28 Nov Grateful for our Harvest

As we winterize our gardens and prepare our kitchens for the holidays, a lot of us have been investigating how we can locally source our feast’s ingredients.  Here at the farm we have been preserving and processing our fruits and vegetables for storage through the winter.  There is a massive bounty to say the least.  Whether you grow it yourself or do your best to buy local, it all makes a difference, and let’s face it, it’s much more fulfilling and inspiring to cook your own, or  locally bought food, rather than using a can that came from… somewhere?

We grow many things. Including turkeys. This is not the first time that NW Bloom has raised turkeys -learn more about raising your own, use the links on this site and visiting the Mother Earth News website.

Here on the farm, from the moment the seeds go into the soil and the baby ducks and turkeys show up, everything receives the best care that we can offer.  The turkey that will be on the table here and those in a few of our friends’ homes were raised from chicks that got to bond with the other farm animals, occasionally believed themselves to be ducks, and had pretty much free range of the farm.  When feeding times came they would follow like a gaggle of children behind their teacher at school, waddling as quickly as they could behind us to keep up.  They knew they were loved and they lived fantastic turkey lives.

Not only will these turkeys provide us with  nourishment, but they have been an educational tool for all those involved.  Someone new to the process was out here at the farm for each harvest.  They got be present and help, as well as learned how to pluck and clean a large bird.  On Thanksgiving, when everyone sits down to enjoy the feast, the bird that is the center piece will give everyone that much more to be thankful for and will taste so much better because the experience has been so much further reaching than buying one frozen from the grocery store.