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Volume XV, Issue
1 ~ Autumn 2004
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It’s time to not get what you don’t want in a Turkey
Time is
a-wasting. Thanksgiving is on Nov. 25, and orders for farm-fresh
Turkeys are flying in these days. We always sell
out, as early as Nov. 5 and as late as Nov. 20, but we always sell
out. So don’t wait until it’s too late. 
Our customers come back year after year because of what they get and
because of what they don’t get from our Turkeys. They tell us they
come back year after year because they have never eaten tastier
Turkey. And that’s what we sell primarily, t-a-s-t-e. They get
the plumpest, juiciest Turkey to be had, a Turkey that grew on free
range and had free choice of food, water and shelter. They get a
Turkey that lived long enough to develop full flavor and to grow to
its maximum meatiness. They get a Turkey that was treated
humanely. They get a Turkey that makes them want to get
another. And another. And another . . . Year after year.
What they don’t get is a Turkey that was drugged up with antibiotics
to fend off disease. Or antibiotics to help it cope with the stress of
being tightly packed into sunless barns. Or with antibiotics that
made its body retain water to give it an artificial weight gain. a
Turkey that was dressed before it had reached maturity so its ratio of
bone and skin to meat was high. They don’t get a Turkey that has
been injected with a chemical broth of “flavor enhancers” to make up
for the fact that its meat naturally lacks flavor. They
don’t get a Turkey that was slaughtered months ago in North Carolina
and trucked up to Maine and then thawed. Is it any wonder that
more than 80 percent of our Thanksgiving and Christmas customers come
back each year? We will have a few more birds for retail this year
at Thanksgiving and quite a few more at Christmas. Last year, we took
629 retail orders and hope to take 700 this year. We sold out on Nov.
11 last year. We have a full supply of Turkeys up to about 30
pounds. We are strongest in the size ranges of 14 to 18 pounds.
Here’s how to
order one or more of these birds:
If you’re a new customer, there are three easy ways. The first
is to fill out the form on the Order Page.
The second is to order by e-mail at
turkeyfarm@gwi.net.
The third is to telephone us at 778-2889.
We confirm all orders. We prefer to confirm by e-mail, but if you
would prefer not to give us your e-mail address, we will confirm your
order by post card. We do not sell or lend or give e-mail or postal
addresses to anyone else. They are strictly for our use.
If you bought a farm-fresh Turkey from us last year, you can
order again in any of the three ways above. Customers who have
bought the same size Turkey each of the past two years may not
have to reorder. Any of those customers for whom we have an e-mail
address will receive an e-mail notification that we are holding a
Thanksgiving and/or Christmas Turkey for them. Customers who
have bought the same size Turkey each of the past two years who have
not given us an e-mail address should order by snail mail, e-mail or
phone. They can then give us an e-mail address and we will resume
placing their orders automatically in the future.
Remember, there
always comes a time when it is too late. |
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 Options
for
picking up your holiday Turkey
We
try to make it as easy as possible for you to get one of our Turkey
for Thanksgiving or Christmas. You may come to our farmstore or
meet our truck at a set time at any of four drops we have around the
state.
Our
farmstore on Route 27 in New
Sharon will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21, through
Wednesday, Nov. 24. At Christmas, it will be open those hours on
Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 22 and 23. Earlier and later
pickups are possible, as well, by prior notice.
If you’re coming
from the west or north, travel east on U.S. Route 2 from Farmington
village. After nine miles, Route 27 goes off to the right toward
Belgrade and Augusta. Take that right and find us one mile down Route
27 on the right.
If you’re coming
from the east, drive west on U.S. Route 2 from the Oosoola store in
Norridgewock. After 12 miles, go left on Route 27 and find us a mile
down on the right.
From the south,
take Exit 112B off I-95 (Belgrade exit) onto Route 27 and go through
Belgrade Lakes. Twenty-two the road curves right at the foot of a
long hill. We are a mile on the left.
If you’d rather
meet our truck, here is its
schedule:
Customers in the
Bangor area may meet us in Orono
from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 23. This is a day later than
in the past. When we confirm your order, we’ll give you the site of
the Orono drop.
