
Why in the world didn't I take a picture when it was done? Because the places were set, the food was on, and there was a turkey to carve. Definitely NOT a traditional turkey, but delicious nonetheless.
We decided to cook the "big turkey" in the turkey fryer. The Mister of the House actually stepped on the scale and weighed our turkey so we would know for sure.
Drumroll?
7 pounds!
Ugh. I couldn't believe it! I still want to react against factory farming, genetically overhauled turkeys that can't move and live in cages...so it was still worth it to me. But goodness...7 pounds?
Fried turkey? Totally pass! Go traditional or go for the rub all the way.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Signed, Waiting for Easter Dinner to enjoy a full-grown blue slate turkey
Gutt bursting. Quiet gratitude. Warm family love. Doesn't it seem like Black Friday is like a bitchy ex-girlfriend showing up at your brother's wedding? I yearn for the simpler life, but don't want to pass up the opportunity to save some bucks. How come the pretty and long-lasting wood toys are never in the ads? I'm sick of stupid cartoon-licensed plastic crap.
Do I sound grateful?
I had a turkey cook-off with my mom today. My tiny girl turkey vs. mom's store-bought. Pretty oval platter split down the middle with my bird vs. Norbest. From family consensus of grandma, parents, cousins, auntie, and uncle...my turkey won. Plus it didn't live in a cage and get pumped with antibiotics. Go me.
Last year I experimented with Black Friday sales here. I am crossing my fingers that my post-script tip holds true this year as well.
As for tomorrow? I am torn and will wait to see if I can scrape my body off the sheets early enough for some deals I perused in the paper today. However, I must add that there are some deals online that I must must must share. Hot! Hot! tomorrow only. Plus no crazies.
Don't miss Deal #1
4-disc : HBO mini-series : award-winning : patriotic must-have : everyone who sees it loves it : blip and clip review here : "John Adams" on sale at Amazon for $18.99. That's over half off and well worth it. 501 minutes = over 8 hours of viewingpleasure.
If you are on my list this year, there's a good chance you're getting this just because I think it's necessary for any educated kid in the U.S. to see it. And any history buff. Or educated adult. Find the love right here.
Don't miss Deal #2
HBO does it again with hilarious duo, and real-life band, or musical two-some. Whatever you call them, they are definitely adorably nerdy and are "Flight of the Conchords". That's the band name and the name of this show. Season 1 & 2 are on sale for $9 tomorrow at Amazon online, or Target stores. In case they are news to you, feel the love below:
Stay in your seat and click here for Season One happiness. Season two is here. Don't miss Deal #3
That adorable bucket has 2 seatbelts!
First, this bike ships fully assembled and ready to ride. The shipping costs are not clear to me...but this I know, they have never offered this beauty at this low cost before. $400 off the regular price of $1,299=$899. Begin the process of using your car less, letting your kids unplug and enjoy the outdoors, and possibly getting some exercise while running errands with the Madsen Cream-Colored Bucket Seat Bike(cream color only). Link is here.
Post-Edit: When I first posted this late last night after getting 5 hours of sleep the night before, I thought the ad said the bike was $400...not $400 OFF. Lame. Still an awesome deal but not quite so screaming. Also, shipping costs are usually around $150, and ship out of Salt Lake City.
When I was 21, I left the desert west (my home) and wore a dress for 18 months straight for the Lord. I was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in hot, jungly, muggly Florida. When I read "Florida" was to be my intended Zion, the only image I had in my mind was Southern California (the western equivalent right?). I imagined beach bums, bleached joggers, health nuts, and short shorts. What I soon learned was that Florida, at least northern Florida, was not reminiscent of any Beach Boys tunes. It was technically "The South". As in Live Oak Trees with their own gravitational pull with their pretend branches in reality tree trunks glued sideways into its totem. Spanish Moss drips from their limbs like the syrupy southern accents oozing off the tongues of Southern Belles, Baptists, Evangelists, Racists, Pentecostals, and barbecue-ers.
Oh and I loved it.
While I wanted to go "foreign" as they say (meaning: send me to an exotic country that will force me to learn another language and build in 15 language credits when I come back to college) I soon reveled in another planet with plantation homes, invitations for fried chicken and church revivals, prayers in parking lots and speaking in tongues. And much of this revolved around porches. Rockers on porches, plants in pretty pots, sweeping views of Live Oak, and outdoor rooms screened in complete with beds for summer sleep-outs safe from biting bugs but in tune with the crickets.
Mrs. Olsen loves porches. Like this one:
My current porch is nothing like this. Darnit. But I will admit, in my own small efforts, I like to add a little piece of furniture to make my lame non-wrap-around porch feel like a room.
This little piece with wings was reclaimed by the newlywed Mrs. Olsen. Childless and optimistic, she scraped five layers of paint off of it, put on a mosaic top, and painted it the official wedding reception color of the 90's: forest green.
Since some of the tile is green, I could have pulled it off alright were it not for those cheesy oversized wood knobs. I didn't even have forest green at my 90's wedding, but evidently it rubbed off on me. At least I don't have forest green carpet.
As luck would have it, it matches my porch railing to my home. Coincidentally, my home was built one year before I was married. Come and sit for a spell.
Somehow a porch, even when you don't sit for a spell, makes the front door more friendly and appealing.
Here we come, straight for the door. Gotta hurry. No time for chat. Gotta get back ho...ho...hold the phone!
Yes that's a goose. And now my invitation: please love me.
