Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Turkey for Thankgiving


We had a turkey and chicken farm in Orton, Alberta, Canada. Dad would order 300 baby chicks and 300 baby turkeys each spring. He would put them in shallow boxes on the kitchen floor. They were very soft to touch, when they were a few weeks old they started to get their feathers. Then they would jump out of the box. It was time to move them to the chicken coop outdoors. They grew up and the chickens gave all the eggs we needed. My brothers took turns cleaning the chicken coop. My chore was gathering the eggs every day. I didn't like to do it cause the chickens would fly at you and peck at you if you tried to get their eggs from underneath them. When we wanted fried chicken for dinner, Dad would kill two of them to feed our family. My three brothers and Dad wanted the chicken legs to eat so we needed two chickens. So I learned to eat the chicken wings. No legs for me left. My Mother and I hauled the water from our well to heat the water, on our coal kitchen stove, to scald the chicken or turkey to enable us to remove the feathers. Then I learned to pull the feathers off and clean them. Mom told Julie "you have 3 minutes to get the feathers off . "We were very busy in October getting turkeys ready to sell for other people Thanksgivings. We always enjoyed our free range turkey for the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the 60's Dad increased his Turkey flock to 1000. They are being trucked to market here. Dad is hold one of them .They were mean birds. The Gobbler's would chase you when you outside. The hens were pretty dumb, they had smaller brains, so they were docile. One Christmas my two younger brothers received bows and arrows for christmas. What did they see when they walked outside for target practice? Turkeys wandering all over our yard. Jay took aim and an arrow went right through a turkey head. It fell dead instantly.What to do now? There was mud puddle near by, he stomped on the dead turkey and thought Dad would not see it. The turkey kept sticking its wings up out of the mud hole. He never told Dad until his 80 birthday what had happened that day. Dad had always wondered what killed that turkey.

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