Thanksgiving Turkey: a short reflection

Turkeys

How time passes quickly—since all the ‘dying’ of autumn, we find ourselves in the ‘birth’ of Spring.  However, before we can get to a description of Spring’s activities, I must finish the story of the turkeys that started when I arrived on the Farm, and the lack of free time mentioned above has kept me from writing more on the turkeys.  Some friends have noted that Thanksgiving (“American Thanksgiving”) has come and gone with no mention of the two, dark days leading to the holiday feast when 95 turkeys were killed and dressed.  I will try to relay some of those days.

Turkeys in a trailer before "processing"

***Warning the photos below contain images of turkey slaughter***

I have mentioned the amount of time I spent caring for the turkeys.  Each day could be marked by the three times of watering and feeding.  It was wonderful to watch turkeys being turkeys and try to create opportunity for each bird to live their lives like turkeys (as opposed to being a mere meat bird being given enough to sustain it in artificial growth). 

From the trailer, turkeys were placed in the killing-cones

As Thanksgiving approached, I prepared for “processing” the birds (“processing” is a euphemistic term used to describe the bloody, smelly, slimy, and rather unpleasant job of slaughtering, eviscerating, and cleaning the turkeys).  I made a ‘to-do’ list and created a ‘things-to-find’ list.  On the second list were such items as “killing-cones,” knives, whetstone, plucker, eviscerating tubs, and sanitizer, among other things.  In a strange way each item helped prepare me for the inevitable—they would not let me drift off to a world where death was not necessary to sustain life—the end of the turkeys was always before me.

The turkey is soaked in hot water to make de-feathering easier.

The members of the Farm community also prepared for the slaughter.  At our morning devotions, we reflected on death, wrote poems, sang songs, talked freely of life, and tried to make a space to mentally prepare for the two days in which we would process 95 turkeys.

De-feathering a turkey with our "plucker"

All too quickly, the turkey-slaughter days arrived.  At the beginning of each day we would thank God the life of each turkey and asked that we would not take life flippantly, then we walked through the entire process from killing cone, to bagged turkey with everyone working that day.  It was hard.  Each person had a different reaction: some were silent, some asked questions, some cried, some walked away. 

Each of the two days was long.  I started at 7:30am and did not finish until about 6:00pm each night.  During these days, those working realized the significance of music to our ability to work a difficult job.   

Eviscerating

 After nearly eleven hours in the processing building, I was exhausted.  Furthermore, since I was in charge of the whole thing, my busyness had kept me from finding the time to express the emotions bound to raising and killing the turkeys; it came out on the first night as I listened to a band called Explosions in the Sky.  That night, I made a playlist for the second day—the music helped keep the work environment positive while we performed difficult work.  In addition to the music, humour arrived on day two; I think it was a way of coping for many (myself included).

Putting a processed turkey into a bag

Some of the people who purchased the turkeys wanted to come out and see the process for themselves.  They came for different reasons, but many felt the need to observe a turkey moving from alive to packaged if they were to eat turkey.  One man brought his family (with two young kids) to witness their turkey being killed, eviscerated, and bagged.

Turkeys in the fridge

The whole experience, for me, was a strange one.  On the one hand I was sad to see the death of the turkeys for which I had been caring; on the other hand, I am glad to know the life of any poultry, including how they are slaughtered and dressed.  I was able to eat some of the turkeys I raised, and I thought they tasked very good.

Because it has been nearly four months since Thanksgiving, the emotions of those days have mellowed.  I often think about eating meat and how much time, energy, and emotion went into it.  When I look in our freezer, I still thank God for the life of the turkeys.