My aunt's family always hosted, but now my aunt and cousin David (the professional chef) are both gone, and my uncle is in a memory care place near my cousin in St Lou.

I'm sorry, Theo. For those losses and for the change to your traditions. That's hard.

My DP sent me an article this morning about the vagaries of being a turkey farmer in these pandemic times. Makes me want to buy a fresh, 20-lb. turkey for the two of us so Drew Bowman of New Carlisle, OH doesn't go under. Shallow note - pretty nattily dressed turkey farmer, though I guess that's probably not how he dresses to feed the turkeys. Or maybe it is. Who am I to judge? It's WP, so paywall after the free article limit.

ETA: OK, not that natty on the big screen, but still nice. I like the shirt. Majestic Turkey King shot though!

ETAA: Apologies for insensitivity or jokiness; it's more of a "Huh, I hadn't thought of that," as opposed to the many obvious-to-me industries that are being affected.

From what I've been told, it's always been pretty precarious to raise turkeys because the demand is so strongly seasonal. I'm sure it's more uncertain now, though

I saw the article about the turkey farmers (didn't read it through, but got the gist). Perhaps if they could sell smaller/younger turkeys there would be a market, what with smaller groups. I imagine that there is a limit to how long/how much turkey any person or family could eat.

Well, if your whole year has been geared towards producing 20+ lb birds for Thanksgiving you can't really change that in October. Selling more pieces separately, maybe, and more ground turkey? Or hoping to, anyway.

Yeah, it was interesting. They have to order their baby turkeys in Jan., and if they kill them when they're too small, they're bony. The male turkeys are bigger, so they need to make a guess about how many males v. females they should get. There's a lot of prognostication! And who would have predicted all this in Jan., right?

AND they don't have a good way to sell the turkeys other than whole. It is fascinating (and brutal). This is like the dairy stories from the beginning of the pandemic -- farmers who were set up to sell milk etc. in industrial sizes had no relationship with smaller packagers, so no easy way to shift their market to consumers.

AND they don't have a good way to sell the turkeys other than whole

??? Most of the meat I buy weekly is ground turkey. It must come from somewhere....

The farmer in the article, whose business is based on selling whole fresh turkeys, doesn't have a good way to break the turkeys down. Not that there isn't also an industry for parts, ground, etc.!

Right, different distribution. Like the toilet paper debacle.

Man, the invisible hand of the market is really fucking things up this year.