Southern Maine
customers may meet our truck between 10 a.m. and noon on Wednesday,
Nov. 24, at the Crystal Spring Farm on the Pleasant Hill Road in
Brunswick. This is the site of
the Saturday Farmers’ Market.
Later that day,
customers may meet our truck in Augusta at the College Carry-out on
Mount Vernon Avenue. We’ll be there from 1 to 2 p.m.
And, finally,
we’ll call as usual at Railroad Square in
Waterville between 4:30 and
5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
 For
Christmas, the schedule is:
At the farm, 10
a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 22 and 23.
Note that we
will not be open on Christmas Eve this year.
The Orono pickup
will at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 22, at a site to be named.
The Waterville pickup at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 22, at Railroad
Square.
The Augusta pickup will be at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 22, at the
College Carry-out.
The Brunswick pickup will be at 9 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 23, at the
Crystal Spring Farm. |
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Let us smoke a turkey for you
One of the most
popular specialty foods items is smoked Turkey.
A survey we saw
showed that more than three-quarters of people trying smoked Turkey
for the first time wanted to eat it again. Smoked Turkey outscored
caviar and truffles in that test as an item to have again. And
you can have our smoked Turkey again or for the first time this year
at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.
Since May, we
have been smoking Turkey every week and we plan to smoke more for the
holidays. We use the hot-dry method, which means our Turkeys are
fully cooked (hot) and not cured (dry). They will keep as long in the
fridge as any cooked meat, but they don’t last forever like cured
meats (ham, etc.). And they aren’t full of salt and sugar like ham.
You can order
smoked whole and half Turkeys for the holidays, smoked here at our
farm. Smoked Turkey will run from about 8 pounds to about 20. The
price is $3.95 a pound. Our smoked Turkeys are fully cooked and can
be reheated or sliced and served as is. We also can smoke a boneless
breast for you. The price is $6.25 a pound. And, you can choose
a Turkey smoked over traditional hickory wood or the slightly sweeter
apple. All smoked Turkeys will be ready to pick up during our
regular holiday store hours (see above article).
We need two
weeks’ notice for smoking, so order by Nov. 10. For a smoked Turkey,
just send us the order form below and circle the word smoked. Or
order by e-mail at turkeyfarm@gwi.net or call 778-2889. |
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 Can
an old-fashioned Turkey meet your modern needs?
A lot of attention
is being paid to what are known as heritage breeds of Turkeys. A
number of national newspapers, including the Louisville
Courier-Journal and the New York Times, featured heritage strains in
stories last fall. Interest in the heritage, or heirloom,
strains has been encouraged by the Slow Food Movement (slowfood.org)
and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (albc.org).
The basic idea is that by creating more
demand for the meat from heritage birds, customers can help save the
older breeds that have lost out in the marketplace to the meatier and
more predictable three dominate commercial strains.
No, the irony isn’t lost on us. We
have not committed to the heritage breeds, but we are interested in
seeing whether our customers would like us to raise some for
Thanksgiving in 2005. If that seems the far distant future, consider
that it takes four to seven weeks longer to raise a heritage bird, so
we have to start them earlier, and the few hatcheries selling them are
booked the previous winter.
WHAT YOU
GET
Here’s what people get when they order a heritage breed,
according to those who encourage the practice.
The birds tend to be smaller. When we tell customers we can’t
guarantee a well-conformed 8-pound bird it is because the strain we
buy (Hybrid from Canada) is bred to maximize weight gain, with toms
growing to 40 pounds and hens to 25. Heritage strains top out around
20 pounds for toms and 14 for hens, so fairly meaty small birds are
possible.
You also get a more flavorful bird, the movement’s backers say, and
one that is less fatty – but, honestly, turkey is never fatty compared
to other meats such as chicken and beef – and you get the good feeling
of knowing that you may have helped to save some agricultural history
and genetic diversity.
That last is important because each breed or strain contains unique
genetic material. If the breeds dies out, the genetic material goes
with it. We had the awful feeling of seeing a strain die out when we
bought and slaughtered the last breeding flock of Maplevale whites
from East Kingston, N.H., when the owners retired in 2001. The
Maplevale was, simply, the best bird we ever grew, and it is now lost
to the world.
