Christmas is a week away, and Hanukkah has begun.  We still have a few farm-fresh Turkeys for these last-of-the-year holidays.  We have birds between 12 and 17 pounds.  We also will have breast roasts and thighs if you’re feeding just a few or if you want to augment a whole Turkey with additional farm-fresh meat.  We are among a handful Turkey growers in Maine who fresh dress in December.

As usual, we have pickups at Bath, Orono, Portland and Topsham.  Our farmstore will be open for pickups on Dec. 22 and 23.

Interested?  To order, click on Our Products (above) and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Full details are there about the pickups.  Fill in and send in the order.  We will send an email confirmation, and you are all set for yet another holiday feast of farm-fresh, pasture-raised, drug-free Turkey.

The chaos of Thanksgiving is behind us, and, as always, we have farm-fresh and smoked Turkeys  for Christmas.

We dressed more than 1,200 Turkeys at Thanksgiving, including all the large birds.  We are taking reservations for Christmas Turkeys between 12 and 16 pounds.  If you need more meat than a 16-pounder will yield, here are a couple of options.  Order two small Turkeys.  Two 12-pounders yield the meat of a 22-26 pounder.  Or, order one small Turkey and then order a breast roast and/or thighs.  Each 2-pound roast adds the meat of about four pounds of whole Turkeys, so a 14-pound Turkey plus a 2-pound roast equals an 18-pound Turkey.  Each thigh adds the meat of about two pounds of whole Turkey, so a 14-pound Turkey plus two thighs equals an 18-pound whole Turkey.

To order, click on Our Products above and scroll down to the order page.  Submit your order, and we will send an email confirmation after Dec. 14, when we return from vacation.  Christmas pickup at the farm is Dec. 22 and 23.  The Topsham and Portland pickups will be Dec. 23, the Bath pickup Dec. 20 and the Orono pickup Dec. 21.

If you ordered a farm-fresh Turkey for Thanksgiving, we are open today until 8 p.m.  We will be open tomorrow and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.  But the forecast includes the possibility of a serious winter storm on Wednesday, so pick up as soon as you can.

We are sold out for Thanksgiving but will have farm-fresh Turkeys for Christmas, though of limited sizes.  The larger birds have been reserved.

Because of late losses of birds (after we had reserved all the birds), we are dealing with two problems.  First is that we had to cancel several  dozen orders.  Those customers were notified by email last week.  The second problem is sizing.  We can provide Turkeys for all who still have reservations, but the sizes may vary.  To supplement the Turkeys for those who must take a bird smaller than they had ordered, we have breast roasts and thighs to go with the Turkey.  Some customers may prefer to take two small birds, say, 10 or 11 pounds apiece, when they had wanted a 20- or a 22-pound Turkey.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we believe we can send everyone away from our store with the amount of farm-fresh Turkey they had wanted.

We are sold our and have no prospect of receiving enough cancellations to accommodate any more requests.  So, sorry to say, we cannot take more orders or waiting-list requests.  This is practically an annual event, and we suggest that you place your order earlier next time.  We start taking orders in August.

In the meantime, we have a few suggestions for this year.  First is to contact one of the stores to which we wholesale.  Those listed below still had birds when we contacted them this week.  Their pickup times and prices will differ from ours.  The stores: Eastern Maine, Natural Living Center, Bangor; A&B Naturals, Bar Harbor; John Edwards Market, Ellsworth; Central and Western Maine: Lakeside Orchards, Manchester; Farmers Gate, Wales; Good Food Store, Bethel; and, Southern Maine: Pine Tree Seafood, Scarborough; The Farm Stand, South Portland.

If you can’t find a nearby store that has our Turkeys still for sale, try these alternatives.  First for us to recommend is Tide Mill Farm in Edmunds.  Carly delSignore and Aaron Bell raise fine and organic Turkeys and have increased the size of their flock.  Or, in Southern Maine, try Serendipity Acres in Yarmouth, also organic.  It is possible also that Greaney’s Turkey Farm in Mercer and Mainely Poultry in Warren have birds.  Both of those growers raise birds indoors.  The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association might have a master list, though it usually lists only organic growers and those who offer Community Supported Agriculture, as we do.  If you know of other growers who might have birds, contact them.

Good luck, and contact us earlier next time.  Thank you.

We are nearly sold out.  We can accept orders until midnight tonight, Nov. 18.  We will honor and confirm all email and website orders sent by 11:59 p.m., Nov. 18.

We can take order for birds larger than 20 pound.  All other sizes were sold out several days ago.  We can also take orders for half Turkeys of 12 to 16 pounds and for boneless breast roasts of 2 to 5 pounds.

We will keep a waiting list starting Nov. 19.  We usually have cancellations during the week before Thanksgiving.  If you don’t get in an order before midnight but want to be on the waiting list, click on Our Products and scroll down to the bottom of the page to fill out the order.  Send it to us, and that puts you on the waiting list.  As cancellations come in, we will contact people on the waiting list to let them know a Turkey is available.  That process will run through Sunday evening, Nov. 23, so if we can’t get you a Turkey by Sunday night, you will know to look elsewhere.

Yes, we still have Turkeys available, but only from 20 through 29 pounds.

