One rite of the changing of the seasons in my part of Cabin Country is the "disappearance" of the several hundred plump birds from the Turkey Farm in Franklin County.

Each spring little chicks are brought from Quebec, and released in mammoth but austere pens with the marching orders of grow and prosper.

Motorists can see them develop throughout the summer and early fall. By November they look succulent, even from the road (as shown in photo above).

The Turkey Farm is run by a former newspaperman (why didn't I think of that?), and it appears to be financially successful. I have sometimes gone there in mid-November, only to be told they were all sold out.

On a day last week, a sign outside the farm said they were 62 percent sold out - meaning that more than half of these fowl have been spoken for.

Range turkey costs much more than a store-bought bird. Last year I paid about $35 for a 12-pound bird, when a similar product could have been bought at Shaw's for perhaps $10. But range turkeys are really good; you can tell by the first bite. It's like flying first class. Once you've traveled in the preferred seats, you never want to go back to coach.

In recent years some public figures have deplored farms that raise birds in cages, offering them "no quality of life" before being slaughtered in assembly-line fashion.

I can't speak for caged turkeys, but the range turkeys I know are happy and well-adjusted. When I approached the flock recently, they walked forward with friendliness, style and confidence (perhaps because they mistakeningly thought I was there to feed them). They are living the good life, seeming to be experiencing, if I can paraphrase a famous mantra, "Maine, the way turkey life ought to be."

But that life cycle is rapidly coming to an end. That good living on the range will soon be translated to fine times (for us) at the dinner table come Thanksgiving.

I plan to be one of many who will buy a bird, enjoy its full and succulent substance, and then attest that those quality days in the great outdoors of Maine were not for naught.

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