I shot my first wild turkey.

Now what?

I went to the local butcher granny and I said hey Ma’am. I want you teach me how how to turn this into something table-ready. I’ll pay you just as if you were doing it for me, or even a little more, but this is about learning, not about being just another regular customer.

Later at home I realized that I already knew, mostly, about how to cook one, and the gap was in not knowing how to get things like the feathers and the head and the feet off. What the best tools for it are, and how to overcome the squeamishness, and like that.

And, that I really could do it, so long as we’re talking about birds, or fish.

Maybe even a rabbit.

I’m not going to be taking the head off a deer anytime soon–I’m not that committed to the lifestyle.

Yet. Baby steps. The right kind.

***

Thursday was another real hard day, and so the sleeps were long, and the dreams were full and good, like that one, and that’s how it seems to work now.

There is no local butcher granny as far as I know.

I don’t even own the right kind of gun.

Or what law enforcement would think of it all. In the civilized world, would I be an unlicensed poacher, or worse?

Let’s file that under acceptable risk, tentatively.

In the meantime …

I could sure cook a big bird once a week while they’re cheap, and maybe even afford to get good ones that aren’t factory farmed and shot full of hormones and that kind of shit.

Supplement with organic vegetables; perhaps still keep a few of those paleo frozen meatballs around for variety. And the berries.

It seems reasonable to me awake, even if I don’t.