You wouldn’t know it, but it's already Thanksgiving on ATG Farm. Though the calendar date of our national holiday is still two months in future, it’s already arrived at the farm.
The day started in January, when the farm looked back at its financial records on turkey production for 2019 and thought about the labor involved in raising a deep, complex roast fowl taste for their friends’ and customers’ Thanksgiving table; they thought about receiving the baby birds, or poults, via the US Postal Service in Zionville; about keeping them warm in their hutches with daily feeding, watering, opening and closing; about transferring them onto full pasture deep in summer grass; about protecting them with a fence and guarding over them at night; how they are moved every day or two onto clean pasture, week after week… thinking through their processing and marketing, delivery and cleanup... That would make it late November in our imagining minds.
Farming is a process whereby a farmer can take ideas like these, and then set out to realize them in the material world, as we have.
But today the farm is turning near the Fall Equinox. The fall asters are dreaming purple rays from the center of their golden hearts. Goldenrod grows rampant and the wingstem’s yellow hats fade and brown toward the ground. Our honeybees are happy and hurrying through whatever sunlight peaks through the clouds. It’s time we think of sorting their stores for winter and insulating their hives. Thinking of what a cold Candlemas (February 2) might bring…
But as you read this, the pale young turkeys are gaining strength and size in the full light of early Autumn breezes. From now until Thanksgiving, they'll scratch up tiny quartz crystals from the soil for their strong gizzards and they'll contribute to the fertility of our pastures with their rich manure. They’ll start to fatten when the leaves change color and they'll bless our tables come Holiday time.
When you order and receive your turkey, that is what we hope you will enjoy: tasting with friends at the table the embodied flavors of the now!