We do have turkeys at Wild Turkeys Farms

Many times at the Farmer's Market I'll get the comment "Wild Turkey Farms- the kind you drink or eat?" (insert laugh). Just in case you are unfamiliar there is a Wild Turkey Bourbon.

I also will have at least one person every Farmer's Market ask if our meat is turkey meat. Even though on my sign it says pasture-raised pork & grass-fed beef.

I also occasionally have people ask if we sell wild turkey meat.

So the answers to the questions are as follows:

laugh..."No, not the kind you drink."

"No, we don't sell turkey except at Thanksgiving."

"No, we don't sell wild turkey but we do sell turkeys at Thanksgiving."

Just a reminder we do sell turkeys at Thanksgiving. But in order to sign up for a turkey purchase you must be on our email newsletter list. That is how we release all the details for our Thanksgiving turkeys!

See if you can find the hen in this picture?

She has a nest of eggs she is protecting

She was not happy that I was taking pictures of her.

You can see in this picture that her feathers were ruffled!
I assured her that I was going to make her an Internet sensation!!

More pictures from WTF

Laying hens

Broilers- meat birds




This is Phineus

As you all know every year we have a few lambs that must be bottle-fed . This was Bottle-Fed Baby #3 this year.

Do these sheep have it made or what?

Just relaxing in a nice, cool part of the pasture.

Llama Bean- defender of the farm

Annie- defender of the farm

This was going to be my Happy Father's Day post from Wild Turkey Farms with pictures of all the animals but time got away from me and now it's after Father's Day. So you'll just have to settle for some pictures of the animals for the next couple of days.

Aren't they precious?

Pigs don't sweat so we make them wallows to lay in and cool off on these hot days.

Notice Marty (the goose) in the background.

Baby pigs

Arnold

WTF News- June 10

Wild Turkey Farms News- June 10

Hot and humid are the words of the week. It's been a scorcher around the farm this week but we did manage to get several good showers since yesterday evening. Rosty and I were feeding after the first hard rain came through and it's amazing how within 30 minutes of getting rain everything greens up and looks much better. The hot weather still has our chickens feeling the egg laying blues so we'll be short on eggs again this week- come early!!!

Come by and check out this week's grilling special- The WTF/ Red Barn K-Bob Pack!!! We've teamed up with our friends at Correll Farms to offer a quick and ready kabob kit. Kit includes a basket of kabob sized veggies (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, and onions) from Correll Farms teamed up with your choice of a pasture raised WTF boneless chicken breast, a pack of our 100% grassfed beef kabobs, or a delicious WTF pork shoulder steak.

Davidson Farmers Market (8am-noon)- Come find us in the town hall parking lot and stock up on our delicious pork, beef, chicken, and eggs.

Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow. 7am-noon So come stock up. To make sure you get what you want, send us an email & she'll have it ready to pick up.




We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.
Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte
Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM
Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain
Know Your Farms Buying Club- Davidson/Charlotte
Bread Riot Coop- Salisbury


Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove, NC

Garden Peas & New Toys

One of Lee's favorite vegetables are garden peas. Me not so much but we decided this year to plant some garden peas. If you haven't picked peas in awhile my suggestion is to take 2- 5 gallon buckets- one to put the peas in & one to sit on! It is definitely back-breaking work.

We also enlisted the help of the boys. Charlie ate 95% of what he picked & Rosty was more interested in digging in the dirt than helping to pick garden peas. I told them no pick no eat. Of course, they know that is not true;-)

I really do not mind shelling peas or beans of any kind. I have a lot of memories of shelling butter beans as a little girl. For those of you not familiar with butter beans they are similar to Lima beans. I was surprised when I moved here not to find butter beans......but the past 2 years they have been showing up at the Farmer's Market in the fall.

Here are some of the peas .

They had already been blanched & were waiting to be bagged up & vacuumed packed.

This is Lee's latest toy.

If you have purchased chicken from us in the past 2 weeks, I hope you have noticed our fancy new packaging. We have really enjoyed the vacuum packer for not only chicken but......


vegetables also.


We froze 30 bags of broccoli & 20 bags of peas. The Menius family will have a couple of other green vegetables to eat this winter.....I think the family got tired of collards & green beans every week last year.

Crowder Aggies

One of my favorite things about the farm is when we have people who are truly interested in what we do & want to learn more about us and our farm.

Throughout the years we have gone to preschools, elementary schools & colleges to speak about the farm & our sustainable agriculture practices. I have a standing date at a preschool in Kannapolis every November to talk to the kids about turkeys & show them a PowerPoint presentation of farm animals. We have gone to our kids schools with bees (in an observation hive), our scrapbook with pictures of the animals (no live animals allowed in school) & this year Lee talked to Rosty's class on Earth Day about composting.

We had a group from Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri come to visit the farm a few weeks back. They were a group of Instructors & Students who were on a 2 week Agricultural Travel Seminar. Every year they choose a part of the U.S to travel to and visit various kinds of agriculture. Their majors varied from pre-vet, animal science & ag-business (I'm sure there were other too) . They made stops in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina & North Carolina. They saw wineries, horse farms, a grist mill, Farmer's Markets and more.

We got to spend about 2 hours talking to them and answering questions. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures and really did not get to spend a lot of time talking to them personally. They were headed to another local farm Mary L Farm, which is an organic dairy in rowan County. We were able to pass out our famous WTF stickers......which I heard ended up on the back of one of the Crowder College vans they were driving & we even had "farm prizes" of some WTF t-shirts.