I'm thirty-four people. And yes, I bought this resin goose from an old ladies catalog. I was alone late at night at a computer, and I had just had a baby. My hormones were whack, and I wanted to celebrate the holidays without having to lug around an oversized rubbermaid for every holiday.
Somehow, nothing says porch love like a goose. Above is Gwendolyn in her Halloween attire. Below is how you can behold her current glory.
This I know: resin geese with clothes are for grannies.
And yet, as a testament to my eternal love of porches, my unmet desires for slower living, lazy chatting, and outdoor living, Gwendolyn remains...despite a broken leg twice (and mended), chipped tummy, and cracking paint.
Okay ladies! One week is all we have until the big dance. You know what I'm talking about. All the moms, grannies, aunts, and the occasional occupational male chef put on a show of creativity, baked goods, harvest wares, and 12-piece place settings amidst all the important people in their life on the Annual Day of Thanks. Now if you want to actually have time to take a shower and smell nice, then you'll want to follow The Pioneer Woman's Thanksgiving Cooking Schedule that begins on Monday.
Yep. You heard me. Monday. And to add to this schedule, Mrs. Olsen has some special preparations that will help your Thanksgiving Feast be over the top! The perfect place settings that use mini-pumpkins, candy corn, and popcorn...the best silverware polish you can make from scratch!....and adorable crafts that will force your rugrats to stop and think about all the dang things you do for them all the time and that they should be grateful for...I've got it all here!
Let's start here shall we?
Wait, what is that? Let's get a better look shall we?
*cough* Where in the good heck are my candy corns? That axe is totally rusty! I have a feeling there's no such thing as a home remedy for rusting axes...uh, I mean silverware. Uh, I mean...where am I?
Okay, the gigs up people. I killed 2 turkeys yesterday and it wasn't funny at all. See now, when we moved to a little more country last year we wanted to be more self-sufficient. We wanted that connection to food that has been culturally lost, but is probably still pretty important, and very likely even vital to our existence. So I asked for it, but I swear I didn't sign up for this.
Keep reading if you dare, but consider yourself warned.
First of all, I thought it would be no big deal cause I've been dealing with a kid that freaks out whenever she has to go collect eggs. Mr. Tom can't let Miss Hen turn her head without saying Excuse me? Look at me! My feathers are ruffled up for you baby. I love you! Wanna come stay with me at Bok Bok Cottage over the weekend? So Miss Turkey Hen literally runs for her life whenever my kid shows up. She's runs at them, jumps up on them, and totally freaks them out. Hence, the big stick carried by Rainbow Girl (and tears).
When he gets all hot and bothered wantin' some feather love, he puffs up and his face turns blue. Isn't he pretty?
Oh how I desperately wanted to film The Mister of the House trying to catch this big guy, but I was disappointed when he brought out a long metal hook, caught his foot, and pulled him right into his fateful arms.
So here's this picture again. See those 2 little nails that the axe is resting in? That is where you catch the head, then pull the neck and head down over the sawhorse. Usually The Mister has some boy helpers, but he exhausted their services this spring, and so it was just me and him. I was really really nervous.
I had to hold the feet of the turkey while The Mister took the axe. I'm a tough girl okay? I'm on the lazy side but I love nature, want to live simply, and outweigh most Mormon mommies on my block. I had no notions of my toughness, or expectations of how I should act when the axe came down.
Thwump!
Half of the neck is open, and I'm holding onto a body that is flapping and flailing. I scream like I'm trying out for Return of the Rapist Swamp Thing. I screamed, inhaled, screamed, The Mister is yelling 'Let go of the feet! Let it go!' and I am frozen, holding the flailing body, and screaming and screaming. And even as I write this, I have to admit that I was truly truly traumatized, because when I finally did let go and shuffled backwards away from the scene of the crime, I started sobbing my guts out.
What the hell?
For real.
When I finally mentally checked myself Uh, Mrs. Olsen you are freaking out. You are being a dumb girl. Please stop crying. Please stop. So I stopped and looked over across the yard. All my laying hens, who had been pecking in the garden and flowerbeds just moments before, were frozen in there tracks. I then watched all of them hightail it into the safety of Bok Bok Cottage.
And guess what? I had to do it again, was still in shock, and shocked at how freaked out I was, but then got to hold the ladies feet while the axe came down. No screaming that time, but I winced and sobbed some more.
Anybody that doesn't appreciate their turkey dinner is getting it shoved down their face by yours truly.
But wait, there's more! Here's a drill bit that has rubber stoppers to help pluck the feathers. We actually didn't use it, cause our learning curve taught us that you drop the birds in hot hot water and the feathers will then pull out nice and easy.
I post these photos with an outpouring of love and respect for the life of these birds. After plucking the feathers, you lightly torch them to get the remaining hairs burned off.
Did you know you had to do that?
Signed,
Started my cycle today but don't think that had anything to do with it
p.s. my turkeys had a good life and for that I am grateful.
Post-Edit: I'm not sure I can fully describe the emotional wave that overthrew me with the post-screaming sobbing. Racked. Tears. Wrenched face. Curious husband. Mascara down past my cheekbones sobbing. I mean, my shoulders were shaking with each cry. Did anyone see/love the movie Raising Arizona? Holly Hunter is in the car after they stole their baby and she starts crying: I just love him so much (and her shoulders move up and down about 5 times in that sentence). Anyway, high school break-ups were never as emotionally draining as watching the violent release of the life of our turkeys. How do hunters do it?
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