OPTIONS
DECLINE
If the world loses more strains, it will lose forever the
ability to use selective breeding to pull up the genetic traits from
those strains that might make for even better turkeys in the future.
For example, the Broad Breasted Bronze turkey has stronger legs than
the whites that we buy, and the commercial producers are breeding the
major strains with some of the remaining Broad Breasted Bronzes to
reintroduce strong legs to Turkeys. Growers lose thousands of birds
every year to legs that can’t support the heavy, fast-growing birds
above them.
Any animal grown in large numbers in a relatively small space is a
banquet table for lethal microorganisms. The pathogens go wild when
they come upon a farm of nothing but one species. They take up
residence and can heavily damage the herd or flock. Generally,
we treat such infestations with pharmaceuticals. But what if some of
the heritage strains contained natural resistance to some of these
infections and scientists could selectively breed that resistance into
the next generations of Turkeys just as they have bred vertcilium
resistance into tomatoes or scab resistance into potatoes?
AVOIDING
MEDICATIONS
That would avoid having to medicate millions of turkeys. But
it can’t happen if those heritage breeds are no longer around.
We have contacted the Slow Food people and the ALBC, and have received
a great deal of information from them about the heritage breeds,
including sources of poults. If a few dozen of our customers want us
to pursue heritage breeds, we will be happy to do it. To keep down
such costs as propane and lighting, we would need to have a few dozen
orders. While you might take great comfort from doing your part to
help save a valuable bit of agricultural heritage, you need to be
aware of four facts. First, the bird will likely look different, with
a longer breast bone and a less valentine-shaped look. It can carry
nearly the same proportion of white to dark meat as standard breeds,
but the meat sits differently on the frame and looks at first blush
like less white meat.
FIRM
ORDERS
Second, the cost will be significantly higher. While heritage
birds sell for $4 to $8 a pound around the country, we believe we
could come in below the lower figure because we are set up to raise
quite a few turkeys and would simply be using our facilities more
extensively. We can’t say now what the price would be, but you could
reasonably expect it to be 25 to 50 percent higher than our usual
birds.
Third, we could do this only for
Thanksgiving and would need a firm order (with deposit) for each bird,
because these birds would cost far too much to toss them into the
grinder if we can’t sell them as whole Turkeys. The poults run from
$7.35 to $9.95 apiece, which compares to the $2.42 we pay for our
usual birds.
Fourth, we would need to order all the
birds from a single strain. Unless customers had strong ideas about
which strain to buy, we would choose one based on how critical its
survival may be, availability, weight and other factors. We would
invite those who had ordered the birds to come to the farm during the
growing season to see them as they grow.
If any of this interests you, let us know
by phone at 778-2889, by e-mail at
turkeyfarm@gwi.net
or by post at 209 Mile Hill Road, New Sharon 04955. We need to decide
by the end of December whether to proceed with heritage Turkeys. |
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Turkey
for Thanksgiving and beyond 
Eleven stores around the state sell our
farm-fresh Turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We will
deliver farm-fresh Thanksgiving turkeys to these stores on Nov. 22 and
23 and farm-fresh Christmas Turkeys on Dec. 22 and 23.
If you live near one of these stores and
find it easier to pick up your holiday Turkey from the store, please
order directly from the store.
Most stores take a deposit, and in doing
so they guarantee that your Turkey will be reserved for you.
The stores will likely price the Turkeys differently from our prices
at the farm.
If you want to get your Turkey directly
from us, please see the hours at the bottom of
the order form that sets out our farmstore hours and the times and
places for our four “drops” around the state (Orono, Brunswick,
Augusta and Waterville) during Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.
Remember, too, that the stores listed
sell not only our Thanksgiving and Christmas Turkeys but also sell our
year-round frozen items, including Breast Cutlets, Ground Turkey,
Breast Roasts and in most cases Sausage and Ground Breast.
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Where to buy our fine turkey items ?
Click Here for an updated list.
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