Happy Thanksgiving!!

Our Thanksgiving festivities began last night when all of my family came over to witness the turkey being killed. We decided to kill both toms but only made it to one last night as it got too dark. The second one was killed this morning. All the photos were taken last night.

Yesterday we had both of my sisters and all of their kids over, Charlie and his Uncle Bull, my neighbor's family and one of his out of town relatives. As soon as we got everything ready to go and Kelvin went to get the turkey, it began pouring down rain! Everyone went running for cover and the poor bird was given another 20 minutes to live. After the rain died down we all went back out to say our good byes.

Kelvin did the deed by getting in the pen with Tom and tackling him. He sat on his back and cut his throat. We all stood on the outside and said, "EWWWW!!"

After all was said and done, the first bird weighed in at just over 28 pounds. The second bird weighed in at a whopping 34 pounds!! I had a hard time fitting the first one in the oven. The second one is in the fryer. Can you say leftovers? That is a total of 62 pounds of meat today! Yikes!!

The picture of Amanda has a funny story. We had been telling her that whoever kills the turkey needs to wear a special hat like the indians. I asked her to make the hat and she did then she took it out to Kelvin. Kelvin said, "Let's see how it looks on you." After she put it on we stood there looking at her and it finally dawned on her that if she is wearing the hat she needs to kill the turkey. The picture is of her ripping the hat off her head so she wouldn't have to kill the turkey.

Before we do this again we are going to do a taste test to see if farm raised turkey does indeed taste better than store bought frozen turkey. We'll see later this afternoon. It has been fun raising them though- that part was fun.

p.s. Brittany- We tried giving the turkeys wine beforehand so they wouldn't feel the pain like you suggested but they wouldn't drink it. I must have bought the wrong kind. Maybe it is merlot that they like, not chardonnay! hahaha