Turkey Day

Seriously, do NOT scroll down if you have any aversion to the reality of how your dinner makes it to your table. While these pictures are funny in a way, I want to take a moment to discuss the seriousness of it all. We raised Turkeys this year, for the express purpose of eating. Their life was heaven-on-earth compared to any Thanksgiving meal you buy in a store. By that I mean that they did what turkeys do; they had room to walk and strut, they ate the lawn (and pooped on the lawn - but man it's looking good now!), they had friends, friendly human contact, and didn't have to breathe their own fecal dust or crawl over dead compadres every day. That said, on to the humor.

Our helpful and sleep-deprived brother-in-law came over to help turn the birds into food. He is a redneck of the best sort, as you can see from the picture. Don't miss our lovely butchering-table; that would be the sideways fridge shot full of bullet holes. EVERYone serious about country living needs one.

He wields that knife so gracefully, does he not? Notice the giant cauldron scalder (ok, it's a livestock trough, but these birds were huge!) for ease of plucking.
Meet the meal: We call him Tom. But then we called all the male turkeys Tom, so don't get too sentimental.

A formidable foe, to be sure. But our man Josh here is not afraid. He studies the art of Turkey Processing from the Masters.

He will lasso him with a string, handily found hanging from the nearby clothesline (which also serves as gallows: One of the important attributes of a successful farming operation is flexibility and multi-use items.).

Ok, impressed yet? I bet you're wondering why the tub was bloody before the turkey got hung up... Well, the hanging turkey was actually the first one we took care of, and then Brave Josh decided to lasso the HANDICAPPED turkey. He was a little nervous about it, to say the truth. But he conquered!
And now, the most important part...The Marinade...
Budweiser Select of course makes the meat extra tender, juicy, tastey, and delicious! You can also use any of the local micro-brews for a nice difference.
After removing the feathers, entrails, etc, it's time for dinner! Well, time to cook it anyway. Check out this 46 lb beauty (disregard the black feather quills in the skin, please).
Actually this was one we butchered a couple weeks later, when we had no freezer space. So it really did go from the backyard to the dinner table. We ate on this thing for 9 days, plus had 2 dinners frozen for later. It was kinda tougher than we're used to, but the flavor was so much better than it's storebought counterparts!
And just to get your mind of the gruesomeness of it all, here are some mutant potatoes to end the post.