Sunday, December 6, 2009

Turkey Butchering Day, Thanksgiving and Remodeling!

This is a very long post with lots of pictures so if you're just interested in the turkey butchering go straight to the bottom.
And we absolutely did not butcher the tom you see here, even though his whole goal in life is to attack me. At least he has something to live for.

Thanksgiving was really nice this year. Actually it's been nice every year of my life except maybe last year wasn't so nice what with my mom just getting out of the hospital the night before and my sister, Amy living in Georgia (she is home now).

I used this bottle of $3.98 wine for basting my turkey, the bottle was the prettiest of all the wines.

I cleaned a couple of pie pumpkins and roasted the seeds. I found a recipe that calls for you to boil them for 15 minutes before you bake them with a little oil and salt, very good! Usually I don't like roasted pumpkin seeds but it seems that boiling them first causes the shell to soften slightly making them much crunchier after baking.




I ended up giving these to my chickens to eat. As I was taking them out of the oven my sister told me that my mom bought pies and I was so busy with everything else that I figured the chickens and turkeys would love them. I have another one that I'll cook up maybe for Christmas.




I had no twine to tie up my turkey and after searching all over the house I finally found this light pull string, I cut off the metal tab things and it worked just fine.





I figured it was a much better choice than this stuff, it might have weird stuff in it.



My turkey basting supplies, butter and the wine in the other picture. I always roast my turkeys the Martha Stewart's Turkey 101 way. Always delicious, never dry. Covering it with cheesecloth and basting every half hour with the wine and butter is the best.





All stuffed up and ready for the cheesecloth. Check out my helper in the background.





Complete and ready for the oven. It was still dark outside when I took these pictures because I had a 27 pound turkey that had to be ready by 3:00 pm.




This is about four hours into it. The cheesecloth really protects the skin from over browning before the rest gets done.





Time to remove the cheese cloth and look how nice it is.







Another hour in the oven and it was perfect.





Yummy! Do you think my plate's full enough? I ate it all too.






He waited patiently for a bite, he got one too.



Kevin got an early Christmas gift from Tom. An awesome knife engraved with his initials.
Unfortunately, he didn't get a deer yet so he hasn't tried it out.





I collected dill that was growing at my back door and decided to dry it in case I need it for early pickles. I'm going to try to get some started early enough this spring so I will have fresh though. I couldn't find any last year until later in the summer. I'm going to try and grow some in a hoop house or something, maybe even a cold frame?



This was the motivation for my week of remodeling. I had scheduled half a week off after Thanksgiving when Kevin is off for gun week. He spent most of the week down south in a cabin so with the house empty I seem to get a lot done.





First, I painted the doors for my lower cupboards and hung them up.







I also laid down some tiles that were needed because when we took out the pantry there were spots that had the old tile under it. Plus I put down a wood border that replaced the old silver border that you can see in the picture above.





Here's the floor with the new tile and border. It still needs some finishing work but it looks way better that before. (Amy, call me and let me know how you think it looks. )





Now, back to the reason for some of my work. All of the walls in the living area used to be this awful paneling. We eventually want to drywall but I had nowhere to hang my new decoration so I convinced Kevin to let me paint. He wanted me to wait until we drywalled but who knows when that will be and I needed to hang up my new decoration. It could be years.





Everything was so dark and dreary and dirty looking.





First I primed. (Actually, first I filled all the holes and sanded and sanded!)







There was a really high spot and I had no ladder.





So I improvised and stood on this stool on top of another stool, very lucky I didn't fall. When I put on the paint I taped a paint brush onto a extension pole and used that, it worked but if you get up close it might look bad.






Lookin' better!




Much better.





Then I decided to go after the wall on the other side of the house.








I want to get new curtains now. Maybe just plain ones like you'll see in the picture of the sliding glass door. Soon I'll trim around the windows.






I also put down this carpet in the laundry room. The floor was terrible with mismatched tiles.




I then trimmed out the area over the sliding glass door and hung the curtains, not perfect but so much better!






This picture looks a little better. I really like these simple tab curtains and will hopefully get some for the other side of the room.


