I had to clean the bird today by myself so I thought I'd take a few pictures to show the gals the process.  First thing you do is lay the turkey on it's back.  Usually I kind of kneel on the wings to get the chest fully opened.  I pluck a line of feathers from the end of the rib cage down to the pucker hole.

 I then I take a sharp knife and cut up the middle of the bird.  Make sure you have a sharp knife as it takes a bit to cut through.

Start pulling the skin all the way back to the wings.  It's kind of hard to do as it is slippery and moves a lot.  Do this on both sides, pulling as far over as you can.

Now you need to cut the breast meat off the breast bone.  I gently pull the breast and glide the knife along the bone.  If you go slow, it's easy.  I end up with four pieces of meat; two legs with thighs attached and two large chunks of meat.  

Now what I didn't mention is that in the middle of this process, your hands get sticky and feathers are all over.  Feathers are floating in the air, drifting along the ground and Indy is running around excited by all the fun.  He loves feathers.

The last step is washing the meat in the kitchen sink  I wash thoroughly picking off any pieces of grass or any other stuff.  I also really check the meat over.  Today's shot was through some bushes so my shot was a tad low.  I cut out one small piece of meat and tossed it as it had a number of pellets in it and it's best to do that rather than bit down on a piece of shot at dinner time. 

Next steps will be baking the bird. Transitioning now to make a Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse cake for Addi and RyRy's third birthday.

TTFN