from poult to platter

These are Julia's 4-H turkeys, taken sometime in August when they were just a few weeks old. Three are hers; the rest belong to other 4H-ers.









Here they are about three months old, early November.













On Monday, November 23, we loaded the turkeys up and took them to the butcher. (Well, some of the 4H-ers took them. We didn't want to watch the butchering.)









We picked the turkeys up and delivered Julia's sponsors' turkeys Tuesday evening. We brined ours Wednesday and cooked it in the rotisserie. OMG! It was the absolute best turkey I've ever eaten!


Happy Thanksgiving!

remember my compost pile pumpkin?

Stupid deer.

end of season

Went back out to the farmhouse yesterday to get the last 107 bulbs planted. I know, what an odd number... I had 100 of my little shade bulbs left, and the guys just could not get those last 7 daffodils bulbs planted last week. "We were just so tired!" I learned that they are both very different from me: I don't care how tired I might be or how dark it is...I would never stop with only 7 out of 200 bulbs left!

Total bulbs planted this fall: 454. We've barely left summer and I cannot wait until spring!

We also decided to pick everything that was left in the garden, since we'll probably get a killing frost before our next trip out. We cut off all the fall lettuce plants, picked all the green peppers, dug up all the carrots, and snipped a bunch of herbs -- parsley, cilantro, and dill (left some of the herbs in case they can go to seed for us). Oh, also pulled the scallion. Yes, I said scallion. We got one. And it's thinner than a pencil. sigh. The only things left are a few turnips.

We were pleasantly surprised to find 3 watermelons hiding in the tall grass! Haven't tasted them yet, but I'm hopeful.

More things to remember for next year:

• If I decide to plant cucumbers again (which I do plan on), I will start my dill very early. It's kind of a drag that the dill came in after the cucumber plants had finished.
• I need to plant way more cilantro.
• I'd like to plant more carrots, too. Wish it weren't so much work to prepare the soil for carrots. Maybe we'll try raised beds next year.
  
• Lettuce is a very easy fall crop.
• Watermelons need to be started much, much earlier. And probably fed a lot, too.
• Sweet potatoes need to be covered with chicken wire. It seems that bunnies like sweet potato leaves almost as much as bean plants. (Didn't get any sweet potatoes this year.) I've never grown sweet potatoes before...I guess technically I still haven't.