Turkey Butchering


Yep, it's you!


We normally use killing cones but they were not big enough so Kevin resorted to using feed sacks, worked pretty good too. You can see him in the background, he hung the bag with the turkey in it, cut them and they stayed really calm, slowly going to sleep. That's me and my MIL Kaye in the foreground.

Then the birds went into the scalder, they barely fit they were so huge.



That's Kevin and his dad, Mike running the plucker. It was so nice to have their help for the day.




The plucker was the best investment we ever made.







More scalding.




More plucking.






Kaye and I working on getting the guts out. First getting the crop loose.


Then getting the back end loose and ready to slide out.






All out and trimming the gallbladder from the liver.





Kaye's removing the lungs and I'm trimming the heart maybe or something.



There's the gizzard.




Cutting it open to clean all the stuff out and remove the lining.






All done, this one weighed 27 pounds and it was the one we had for our Thanksgiving dinner.



Our photographer for the day was my niece Stephanie. It was her first butchering experience and she took lots of pictures. The next picture that she took was a little unusual but I thought I'd include it as a fitting ending to the day. It was how we all felt after lugging around 27 pound turkeys.


Til next time,
Beth


6 comments:

small farm girl said...

I painted my old "wood" panaling too! Your's looks so much better.A lot lighter.

That turkey was huge! I loved the picture of the head. Very funny.

Take care.

sfg

Kelle at The Never Done Farm said...

Beth,
You are one busy, energetic lady! I'm still trying to get the mudding and taping done in our mud/laundry room.

I had a friend who had dark paneling and she too painted it, but for a more rustic look she glues jute rope into the seams for the paneling and then painted, even the rope. It gave it texture and was very rustic looking.


Looks like butchering day went well. Ours went smooth as well. I think out tom was 26lbs and the hens were approx. 11.5 or a bit less each. The biggest tom we ever butcher was 32lbs. He was BIG and very tender!

Have a great week!
Kelle

The Unusual Farmchick said...

I know what you mean about the dark feeling in there. We had the same paneling in our living room-2 different kinds plus one wall was drywall. What a mismatched mess. I have never been a fan of paneling. Maybe it's because growing up in FLA we always lived in old trailers which had that dark cheap paneling.Painting the paneling is such hard work in comparison to dry wall. Takes more detailing thanks toe indented ribs. (I filled everyone of those in my kitchen and dining room with dry wall repair then sanded them smooth before painting. Which is why the living room did not get that treatment. It took 3 weeks of work to get the 2 rooms done and together are the size of our living room!)
You did a fantastic job! The flooring and trim look excellent!
The last pic may be odd but it is an excellent shot. I like it! Looks like something Panda would have done.
I am going to go into the A.H groupto email you. Ya might need an address to find this place. :)

Anonymous said...

Good day !.
You re, I guess , perhaps very interested to know how one can collect a huge starting capital .
There is no initial capital needed You may begin earning with as small sum of money as 20-100 dollars.

AimTrust is what you need
The company incorporates an offshore structure with advanced asset management technologies in production and delivery of pipes for oil and gas.

It is based in Panama with affiliates around the world.
Do you want to become an affluent person?
That`s your chance That`s what you desire!

I`m happy and lucky, I started to get real money with the help of this company,
and I invite you to do the same. It`s all about how to choose a proper companion who uses your funds in a right way - that`s AimTrust!.
I make 2G daily, and my first deposit was 1 grand only!
It`s easy to start , just click this link http://ajinilam.arcadepages.com/kivexa.html
and go! Let`s take our chance together to become rich

Omelay said...

hello, i am commenting to request a bit more time for my pay-it-forward that you signed up for last january.
http://omelays.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-seems-like-fun-idea.html

also would you please send me your mailing address. i hope to get to this after the holidays but am hoping for a grace period of an extra month.

karl
omelay(at)gmail(dot)com

Anonymous said...

Cool story as for me. It would be great to read a bit more about this topic. Thnx for sharing that information.
Sexy Lady
A Level London Escorts