By Ellen Ogden
Photography by Hubert Schriebl
If you are looking to grace your Thanksgiving table with a locally grown turkey, your in luck.
Talking about food at the table is fairly safe unless you are sitting down to dinner with a "localvore". Then be prepared to learn more about the food on your plate than you may care to know. One subtext is flavor, the other is health, but the underlying discussion will center on where each of the foods on your plate came from with a description of the farm and possibly, the farmer. Once you start eating local foods, however, it's hard to go back to shopping at the grocery store.
If you are looking to grace your Thanksgiving table with locally grown foods you'll easily find winter squash, cool weather greens, potatoes and onions at the farmers markets. Local eggs, milk and cheese are available year round at local farms. And as an alternative to the ubiquitous frozen butterball, there are two sources for local turkeys within our community; Someday Farm is a family farm in East Dorset that raises chickens, turkeys, pheasants and organic vegetables. Or consider taking a short drive up Danby Mountain Road in Dorset to pick up a bird from Robin and Henry Chandler.
For almost a decade, the Chandlers have been cultivating turkeys with the type of care that can only come from a serious foodie. "We know we're giving 200 birds a really good life," says Robin, "They are loved and respected, and I cry when they leave. But I know they are delicious because they were treated kindly." While raising turkeys is just a hobby for the Chandlers, Robin works part time at Mettowee Mill Nursery and Henry is president of Chandler Four Corners, a textile import business, they are part of the growing number of back yard producers who raise food for the local community.
In 1987, the Chandlers moved into their 200-year old farmhouse, purchased from Katherine "Sooty" Harding, yet were not content to just sit back and enjoy the magnificent view. "We hoped to connect to the agricultural heritage of this land, which was formerly a dairy farm," says Henry. "But we didn't know much about animal husbandry. And we didn't even have a barn," Robin adds. The original barn had been taken down in the late 70's, leaving an expansive, lush field surrounded by a seamless view of Mount Aeolus and the Dorset Mountain complex.
In 2001 a friend and business partner, Tom Biggs, suggested they try raising turkeys. He was experienced in raising livestock, including turkeys when he was the estate manager at a farm in Rupert. "I've raised lamb and turkeys that are distributed to consumers and chefs all over Vermont, Boston and New York," says Tom, who procures locally grown meat and poultry for Black River Produce. He convinced the Chandlers that a flock of white turkey hens plucking off grasshoppers in the tall grass around their farmhouse was equally bucolic to a herd of grazing sheep, and the initial investment was far less.
