The Tale of the Turkey

Two hands clutched around the hatchet, I eyed the fifty pound turkey splayed out on my counter, freshly plucked and gutted three days ago.  Our sweet turkey, the one we’d raised since he was a week old, the one who hobbled after us, gobbling “hrrrgghhrooo.”  Translation:  Feed me, feed me! 

And now, there I was, knuckles white, trying to figure out the best place to strike, so it would fit inside the oven, and once cooked,  could “hrrrgghhrooo” me.  When you swing an ax, you definitely don’t want to flinch and look away as you bring it down, like you’re praying it won’t accidentally miss and hit you in the nether region.   I have a bad habit of closing my eyes each time someone tosses a football at me, so I have to make a greater effort than most to keep my eyes open when swinging an ax.

With one deep breath, I brought the blade down, with what I thought was a pretty hefty swing.  Nope, hardly dented the thing.  All that first swing accomplished was to cause my turkey to slide off the cutting board and onto the counter.  Again and again the blade came down, sometimes in the same spot, but for the most part somewhere nearby, until eventually, the bone gave up, and splintered.   Turkey juice sprayed my face, and the turkey itself…mutilated is the only word to describe the horrific scene.  It’s about this time that I wondered…how the hell did I become such a heathen? 

Seven years ago, if someone had told me I would be living the country life, canning, raising chickens, running away from roosters, chasing after roosters with a stick shaped like a baseball bat, butchering and eating these same birds,  chasing the goats out of the chicken coop, trying to figure out how not to get gored by a gigantic bull elk, and getting a phone call from the neighbor informing me that a bear is on the way to our front steps, I would have laughed, or gagged, or both.  I didn’t believe in hunting, and I certainly would never have imagined myself capable of gutting a chicken, let alone trying to figure out a way to fit the world’s largest turkey into my oven, but there you have it. 

You see, the day we butchered him, I went out and bought a couple of turkey sized oven bags.  When I opened it up, I realized that while they say “turkey bag”, what they really mean is, “Only for puny Cornish hen turkeys, not for freakishly mutated giant turkeys .”   Of course Jeremy (my husband), convinced that we could fit the mutated giant turkey into the Cornish hen bag, shoved it inside.  And…it did fit.  For about two seconds, because as soon as I picked it up, the thing broke free, and slid across the floor.  Oh joy.

So, the morning before I took an ax to the turkey, I had a nice chat with my neighborhood Safeway butcher, in the hope that he could enlighten me as to how to fit the damn bird into my oven.   When I told him the size, he laughed.   Once he composed himself, he looked at me and said, “Oh you’re serious.  Ummm…how the hell did you get a fifty pound turkey?”  Yep.  He was super helpful. 

And then, back home again, dejected, staring at the damn bird, I called Mom.  “Why don’t you use a hatchet?”  She said. 

This time, it was me laughing.  “No way!  I’ll use my knife.”

Yeah, right!  It didn’t take long for me to realize that the knife just wasn’t going to cut it…no pun intended.  Actually, it damn near broke my knife.  So, to the hatchet I turned.

Once finished, I froze half of the turkey meat, and put the remaining half in a turkey bag…which it now fit into.  We ate it the night before Thanksgiving, and do you know what?  It tasted fantastic! 

Still, for the first time in my life, I am left with the question.  How the hell did I get here?  How did I go from wimpy little girl to bad ass turkey slayer?  Perhaps Jeremy put it best when he said, “ When you met me, your life course was forever altered.”