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You turkey!By Richard C. Snell Barton County Extension agent, agriculture Kansas It is Thanksgiving or at least Thanksgiving weekend as most of you read this. That means turkey! There is no doubt that nothing represents Thanksgiving as much as the picture of a live turkey or one that is dressed and ready to go into the oven. So, I find it appropriate to give one column a year to the turkey since this is really the only time of year I eat much. The poor turkey. See, you already felt insulted before you started reading the column. We have become so politically correct these days that few people even call each other a turkey as they might have a few years ago. You remember the cartoon or phrase, "It's hard to soar with eagles when you have to be around a bunch of turkeys." Boy, if you want to get people riled up, even when joking, just call them a turkey. Our national symbol is an eagle, but it could have been a turkey. Wild turkeys are native to North America and specifically to the United States and were likely some of the first birds encountered by the Europeans when they came to this land. It has been said that Christopher Columbus brought them back to Europe and they liked the meat. They didn't have these in Europe and found them to be a tasty morsel. Although the turkey has long been the object of the Thanksgiving Day feast, turkeys are thought to be fat, lazy, stupid birds. By contrast, the bald eagle is a symbol of majesty, elegant beauty, swiftness and power. Thus the eagle became our nation's symbol rather than the turkey. The poor turkey doesn't get any respect even among athletic mascots. Years ago, Virginia Tech (an excellent land-grant institution back east) had the gobbler as its mascot. Somewhere along the line (about 1978), they became the Hokies. The hokie was the result of a cheer or yell contest in the early 1900s. The problem is that the definition of hokie is either a castrated male turkey or a simpleton, almost country hick verbiage. Actually, if you look in an old Webster's Dictionary which goes back to what words originally meant, the word hokie or hokey is not even in the book. The bottom line is they thought anything was better than a turkey. Having insulted the turkey even more let's look at turkey production. World-wide turkey production is about 5 million metric tons or tonnes. The United States is the leader in global producers with about 48 percent of the total output. The other leading nations are France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. These days, sometimes they combine all the European Union countries and if you do that they almost equal the USA. The top five turkey producing states are Minnesota--44 million turkeys, North Carolina--36 million, Arkansas--29 million, Virginia--21 million, and Missouri--20 million. Kansas is quite a ways down the line because we don't have any large processing plants within our borders. Except for beef, Kansas has not been aggressive over the years in developing these plants which are necessary for production to be competitive. Otherwise transportation costs make it prohibitive in spite of the fact that we have all the feed grain we need. Americans will eat more than 45 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day this year. That's about one bird for every seven people. Gobble, gobble! Maybe that's why the turkey is thought to be stupid. When they gobble, which is the male's mating call, they advertise their presence to predators. Wild turkeys can fly but not fast enough, usually, to get away. Domestic turkeys can't fly at all. Turkeys do get some protection by roosting in trees at night. I've also heard that turkeys can drown themselves in the rain by looking up and opening their mouth. They don't know when to quit drinking. Wild turkeys were almost extinct back in the early 1900s but conservation efforts and transplanting them back to states like Kansas have even allowed them to be hunted. You wouldn't see a wild turkey in Kansas back in the 1960s when I was a kid, but now you can see groups anywhere along rivers, creeks or around woodlands or brush. By the way, depending on who you talk to, a group is called a rafter, a gang or just plain old flock. Let's be thankful for the turkey and all that represents Thanksgiving. That includes the sweet potatoes, dressing and pumpkin pie. Although I am a big fan, it's not just about football. However, when my extended family get's together at Buhler, we not only watch football, but even some of us who are too old, still try to play some football in the backyard with the youngsters and those still in their prime. We are fortunate to live where we do and have the freedom we do. We have plenty to eat and plenty of good people to share it with. God has blessed us with so much and especially at this time, let's give Thanks. More on the strange root tuber One thing I forgot to mention about the bush or big-root morning glory last week is that it is sometimes called wild sweet potato because of that large root tuber. Next week I really will have space to discuss the other possibility--buffalo gourd. Advertisement
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