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Tuesday, September 06, 2011

A bloody weekend

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Sunday Husband decided to tear down the front deck. He will be rebuilding it into something else. I will let you know when that actually happens.

The temps dropped into the high 70's. Hopefully this will cause my tomatoes to go crazy. Just hope the cool weather lasts long enough and doesn't turn into a frost before they have a chance to ripen. But I am no longer holding my breath.

Monday, Husband's brother-in-law came out with his granddaughter and his 2 young sons.  The oldest of the two boys has been begging us to let him help butcher the turkeys. They are a family of hunters, so I am not real sure why he wanted to butcher. Maybe because it is more hands on then hunting is. Oh, I know that sounds a bit odd, but home butchering is a bit more handsy than hunting, unless you are Rambo and hunt with a bowie knife.

Husband showed him how to kill the turkey, then hang. The turkey seemed to be bigger than the boy! Next we butchered 10 of the fryers. The breast meat and legs were removed and placed in the freezer. The remainder of the meat is in a pot simmering to make soup later today. The breast on the turkey's were huge!

We had a friend out for dinner last night. I cooked up one turkey breast (the 6 of us didn't even eat half of it) with various garden veggies (several different peppers, potatoes, carrots, onions, basil, endive, okra, butternut squash, garlic) in our dutch oven under the hot logs of the camp fire pit. I personally think it turned out very good, even Large was devouring it. However there was just too much breast. I ended up slicing it thin for sandwiches.

We invited our friend to play cowboy with us for a bit. As many times as he has been out here, he has never really seen us work. But we had to feed the cows. I think he enjoyed watching them chase the truck around the field. I know watching the calves run as hard as they can to catch us always makes me giggle.

I went to have my coffee on the deck this morning, oops. . . no deck. I threw some food out for the birds, and missed the turkeys for a split moment. Small is thrilled the turkeys are gone. They loathed Small and would try to chase him down daily. Medium got a leg upside his head one day. The homestead is a bit more relaxed now.

Even though the weather is cooler, we are still in drought. No rain in the forecast anytime soon. I do hope my Texas friends are all out of the wildfire's path.

6 comments:

Kelly said...

It sounds like you had a busy holiday weekend. Sorry that the turkeys kept attacking Small. At least he is safe and you have food in the freezer. Great job!

HermitJim said...

Sounds like some healthy birds there! Nothing like some good ol' home grown meat to liven up a meal!

Dang, all this talk about fresh food and veggies makes me hungry!

Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Carolyn said...

What breed of turkey did you raise & how long until butchering? We'd really like to raise a few turkey for Thanksgiving & Christmas next year (as the DNR is still not letting us hunt the wild ones because there are "too few").

small farm girl said...

It's soooo much easier when you have help on butchering day. Sounds like you had some big ones! Your veggies sounded good in the dutch oven. I might have to try that.

Bob from Athens said...

Here in East and Central Texas right now almost the only way to get completely away from the fires is to go to West Texas. No rain in sight, the water kind that is, it has been raining ash for a couple of days now. At least most of the small towns around here rely on deep wells for water, so no problems there.

Sandy@American Way Farm said...

We butchered the broiler chickens last weekend - always a yucky job. I do love the short term commitment of broilers though. They're gone almost before I tire of them.

Wish I could send you some of our rain. We've had enough thanks.

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