True Home by Anny Scoones

Author:Anny Scoones
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926741-77-2
Publisher: Touchwood Editions
Published: 2011-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

white turkeys

It’s been a few years since I raised Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. Every spring I bought the little white chicks and raised them all summer on grain, blackberries, and apples, which made them juicy, plump, and tender. They were easy to raise and didn’t ask for much. They had a pen and a water dish, and they were always kind, and above all else, more than any other creature on Glamorgan Farm, they always were genuinely pleased and interested to see me, even if I didn’t have food; they’d hurry briskly to the fence on their sturdy legs, bowed due to their heavy breasts, as I passed, their pink heads tilted in curiosity, gobbling in excitement.

The turkey chicks were flown in from a breeder in Alberta. They were a white hybrid variety, artificially inseminated on a mass scale, and genetically modified to gain weight quickly and to develop a large breast. The traditional heritage breeds are available only south of the border and it’s difficult to import them—breeds such as Wild Rio Grande, Blue Slate, and Royal Palm.

So I had to settle for the white hybrids, also known to lack intelligence—that gene has been bred out of them. When it rained they didn’t connect that they could have shelter in their warm house, and would stand outside and shiver, their red legs trembling, and huddle together as the wind swept their thin feathers backwards, exposing the bluish-pink tinge of their soft skin. I had to herd them inside, which always took a long time because one unfocused turkey would inevitability stray sideways and run awkwardly down the lane. “Stupid, stupid turkeys,” I cursed, but I also remembered that they were almost an artificial creation of mankind’s, and after a martini in a calm and contented moment by the fire, I became rather sympathetic to the turkeys and likened them to the created creature in Frankenstein. He was a product of man and suffered for it, because, like the turkeys, he looked to man to help him, to keep him safe, since man was his “god,” his creator.

Later I ended up with three turkeys. The two gentle females would rest their warm heads against my knee when I offered them an apple and make an affectionate gurgling sound in a rather helpless way. The big male, despite being a genetic creation, tried to assert his manhood by standing next to the females, as if he were their grand protector. Whenever he took on this role, his head of wattles became wonderful shades of scarlet and cobalt blue and he strutted around his girls slowly, his sad little fan of tail feathers spread out to impress us.

Perhaps it was a little piece of Mother Nature’s interference that saved these three dumb, sweet turkeys from the abattoir—I was just too tired at the proper time to load them into the van and drive them up-island to the Farmhouse, and after Thanksgiving passed, it was too late. Thus, Glamorgan Farm now has three huge adult turkeys who all weigh well over sixty pounds, far too large for any oven anyway.

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