We hope that the Crowder College group enjoyed visiting with us as much as we enjoyed having them. Like I told them before they left they are always welcome back to visit if they are ever in North Carolina again!

WTF News- June 3

Wild Turkey Farms News- June 3
Been a hot busy week & it's near midnight so please forgive me for the short newsletter.

If everything continues as planned we'll pick up our order of smoked pork and have it Saturday at the markets. Suburban hams, smoked chops, smoked bacon, breakfast links, smoked polish, and New Smoked Andouillee.

Come by and stock up.


Pepperoni chubs are back!!!! We've got a batch of Sweet Sopressata Salami chubs to go with them. If you like the pepperoni then you'll love the salami.


Davidson Farmers Market (8am-noon)- Come find us in the town hall parking lot and stock up on our delicious pork, beef, chicken, and eggs.

Domisty will be back at the Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow. 7am-noon So come stock up. To make sure you get what you want, send us an email & she'll have it ready to pick up.


We will Not be at the Mecklenburg Farmers Market



We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.
Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte
Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM
Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain
Know Your Farms Buying Club- Davidson/Charlotte
Bread Riot Coop- Salisbury
Carpe Diem Restaurant- Charlotte


Thanks for your support, have a great weekend, and we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove, NC

Bread & Butter Pickles

One of my favorite vegetables...cucumbers.

Lee does not really care for cucumbers so I can usually have all the cucumbers I want. In the summer I usually cut them up & bring them to work as a snack. I love to slice cucumbers & soak them in vinegar, eat them with hummus or as a snack this week-end I crumbled Feta Cheese (from the Davidson Farmer's Market) over sliced cucumbers.

A couple of years ago I decided to try my hand at dill pickles because I also LOVE dill pickles. My first time making pickles actually went really good, the pickles were really "dilly" the problem was that they were not crisp they were mushy. After talking to some "old-time" canners & reading the troubleshooting tips in my Ball Canning Book I think I figured out my problem.

I wasn't going to let that experience stop me!

Since I had cucumbers but no fresh dill I decided to try Bread & Butter Pickles.

I searched through my pickling book and found Bread & Butters My Way.

I had all the ingredients that I needed.

Vinegar, Pickling Salt, Red Pepper Flakes, Yellow Mustard Sees, Celery Seed & Turmeric

I sliced the cucumbers & tossed them with the pickling salt then let them sit for 3 hours.

The pickles are processed in a water bath canner. So I had to prepare the jars, bands, & lids. One very important thing that I did not do was to inspect my canning jars. I reuse my jars so after I empty a jar out I wash it in the dishwasher & store them in plastic Rubbermaid containers.

While getting all the ingredients (pictured above) boiling on the stove, I was also getting the water bath canner water boiling & sterilized the jars again and placed them in a warm oven until I am ready to put the pickles in them.

I get the first jar ready & place it in the canner. I heard a "clink" but just thought the jar had shifted in the wire basket. I prepare the next 2 jars and place them in the canner when I realize that there are mustard seeds floating in the canner. At first, I think that I probably did not wipe the jars off but then I realize that there are several mustard seeds floating. You guessed it....my first jar had broke. It was a very clean break the top separated from the bottom. No shards, not really a lot of mess to clean up.

I got the 2 pieces of glass out, then I fished out all the cucumber slices (which I had to throw away), & drained the water, then I had to start all over again. I did FINALLY complete the process but the pickles have to sit for 3 weeks before we can try them.

The finished product

My Adventures in Pickling

The Joy of Pickling

If you keep up with the blog you know for Mother's Day I got a Pickling Cookbook. You also know that I don't like things to go to waste (which unfortunately does happen sometimes). So, whenever I get a chance to preserve vegetables & fruits whether it be canning, freezing or dehydrating I'm all for it.

I'm very fortunate to have a husband who likes to have a garden every year. He starts getting seed catalogs in the winter & is in the greenhouse planting seeds in February. We also have some friends who are willing to share their bounty too.

Over the next few days I'm going to share some recipes that I have tried the past few weeks. Pickled Kohlrabi, Pink Pickled Turnips, Sweet Pickled Daikon, Bread & Butters My Way......is your mouth watering?

Most of the recipes require storing the jars in a cool, dry, dark place for several days to several weeks. So far we have eaten some of the Pickled Kohlrabi & it was pretty tasty. Tonight we can have some of the Pickled Sweet Daikon so look for an update on that tomorrow.

I was able to get several bundles of Daikon at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, WTF did not grow Daikon this year. Daikon is a Japanese white radish, it looks like a big white carrot. Daikon is not something I have cooked with but it is used in a lot of oriental type recipes & if I don't know how to use a vegetable I always put in in stir-fry!

Daikon

I chose the Sweet Pickled Daikon recipe (Page 123 in The Joy Of Pickling). I love the description in the cookbook, "The strong, rather foul odor of this Japanese pickle makes it especially fun to serve to friends. It taste much, much better than it smells."

Pickling Ingredients- rice vinegar, sugar & pickling salt


The recipe calls for the Daikon to be dried in the sun until limp (3-4 days) but it was noted by the author that this step can be skipped. Sun-drying is suppose to preserve the Daikon longer. I opted to skip this step.


Soon-to-Be Pickled Daikon


This recipe went good...no mishaps. But stay-tuned........


*****UPDATE******

We tried the Sweet Pickled Daikon...there is nothing sweet about it! There was a foul odor & it definitely left an aftertaste. To quote Lee, "yuck!"

It's definitely a conversation food........