Turkey Economics

It was time to buy the turkey for Thanksgiving. Last year, a farmer not too far from us had organic free-range turkeys available for sale, and if you didn't reserve one, you could come on a certain date and choose one from the ones that hadn't been reserved or claimed. We got one that had been ever so slightly damaged (clean knife wound, probably sustained during the cleaning and plucking process) and were able to buy it at a small discount per pound. That worked out very well. But this year, the farmer did not raise any turkeys for sale. So I went to the local Co-Op on the date they'd said their organic turkeys would be in.

I had a choice of whether to buy a frozen organic free-range turkey from California at $3.09 per pound, or a frozen free-range turkey (not certified organic, but as good as) from a local source. The local turkeys I saw in the freezer box looked wonderful, large and well-formed and everything that you'd want in a turkey. But they were also $3.69 per pound. I'd so much prefer to buy local! We bought and ate local veggies from farmers' markets all summer long, and it was great. But with the economy being what it is and our budget being so very small right now, 60 cents more per pound to get a local turkey was just too much. So I had to go with the one from California. At least the distance from California to Idaho isn't as bad as it could be. We could live clear across the United States from our source. But if money wasn't an issue, I'd have bought that locally-raised turkey in a heartbeat.

Our locavore experience so far has been a matter of making as many changes as we can without completely breaking the budget. When it comes to veggies, milk, cheese and butter, we've done well. Farmers' markets are off season right now, but we bought a bunch of potatoes from a wonderful lady we met at the Nampa market this year, who we consider a new friend. I'm making all our butter now from cream we have delivered from one of the not-horribly-far-away Idaho dairies. The other day, we used some of my home-grown frozen spinach on a pizza. There are gourds of various types in the garage, both home-grown and locally grown and purchased. I still need to go buy a case or two of local apples and make a bunch of dried apple chips and applesauce, but fortunately, apples do well in cold storage and some local harvest should still be available through approximately February. I've even found locally grown and milled spelt flour at the Co-Op, and the same day I bought the turkey, I also bought the quintessential budget food item: locally grown beans--Great Northern, pink, chili, and split baby garbanzos, all grown in Idaho. As soon as the stock is replenished, I'll be buying more of the Idaho-grown long black wild "rice", which is really a type of grass seed. And red lentils are also grown here.

But some things we use, we just can't get locally or in state, so we usually compromise on those items. Nobody's giving up tea in our house...like, ever. And three out of four won't give up coffee, either. Chocolate. White suger from sugar cane--no beets allowed, since pretty much all Idaho beets are now genetically modified crap. Fortunately, since we started trying to go local back in February, I've been learning what I can get when, and how much work I'll have to plan on doing to get and process it locally so as to have some of whatever it is for winter. It's great to know I won't have to give up most of my favorite things just to eat locally. The few things I actually depend on from out of state are also from out of country, and that list is fairly short. I just wish that the economics of all this would change enough so that more people could support our local farmers gladly and without fear of breaking their budgets. I'll try to post soon about some of the highlights of our farmers' market experiences this summer. We met some truly wonderful people who, in their own special way, are doing great things for our local population in specific and the planet in general.

Restitution

Well, the head of our homeowners' association and the father of the boy scout whose team messed up our house and garden have been attempting to fix the problem. They brought over some thinner or cleaner of some kind from the paint store, but at this point, they'd left it so long that the oil-based fence stain didn't come off the house when they tried to clean it. Then they wanted some of our leftover house paint so they could paint over the damaged area. The only paint we had left is very old and very thick. So they went to the paint store to get some paint in the right color, only my husband had made a mistake and didn't give them the right color, and they failed to double-check and make sure it was correct, so they ended up getting the trim color instead of the main wall color. Now they have to go get the right color and return next weekend to paint that wall of the house.

This whole thing is just a major headache for all concerned, and could have been so easily avoided. I did manage to go to the Co-Op and find out the prices for organic food of the varieties that were ruined in my garden, so hopefully we will at least be able to replace the organic food we lost, even if it's not locally grown. I hope the negligent parties learned something from this mistake. If so, then it wasn't a total loss.