There's always a silver lining...

This morning I found my broad-breasted white turkey hen outside the chicken coop on the edge of the woods. She wasn't moving, except of slightly flapping her wing and calling softly to the other turkeys who were milling around my feet and generally getting in the way of my morning feeding (which is what they do best). I went to get her. She had been outside all night. She couldn't put weight on her left leg. I tried to put her with the other birds, but he toms just kept climbing on top of her - poor thing. She let me pick her up again and put her in with the goat girls with food and water close.

I called Charlie on my way to school and told him he would most likely have an unwanted and un-asked-for task when he got home (I had meetings and wouldn't be home until after dark). He found her as I had left her and um, did the deed. It wasn't as we had planned. I hope she didn't suffer too much during the day, and I feel terrible that I had to let her suffer at all. I came home and there was turkey chilling in the sink. Charlie was decompressing with a bottle of wine.

The silver lining is that we now have a 20.2 dressed turkey hen in the fridge and our One Local Summer meal will be turkey on Saturday. That was one big bird.