Well things are starting to get busy now!  On the day I got back from Kent after seeing my youngest daughter and her family, I had a call from the lovely John, my mentor to say that I may be getting a call from Melanie Marshall at the BBC!  Apparently they were looking for people to talk to about having a frugal Christmas, and she wanted someone who grows their own Christmas dinner!  So John kindly gave her my name!!!!!   (Thanks John, I owe you one!!!! lol)

Melanie called a little while later, and although i hate cameras, I'm one of the least photogenic people you can imagine! I agreed for them to come and see us on the Friday.  Partly because I didn't want to let John down, and partly because hubby said it would be good for people to see our turkeys!

So I had a mad day on the Thursday cleaning up, because light coloured floors and carpets and muddy pawed dogs do not go well together!   But by the time the crew got here, all was reasonably clean, and home made sprout and bacon soup, homemade rolls and Victoria Sponge were waiting for them.  They stayed for well over 2 hours, and I can honestly say, it really was nerve racking, but hubby and I had a good time, as Melanie, Steve and cameraman Ian were really nice and we spent most of the time laughing, especially at Steve, the interviewer, who was worried the turkeys would attack him!!!!!

The programme was Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight on Monday 8th December, and we sat up and watched it, but my, now I know why I don't like cameras, they definitely don't like me!!!! lol  I looked like I had some sort of affliction, I kept holding my head to the side, which I have always thought of as looking quizzical, but it looked awful!!!!  And I really don't feel THAT fat!!!!!!  Right, New Year, DEFINITELY on that diet again!!!!

Well, this is one of the shots from the programme, that John put on the allotment forum, so I thought you might like to see it.

Hubby has started to dispatch some of the bigger turkeys, as he is going to bone and roll them.  They'll take up less space in the freezer then, and the leg and wing and other bits of meat I've started to make mince out of and freezing that in 8oz packs

The big ones are coming out at the moment at 25lb dead weight. 

Here's one we did the other day!

We also collected our next lot of Babcock's today as well!  I only ordered 200 this time though as once they are bigger, I really feel they don't have quite enough room in the big henhouse when there are 250 or 30 of them.  Mind you, saying that, since I ordered them, I'm getting people asking if they can buy them as grower chicks one they come off heat, so perhaps I should have got more!!    Still, we can only do our best for them.  This is the new lot!

I'm going out to look at them again in a minute, as it is VERY cold tonight!  But they do have 2 heat lamps on in their brooder, so they should be okay.

I also gave them their vaccine for Newcastle's Disease and Infectious Bronchitis today,   You can give it to them in their water, but you have to put a little skimmed dried milk powder in with it too.

Well I'd better go and see how they are, so I'll be back soon.