If you’re not feeding an army and don’t want to be eating leftovers come Christmas, you have a trio of options.  The first is to order a boneless breast roast (for white-meat eaters) and thighs or drumsticks (for dark-meat eaters).  This would yield the meat you want but far less of the waste that fills the compost the week after Thanksgiving.  We have breast roasts, farm-fresh of course, from 2 to 5 pounds.  Figure that one pound of breast roast (or thigh or drumstick) will feed two to three people for Thanksgiving dinner.  Breast roasts, boneless, are $6.95 lb.  Thighs, bone-in, are $5.70 and drumsticks are $2.25.

The second option is to order half a Turkey, We always have more than enough Turkeys in the range of 25-30 pounds, so we can cut them in half for you to get the poundage you want.  Roast the half Turkey cut side down.  Slide the stuffing under the half bird so the drippings will help moisten the stuffing.  To order, click on Our Products, scroll to the bottom of the page and submit your order.  You will receive an email confirmation.

Finally, some stores to which we wholesale still have Turkeys available.  The pickup times will differ from those on our order form, and the price will certainly differ.  Order directly from the store.  Those that still had birds when last we checked were:  Eastern Maine, Natural Living Center, Bangor; A&B Naturals, Bar Harbor; John Edwards Market, Ellsworth; Central and Western Maine: Lakeside Orchards, Manchester; Farmers Gate, Wales; Good Food Store, Bethel; and, Southern Maine: Pine Tree Seafood, Scarborough; The Farm Stand, South Portland.  Note that as it turns out, Rosemont Market in Portland will not have our birds.

We had thought we were sold out, then a store released 50 birds back to us that it couldn’t sell, and now we are nearing sellout again.  All birds smaller than 18 pounds are spoken for, with the exception of a few at 10-12 pounds.  The 18-20 category will sell out very shortly (like Saturday morning, Nov. 15).  We expect to have birds larger than 20 pounds for quite a while, though.

If you really have to have a bird between 12 and 15 pounds, consider ordering a half-bird.  When we cut a 24-pounder in half, you get a 12-pound Turkey.  It’s not the same, with the “ooh”s and :ahhh”s from your family and guests as the bird comes out of the oven, but the flavor, texture and moistness remain.

Or, just go for the big bird and plan to wrap the leftovers tightly and freeze them for some beautiful eating as winter settles over us.  The largest birds (24-30 pounds) will be available for quite a while, perhaps right up until Thanksgiving.  But the wee ones are gone.

Thanks for finding us, and we hope that we can still meet your needs for Thanksgiving.  By the way, we expect to have all sizes available again at Christmas, which is only 28 days after Thanksgiving.

One of our wholesale accounts has released 50 Turkeys back to us, so we are again accepting orders for farm-fresh Turkeys for Thanksgiving.  Most sizes are available.  These are birds we raised that we had allocated to the Rosemont Market for them to resell to their customers.  But as of Nov.14, Rosemont hadn’t sold any, so now you can have one (or more).

To order, click on the Our Products page and scroll to the order form.  Fill it out, send it to us, and we will send a confirmation.  This will be a frantic weekend, so don’t panic if your confirmation doesn’t come right away.  We will fill orders first-come, first-serve, starting with the people who had been on the waiting list.

Thank you for your patience.

We have taken reservations for all the Turkeys we have available for Thanksgiving.  But there are two ways you may still get one or more of our fine birds.

Here’s how it works.  We have allocated 483 birds to wholesale and 707 to retail.  The 707 are  spoken for, and we will know in a few days whether all of the 483 at wholesale have been taken.  When we checked with the wholesale accounts this week, about 47 percent had been reserved.  If some stores don’t sell their allocations, their birds come back to us, and we make them available to you.  For that, we keep a waiting list.  Starting at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, all orders that come in from the website or through email will be put on a waiting list.  Starting Wednesday, Nov. 19, stores will call in their numbers and we will start contacting, via email, the people on the waiting list.  In 2012, nearly 50 people on the waiting list got Turkeys.

If you don’t want to wait, you may order directly from one of the stores.  The pickup days will be different from those listed on our order form, and the price is almost certain to be different.  One store is sold out, but those that still had birds available this week were:  Eastern Maine, Natural Living Center, Bangor; A&B Naturals, Bar Harbor; John Edwards Market, Ellsworth; Central and Western Maine: Lakeside Orchards, Manchester; Farmers Gate, Wales; Good Food Store, Bethel; and, Southern Maine: Pine Tree Seafood & Produce, Scarborough; The Farm Stand, South Portland; Rosemont Market, Portland.

If you order from a store, be sure to specify you want our Turkey.  Some of these stores also sell warehouse Turkeys, and some sell from more than one Maine grower.

Thank you for seeking us out.  This is about our usual sellout day, two weeks before Thanksgiving, so if you miss out this year, try earlier next year.  And, we still have Turkeys available for Christmas 2014, farm-fresh or smoked.

Bob Neal, The Turkey Farm

As of Nov. 11, we have taken reservations for 93 percent of the Turkeys available.  We have sold out in two size categories:  12-14 pounds and 30+ pounds.  We expect to be sold out in all sizes by the end of the week.

When we take our final reservation, we will begin a waiting list.  Last year, about 50 people on he waiting list got Turkeys as our wholesale customers didn’t all sell out their allotments.  But you can avoid the uncertainty of a waiting list by ordering now.

Go to Our Products and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Then, check the chart for size availability.  Order the available size that best fits your needs and send in the order.  We will confirm by email.  If you order in a size that is sold out, we will take your order for the next largest size available and confirm your order at that size.  Fewer than a dozen birds remain available in several sizes, so act now.