Happy Thanksgiving

To say that November is a busy time of the year for us is an understatement!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving is a very long day for us.....this year it was a 16.5 hour day. The day started at 6 am (we slept in). Lee headed to the farm & I got the boys to school. By the time I got back to the farm our volunteers were there, the turkeys were caught and we were ready to start processing.

Since some of our volunteers had never processed poultry we ran through the game plan with everyone. It really does work well if everyone has a specific job. We had someone killing the turkeys, then they went to the scalder (this helps to loosen their feathers), next the plucker (where the feathers are removed) and finally to the tables to be eviscerated. Lee & I supervised & helped out as needed but our job was to take the turkeys weigh them, tag them & get them into their ice baths.

The time went by quickly & then customers started arriving at the farm to pick-up their turkeys. I didn't even have time to change clothes....... We learn something every year that we can use to improve upon the next year. This years lesson was to label the coolers & freezers with which turkeys are in them. Then maybe we don't have to look through 5 coolers to find turkey #22.

Then came the task of assigning everyone a turkey. I had about 6 sheets of paper that we had written the turkey number & weight on. I compiled them onto one sheet of paper and then took our spreadsheet of all the customers which included name, phone number, where the turkey would be picked up at, & if they had requested a larger or smaller bird. After assigning everyone their bird it was time to package them up & load the market trailer to start our drop-offs.

Did I mention that by this time it was around 6 o'clock in the evening and we had eaten a slice of pumpkin bread & coffee at about 9 o'clock that morning and a handful of chips for lunch.

Our first drop-off was Davidson Town Hall. Of course no matter what time we say we will be there we are late. This year the traffic was AWFUL!! We had a couple different people call and ask where we were and I told them we would be there soon.... We also had a few customers call us and say there is no way I can get there. This put us late getting to our Salisbury drop-off also but I had called a customer to say what everybody know please.

So once again the Thanksgiving season has ended for Wild Turkey Farms.

We are very thankful for our customers who continue to support us year after year. We are very thankful for the volunteers that we have year after year. I actually had a couple volunteer to help next year with the logistics of the turkeys so maybe we can find them a little easier next year.

I included a few pictures of our day.

There will be more posted on the Facebook page.

Turkeys

Scalder

Plucker

WTF News- November 19, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms News- November 19, 2010

Where has the year gone? It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week and as I write this Charlie is by my side coaching me on how to sing "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". We've finally traded 90 degree days for frosty mornings and the true sign that the year is about used up is when next years seed catalogs start appearing in the mailbox. As we prepare to gather with family & friends next week it gets me to thinking about a few of the things that I'll be thankful for come next Thursday;
Domisty- she puts up with a lot from Rosty, Charlie, and occasionally myself
That we're done with turkeys for the year- they are off our payroll & on your tables.
For everyone that has helped make our markets, open houses, farm tours, etc a great success this year.
Everyone that has made this a wonderful year for us. We are really honored that you chose to support us and feed our products to your friends & families.
Bacon. Who wouldn't be thankful for bacon???? Especially when we just picked up a batch this week and will have it at the markets Saturday to make everyone happy. We'll also have our suburban ham slices too.


Davidson Farmer's Market (9am-noon). We're in the Town Hall parking lot as usual so come stock up.

Domisty will be at the Salisbury Farmers Winter Market tomorrow so come find us under the big green tent 10am-noon so come on out and load up. Email your order in by Friday afternoon to make sure you get what you need for Thanksgiving week.

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.
Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain
Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM
Hippie Kitchen Bakery- Huntersville / DFM
Know Your Farms Buying Club- Davidson/Charlotte
Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte
Flat Iron Grill- Davidson


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

Wild Turkey Farms- October 29, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms News- Oct 29, 2010

Turkeys Are Sold Out For This Year Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm for our turkeys this year. We set a record (for us anyway) by selling out in just 5 hours. We've been busy contacting everyone we know to help locate turkeys for those that missed out but I'm sorry to report that everyone around the state I know is also out of birds. Hopefully next year will be better.

Farm story of the week- Amado the gypsy.
Amado is our 2400lb black Angus bull, or to be perfectly truthful, partly our bull- we're still making payments on him. The other afternoon about 4pm our neighbor stopped by for a visit. Now for those of you that have been on our email long enough you'll remember him from the the great pig round up a couple months back. Our conversation started as usual:

him- "staying busy?"
me-" plenty busy so far. You?"
him- Not too bad. You missing a _____(fill in the blank w/ bull, pigs, goats, llama, etc)
me- "Guess so since your here. I'll go round em up shortly, thanks for the warning."
him- "Call if you need any help."
me- "thanks"

