We have been thinking about downsizing our turkey flock now for a while. We really only need one or two toms around to fertilize the girls. The boys tend to fight a lot with each other and a chorus of four gobblers can be a bit much when an airplane flies overhead for instance. (I imagine them thinking HOLY GOBBLE THAT’S A BIG GOBBLE HAWK GOBBLE GOOBLE.)

These guys are so funny and follow us everywhere

Then we had the mama come out of the jungle with 13!! babies and we knew for sure. We could harvest them for food but it’s pretty time intensive and difficult since we don’t have an operational full-sized fridge. So I listed them on a Facebook sale page as well as Clasificadosonline. Within a week we had sold 2 adult females (hembras), a male (macho) and 3 babies (pavitos) with 3 others sold on hold. Even with keeping some for ourselves, we still had more to sell though! So a friend reminded us of the San Sebastian flea market AKA Pulguero which is especially known for all the plants and animals.

When we visited the San Sebastian Pulguero years ago. Not much different today!

This market is one of the largest on the west side of the island and is open from late Thursday until late Friday (like midnight late from what I understand). It hasn’t changed much since we visited it when we were here on vacation years ago. But it is sort of funny how we have changed from the customer looky-loo that we were to being the supplier. I think of it almost like when we visited we were viewers of the movie that is Puerto Rico and now we are players/actors in the show.

Getting everyone loaded up for their first drive!

Anyhow…we weren’t sure what to expect since we don’t have the permisos to be vendors there. But our friend assured us that if we just sold them out of our truck we’d be fine. He even lent us some cages for the birds. So Friday morning we loaded up a pareja (pair) as well as 5 pavitos. We really don’t need to sell any more females, but some people want to buy them together to start their own little flock so she came along as the other side of the pair.

When we arrived at the Pulguero we weren’t sure what to do. So I asked Britton if he’d rather stay with the birds and the truck or do the walk through and see what we could find out. He said he’d stay. I walked through the whole winding path and saw many interesting things. Then I saw a guy who was selling turkeys and thought maybe we could sell wholesale to him. We talked for a while (in Spanish) and he said he didn’t have space for the adults, but I got the feeling I could talk him into buying the pavitos. By the time I returned back to the truck to tell Britton, he was gone. And so was one of our big boys!

I waited for a while and when he returned he said he sold our macho only about 5 minutes after I left -in his broken Spanish no less! ¡Buen trabajo! And that it was a good thing he did because the security guard came up shortly thereafter and said that people are only allowed to sell out of their vehicles in the parking lot until about 10am and it was by then about 1pm. Well, we still had our hembra and the 5 pavitos. Should we just go back home? I told Britton about the man with the turkey stall and so we decided to take the pavitos to him…hey we’re not selling them in the parking lot right?! 😉

Britton carrying the pavitos through the pulguero

We got to the guy and he kept regateando to the point that we just went across to another bird stall where an old-school guy thumped the cage to make sure they all could stand and then bought them right then and there! Not too bad for our first pulguero! And little pava got to ride back with us and join her friends.

On our way home we were hungry and stopped at this place that I thought was sort of charming and funny. Stuffed hamburgers and coffee….hmm interesting combination.

The House of the Stuffed Hamburger

I’m so glad we did. They made super good, inexpensive coffee and Britton was really happy with his hand stuffed hamburger. Hamburgers are one of his favorite foods, but we try to avoid any corporate crap fast food and we want to support local businesses that truly invest in and with Puerto Rico. So this was a great find and cost less than a chain anyway! We talked with the owner a bit and he said he is thinking of opening a shop in Rincón because business is better there. Please do!

Yummy latte

Hey, are you calling me a pig? A piggy ketchup design with burger and plantain fries and a  delicious fresh goumet salad! 

A fun productive day out and about in San Sebastian!