Turkey in the Straw?

I am often asked if I miss farming. I don't. That doesn't mean that I love my new career, or have found some new task to fill a hole that stopping farming left. I haven't. I do not miss farming because none of it was romantic for me. At least the romance was worn off very quickly by the harsh realities of scrambling to out wit the weather, the bugs, and the market.

That paragraph isn't completely true. I miss farming one day a year. I miss farming the Monday before Thanksgiving each year, which was the day we would butcher the range turkeys that we had raised since June. The following is a narrative about that day. I hope it captures the romance of that Monday before Thanksgiving because it is the one day each year that I felt awe while farming.

Frost under the moon making the 100 yards to the barn a silvered landscape. Hunting for the light switch flicking it. That light blazing against the deep 5:00 a.m. dark in the old milk parlor where his grandfather and father had held the daily ritual of harvesting what God had provided. That twice daily ritual, which he himself had participated in through high school, had taught the lesson of a long obedience in the same direction with unerring certitude to all three men. The harsh barn lights illuminating the fog of his breath as he set up the barn before the crew arrived at 8:00. The scalder had to be filled. Standing close to the scalder to stay warm while doing the final honing of knives, he would listen to the hiss from the burner underneath the scalding pot and be enveloped by its steam as its temprature crept closer to the feather loosening 145 degrees. After the knives could shave the hair on his arm, he would move on to sanitizing the knives and every square inch of equipment and counter top that he could find.

Every element of the ritual of preparation;  the hour, the cold, the breath, the hiss, the steam, the peripheral warmth, the smell of the bleach, would hone his thoughts to the task at hand. He would contemplate those sleeping birds, roosted in the barn after being herded in from the range last evening with the kids in the slanted dusk of late November.

He had learned through the years that a good turkey butcher started in early June when those 3 day old poults would come in a box to the back dock of the post office. Chicks so fragile, it takes constant attention and perfect care to only loose 25% over the 1st week. Perfect care rarely happened on this farm. There was the one summer where the intern, trying to help, shut the 4 week old turkeys up in the brooder allowing no ventilation. Remembering he could see, Jim coming to the house, ashen faced, saying "come quick something is wrong with the Turkeys." Going out on a run, opening the brooder lid and seeing what good intentions and lack of attention had caused. Jumping inside the brooder picking up the young turkeys, caring for the ones that could make it, piling up the ones that would not. Watching Jim weep from his mistake saying he was going to quit. "You can't quit now. You have to work hard enough the rest of the year to earn back what we lost this morning." was the only reply he could muster through his anger.

How could he forget the Saturday morning loading out for farmer's market, Doug coming to the barn, out of breath panting that a dog was in the turkey coop. Hopping on the 4 wheeler, racing the quarter mile to the pasture field where the mobile coops were located, finding a big old German Shepard had pried up the protective poultry wire and was just pouncing from one turkey to another. Grabbing them in its slobbery jaws and with one powerful shake; kill it, drop it, and chomp the next one. Picking up a stick swinging at the dog getting it on the run and chasing it through the town to its owner’s house. Pounding on the door bringing a bleary eyed, leopard print, boxer short clad, man to the door. Having to explain that those feathers around his dog's mouth came from his turkeys and leopard print would have to pay for them. He would be back with the tally in the afternoon; 27 dead - 5 maimed to not recover - 8 week old turkeys, half way to Thanksgiving. Him knowing from reputation that none of the $640 due in compensation would be collected.

No there were many years that the work to be done on the Monday before Thanksgiving would count less than 75 from the 100 poults that arrived in that box. Each year's setbacks were with him as he made his way to the barn; making the day that would stretch out before the crew feel like a miracle.

At 7:30, the crew would start to arrive. Bleary-eyed and not quite ready to go, they had self-selected over the years, so that they were all returners with a friend or two they had brought along so they could share where that Thanksgiving turkey really came from.  By 8:00, the preparations all made, and jobs assigned, the first cut would be made.

He knew that objectively the business at hand was messy, smelly, hard work. And on an industrial level, many argued that it was dehumanizing for those who participated. At this level and with these people, he had never felt more alive. Each person took care to do their part well and quickly, taking time to share their lives with each other, often through silence as the day wore on.  

That silence disappeared at lunch. His wife, a farmer’s daughter, would create a spread fueled by memories of hard working families coming together to put long past harvests in the barn. A practice that was lost in one generation of industrial farming that migrated a rural population of producers to an urban population of consumers, and left the farmers that remained as competitors and not community.

After a time of sharing lives, he knew the crew was coming back to the task in the barn when someone would ask, “So you think that we are half way done yet?”  He had made sure that they were. He knew from experience that it was always best to break a little past half way. It was hard work for him and for a crew that spent most of the day thinking and not doing physical work it was doubly so. He knew that it was best to push hard in the morning when you were fresh and then “coast” during the afternoon. So while 40 of the birds had been finished in the morning, four long hours of work remained during the afternoon.

So back to the barn, and back to work, they went with stomachs full. As the day wore on, the silences grew longer. The novelty wore off and it just became work. Wasn’t that what summer had become? The dog days of summer wore on through the weather changes of September, October’s Indian Summer, and November’s short days, killing freezes and low gray clouds until this day and the job was done.

The sun was down. The barn washed down. The birds were in the cooler. The parts hauled to the wood chip pile where the alchemy of composting would break everything down to a rich compost for use next year as the farm woke from its winter solace. The chill had returned to the barn, and the harsh light illuminated the clouds of breath as he turned to the door and turned the lights off.

Turning to the house, he was thankful that another long obedience in the same direction had blessed his life.

Take care,

Roger