A friend of my wife's picked up ALL kinds of chicks. Guinea hens, ducks, silky chickens (two pullets and two roosters ... but she didn't know the sex of any of them, as they were little downy things) as well as six brooder breed chickens ... and four turkeys, three of which were the Broad Breasted whites (one hen, two toms) and one of the old non-hybrid / heritage types ... black feathers, etc., which was also a tom. So, a total of four domestic turkeys.

Her suburb does not allow turkeys ... and limits the chicken population, for a lot of their size, to six ... with NO roosters. So, some city inspector came over, cited them, and gave them one week to get rid of their flock. Of course, my wife volunteered me for slaughtering them. The Whites are supposed to be harvested at around 14-16 weeks. They were over six months old. I could not believe the size of those suckers. I am not lying. I picked up the largest of the toms ... it weighed in at well over sixty pounds .... NO chit.

Normally, when I've harvested live, flock turkeys, I cut a hole in a fifty pound feed sack, so that I can jam in a turkey, wrap it up, leg side, and chop off their head. In no way, shape, or form would any of these turkeys have fit in a sack twice that size. So, I bound their legs tightly, tied the bindings to a sapling, and (since they're within city limits) used a simple break barrel .177 pellet rifle. Put it up right to the back/top of their heads and one shot seemed to do the job. When the wing flapping settled a bit, I placed a board under their neck area, stretched the head out about as far as I could ... lopped 'em off, to let them bleed out.

Then, the plucking was quite the feat. NO pot that they, or we, possessed was large enough to dunk the turkey in boiling water. So, I utilized a very large cooler, poured the boiling water into it ... and, it still wasn't large enough to dunk and swish the turkeys. I had to keep moving them, dunking them up and down .... burning the p-ss out of my hands as I did so.

Now my wife's friend's husband is an OK guy ... but he couldn't bring himself to pluck, much less slaughter and gut ... It was a very hot sunny day ... I drank a goodly amount of beer. My wife got p-ssed off because I drank. Her squealing, about that, lasted for the next few days.

A grand day was had by all.

In closing, I thought that I had apple wood left. I didn't. So, the turkey in my smoker is getting copious amounts of hickory smoke. Billows are covering over half an acre. I've never used hickory for turkey ... always apple and, occasionally, pecan.

I'll find out in a couple of hours (been smoking for the past 3.5 hours already) how well apple brined turkey turns out using hickory.