So this time it appeared that Amado had become smitten with a couple of his cows and thought he'd go visit. The neighbor's bull didn't take quite so kindly to a stranger trying to steal his gals. Lucky for everyone involved we keep a good electric fence between us which means they just paw at the ground, bellow, and snort at each other. Even though he got out, Amado had jumped the fence into another pasture & was still separated from the other bull. After reviewing our fence line & determining that he must have sprouted wings & cleared the fence since there were no holes, I hooked the truck up to the trailer & set off to evaluate the setup at the neighbors house. Did I mention I had Rosty & Charlie in tow & I'd plowed my cell phone into the garden on Sunday so I'm without communication too. After developing a game plan, the boys and I made a couple attempts at driving Amado up to the corral! without any luck because he wouldn't go anywhere that his 25 new girlfriends and their grumpy boyfriend weren't (and just for the record before anyone forwards this to DSS, I didn't actually have the boys in the pasture with the bull- they we're 2 fences over & way out of the way). About dark our neighbor showed up with his tractor & a bale of hay to lead all of the cows up to the corral. He told Rosty & Charlie to come ride with him in his tractor which has features that they've never knew existed such as an enclosed cab, AC, a radio, and Charlie's favorite, a horn- beep beep. Long story short-we got them to the barn in the dark, the lights in the barn didn't work but we still managed to sort through 40 solid black cows & calves in a dark barn to separate Amado out & get him loaded on the trailer for the ride home. I'm happy to report that Amado is safe & sound a home, or at least he was this afternoon. ! ; The boys and I are busy being really good and hoping that Santa Clause will bring us a cab tractor with AC, a radio, and a horn for Christmas. Domisty keeps telling us that it wouldn't fit in his sleigh and besides, the three of us haven't been THAT GOOD this year anyway. Oh well, maybe next year.


Have a Safe & Happy Halloween Everyone!!!

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Know Your Farms farm tour

We participated again this year in the 2nd Annual Know Your Farms farm tour. We learned a lot last year doing the tour for the first time and hoped that we could make this year even better. In a lot of ways we did just that! This year we has food available for sale that way you could enjoy a WTF hot dog or brat. We also had friends, family and customers volunteer in all aspects that left me free to roam around and answer any questions while Lee was giving tours on the hayride.

The one thing that was lacking (and it was my fault) is that once again I did not get many pictures. So here are the few that I took before anybody was even at the farm.

Our sign

The info table






The Super-A tractor







The rules

WTF News- october 15, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms News- Oct 15, 2010

With the fall weather finally kicking in every one's local food thoughts turn to the Thanksgiving meal. So with turkey time just around the corner, here are the details on our turkeys. We'll do preorders for our turkeys starting in about a week.

Here's how things go:
1.Last years turkey customers get the first right of refusal for birds usually in early October. We're currently confirming with them.

2. Then we will announce the remainder of the turkeys later next week (hint, hint)
anyone interested replies and orders are taken on a first come basis .

3. Once confirmed you have 1 week to mail a $20 deposit to hold your turkey.

4. Turkeys are processed on the Tuesday before thanksgiving and can be picked up at the farm that afternoon or at one of our drop sites that evening and the balance is due at pick up.


Davidson Farmer's Market (8am-noon). We're in the Town Hall parking lot working out of our big white trailer so come by and see us.

We'll be at the Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow (Last day of the regular season market) so come find us under the big green tent 7am-noon so come on out and load up.

Winter product availability- We Will be participating in the Davidson Winter Market starting in Nov. We have not decided on when we will participate in the Salisbury Farmers Market winter market but will keep you posted.




We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.
Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain
Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM
Hippie Kitchen Bakery- Huntersville / DFM
Know Your Farms Buying Club- Davidson/Charlotte
Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte
Four Friends Brewing- 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
704-202-9348


Website update- We are back up & going. Actually you should be redirected to our blog when you go to www.wildturkeyfarms.com If you are still having trouble accessing it please let us know.

Please feel free to forward our emails to anyone that may be interested and they can email us at wildturkey_farms@yahoo.com to join but before you forward out you may want to delete the "manage your subscription" tag at the bottom of this newsletter. If you forward this out, the receiver or anyone the receiver sends it to can remove you from our list and we cannot add you back on. You may not even get a message that you've quit.

WTF News- october 8, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms News- Oct 8, 2010

Been another busy week around here. Everything (including me) is enjoying the cooler temps. Hopefully the frost will hold off for a while so the grass has a chance to grow some. That hot spell in Sept really put a hurt'n on the fall grazing but we'll make do one way of the other. Turkeys are plugging right along but with all the bad luck this year's supply will be tight. Stay tuned for more details on how to get your name on one.

We will NOT be at the China Grove Farmers Market. Got to make a run to the processor's this afternoon so we'll be restocked on our great tasting pork & beef so unfortunately we'll miss out today.

Davidson Farmer's Market (8am-noon). We're in the Town Hall parking lot working out of our big white trailer so come by and see us.

We'll be at the Salisbury Farmers Market tomorrow so come find us under the big green tent 7am-noon so come on out and load up.

We hope that you'll support some of the chefs & businesses that support us & other local farmers.
Black Mountain Farmers Market- Black Mountain
Chef Charles Catering - Charlotte/ DFM
Hippie Kitchen Bakery- Huntersville / DFM
Know Your Farms Buying Club- Davidson/Charlotte
Customshop Restaurant- Charlotte
Watts Grocery- Durham
Sage & Swift Catering- Durham
Four Friends Brewing- 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
704-202-9348


Website update- We are back up & going. Actually you should be redirected to our blog when you go to www.wildturkeyfarms.com If you are still having trouble accessing it please let us know.

Please feel free to forward our emails to anyone that may be interested and they can email us at wildturkey_farms@yahoo.com to join but before you forward out you may want to delete the "manage your subscription" tag at the bottom of this newsletter. If you forward this out, the receiver or anyone the receiver sends it to can remove you from our list and we cannot add you back on. You may not even get a message that you've quit.