Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, New York. This week Peter writes: As the days grow shorter, and evening chores must be started earlier before darkness settles in, everything begins to take on a different aura at the farm. Not only are the turkeys beautiful and amusing to behold but one speculates about their weight. It is hard not to wonder how much of each duck is meat, how much feathers. Sadly, the sheep, so adorable just a short time ago, are now scrutinized as candidates for slaughter. November at the farm is not just a matter of falling leaves and gradual blankets of frost. It is the time for harvest, the time in which all the hard work of the spring and summer reaches its culmination. Harvesting the vegetable garden is easy. But when it comes to the livestock the prospect calls forth all kinds of contradictory feelings. And where better to deal with these than in a poem: “November Days" (a dirge plays underneath) From my window I looked out at my farm, As I quietly scratched my right arm. The days they grew shorter, My thoughts turned to…slaughter. The trailer was parked in the yard. The frosts got increasingly hard. I struggled my darndest, But my thoughts turned to…harvest. The feed got increasingly expensive, I grew progressively pensive.
Ah, my dear ones, I said Tis time you were…dead Oinked the pigs to the turkeys: "Aprez vous". The turkeys replied: "Googlie Goo"! The cows to the pigs mooed "Farewell", The pigs answered back: "GO TO HELL"! The sad realization was mine That all poultry, pigs, sheep, and kine Were not here to… need us But rather to…feed us. —Peter Davies
