Dawgwash Farm

It is getting late in November now and winter is snuggling up close to us here in central Indiana.It is that time of year when my wife Jane and I wonder if we made the right decision to become hobby farmers out in the woods of Morgan County rather than buy a condo near a good coffee shop in Indianapolis.I spend my spare time doing chores, like getting the snowplow ready to mount on the ATV.I am, also, fighting the annual losing battle to get reliable water heaters into the stock tanks for the horses, cattle, goats and donkey.The effort is doomed.I know I will be carrying water twice a day in blizzard weather.It always works out that way.I also know, I will remember, wistfully, on those blizzard days that I could have become a snowbird in retirement and that I might be fishing in the keys rather than busting ice out of stock tanks.Not often do you think about some task you do NOT have to do, but, even now when it is not yet bitterly cold, I am aware and thankful that I do not have to carry water to turkeys.I do miss them, however.Turkeys are invariably curious and happy.They always seemed to have both pride and an infectious optimism -- qualities that I admire in both animals and people.

In two days it will be Thanksgiving.At the beginning of the week, a parade happy folks came by to pick up their heritage turkeys.We had a new customer this year, the owner of one of the two or three best restaurants in Indianapolis.I went out of my way to impress her.I showed her my prize Lowline Angus beef.I gave her a couple of pork chops from this summer’s goat-milk-fed pork.I even gave her one of my last three bottles of homemade Amarone wine.For me, it was somewhat like having the Michelin people come to give stars to my restaurant.

Most of my customers brought children with them.Janie and I built Dawgwash Farm to be a magnet for our grand kids, but we are always happy to see the young ones, no matter who the parents are.If conditions are right, I like to let the little ones gather chicken eggs and pet the animals.For adults, I suppose the world is a much different place than when I went with my folks to pick up our turkey in my dad’s new 1949 Chevy panel truck.But for the children, I think it is just the same.At least I hope it is.

A compensation for the tan I am not going to get this winter is knowing I have helped the kids have a joyful farm experience and helped their families have something extra special on their Thanksgiving table.I am proud that every one of my 2007 customers came back again this fall.I would like to think that the profit from turkey season would pay for the fishing tackle I would have needed had I gone to Florida this winter but I kept good records this year (for the first time) and learned that the result of a years turkey farming was a loss of $27 – not counting the total loss of my first crop of 20 birds that died in the spring floods.Oh well – I probably lost less than half the farmers in Morgan County and I had a lot of fun.And like those farmers and the departed turkeys, I have faith and optimism that next year is going to be even better.