WETASKIWIN, Alta. – Our neighbours brought us a fresh turkey, surprising considering how we’d never had much to do with each other ever since the incident with the bull. Ours paid his pedigree cattle a visit. Our bull wasn’t pedigreed, wasn’t even Charolais. He was black with a nasty disposition that his calves inherited.
Anyway, we had coffee, talked about the old days, no mention of cattle. After they left, I thought I’d better put the turkey in the freezer, since it was still two weeks until Christmas.
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It was in the sink and it filled the whole thing. I couldn’t get it out, couldn’t even get my hands around it.
I hollered for my husband, Bill, to come and help.
Well, we wrestled around for several minutes, pulled on the bag until it broke and Bill went flying.
“Maybe now it’ll be easier anyway,” Bill groused, and we both grabbed a drumstick and a wing and lifted. It took three tries to get it up on the cupboard onto a sheet of heavy, silage-pit plastic. We pulled the corners of the huge square up and tied it with a hunk of baling twine.
The two of us carried it over to the freezer. Bill figured it weighed about 60 pounds.
A few days before Christmas, it was time to thaw the bird. We had no trouble manhandling it out of the freezer, but with nowhere to put it, we set it on top of the freezer.
Two days later, I wanted to get into the freezer room, but the door was blocked.
I shoved – hard.
Then I discovered that the turkey had slid off the freezer, made its way across the floor and lodged against the door. There was a trail of blood across the freezer lid, down the side and across the linoleum.
I had to call Bill again because no way would I be able to lift that bird. We really didn’t have any way of doing it except to untie the wrap and grab hold of the drumsticks and wings again, and hoist it into the pan sitting on a chair.
Of course, we now had blood on us, as well as on the floor and all over the chair too.
Since we have our big Christmas meal at noon, I figured I had better get the bird ready at midnight and start it cooking.
I figured it would need eight hours.
I made a large pan of stuffing and there wasn’t a bit to spare. Getting the turkey into the oven was tricky. We decided to play it safe and turn the oven on after we wrangled the bird inside. We took off the oven door to make it easier.
I had no idea how I’d baste it. I didn’t dare pull out the inside oven rack with the bird on it. It would tip and I’d have hot turkey in my lap.
I got up at 3 a.m. and used a spritzer bottle of oil and water to spray the cooking turkey without taking it out of the oven. Next basting, I was able to get my turkey baster in on one side and suck up some of the juices to do it properly.
Unfortunately, some of the juice squirted onto the oven walls. That resulted in smoke. That sent the smoke detector screaming. That sent Bill shooting out of bed and racing down into the kitchen. He didn’t say a word, just went back to bed . He wasn’t radiating Christmas cheer.
I turned off the oven at 8 a.m. The bird was nicely browned. I turned it around and dug out the stuffing.
The family began arriving at 10 a.m. Given the size of the turkey, I was happy to have 23 people to help us eat it. I’d send leftovers home with everybody.
When it was time for dinner, Bill took the door off the oven once more, and this time two strong-armed grandsons got the bird out and over to the counter where Bill could carve it.
“He’s a little tough,” Bill said when I went to investigate. “A little stringy too.”
We eventually got all the food ready and went at it like a hungry pack.
But soon things bogged down. The turkey was unchewable to us oldsters. The grandsons managed to get a helping down but no one asked for seconds.
That meant I had a heck of a lot of leftover turkey that nobody wanted.
“No way are we wasting it,” Bill said. “Get out the grinder.”
Bill looked at the grandsons, who gamely stepped up to the crank. It was tough going, even with the meat pulled into pieces.
Then the breadboard broke where the grinder had been bolted. The grinder and a hunk of wood were dangling in grandson Jason’s hand. The pan hit the floor with a clatter. There was ground turkey everywhere.
The dog lost no time in diving into the feast.
“That does it,” Bill said. That was when I realized the heavy pan had landed on his foot.
“Let the dog have it all.” Then he directed his vent at me. “Freeze the chunks for later. Don’t want him eating all that at once.”
“What about the carcass?” I ventured to ask, indicating the pile of soup bones that still had quite a bit of meat on them.
“Cats! Give it to the cats!” he hollered and stormed toward the telephone.
I got there first. I figured the truce with the neighbours would be finished if he got to yelling.
“It’s not their fault,” I said.
Bill continued grumbling something about betting they were eating a more palatable 20 lb. bird.
I shook my head and said I thought I was told that they were having goose this year. I told him that after the trouble the neighbours had raising the turkeys – their legs gave out on them – they didn’t have the stomach to eat one.
Oops, I shouldn’t have told him that.
Bill thought this proved the neighbours deliberately gave us that cursed turkey.
“Ask them over for Boxing Day. We’re going to serve leftover turkey. The dog can’t have it all,” he said
The neighbours declined. They said they had already been asked out.
Bill wanted to do a drive-by and see if they actually left, but I talked him out of it.
It took him seven days to cool down – you know, New Year’s good will and all.
