Turkey Hunter

Today Uncle Kevin showed up at 5:45am to take Levi turkey hunting. Levi was wide awake and very excited to go. They drove up north about 30 minutes or so to a place Uncle Kevin knew about. At 7am our phone rang and Levi said "Mom, I shot a turkey !!" I thought he was pulling my leg at first, but after a minute or two I could tell he was serious. This was his first successful hunting trip and he was on cloud 9. While Daddy and I were waiting for them to get back, we told Caleb and Clay about the turkey. They decided they would play "turkey hunter" and Clay quickly volunteered, "I'll be the turkey !" He ran around saying "brock, bock bock..." , so Caleb nicely informed him that those were chicken noises and that a turkey says "gobble, gobble, gobble". The hunt ended with Clay being dragged by his ankles across the tile.

After a few pancakes and some coffee, Uncle Kevin and Levi went out to clean the turkey. Mom and Caleb and Clay went out to watch, but Daddy missed out on the fun because he had to go to the baseball work day. Uncle Kevin did most of the hard work, but Levi helped him hold the turkey down and get out some of the guts. He also cut out some of the breast meat.

The turkey weighed a little over 20lbs and had an 11 inch beard. I tried to get Levi to cut off the beard to save as a souvenir, but he wants to save the whole decapitated head and neck. He wanted to nail it to his wall, but Mom had some major reservations about that plan, so at the moment we're kind of at an impasse about what to do. I told him he could keep it in his room until it started stinking and then it had to go. Levi also wants to keep both wings and nail them up as well, so I told him if he could get all the meat off, we might be able to do that. We also have two turkey feet for souvenirs as well. I never dreamed that shooting a turkey would provide a whole new decorating scheme for his room.

It's been an exciting morning. This afternoon, Daddy plans on working on his barn some more and tonight, I guess we'll have wild turkey for supper.