FOWL SEASON: The turkey business is like...

FOWL SEASON: The turkey business is like the state’s economy, Lois Lee says: flopping around. . . . “A few years ago it was much more lucrative,” said Lee, who raises 100,000 turkeys a year with her husband, Gary, in Lockwood Valley. “A lot of growers have left California.” Not the Lee family. They have raised turkeys in Ventura County for three generations. . . . Turkeys grow from chicks to full-grown birds in three to four months. The Lees fatten theirs in outdoor pens before shipping them to Zacky Farms for “processing,” as Lois Lee puts it. . . . So what will the Lees be having for dinner today? “Turkey, of course.”

SURVIVING DINNER: Speaking of holiday meals, Dr. Nat Baumer offers this advice: Eat moderately and get a little exercise afterward. “People have a tendency to sit there like a slug after dinner,” he said. “Get up and go for a walk, or wash the dishes.”. . . For 15 years Baumer has worked in the emergency room at Ventura County Medical Center. “Once or twice a holiday, someone comes in with indigestion from overeating,” he said. “The big disasters we see on Thanksgiving are people hurt in car accidents on their way home.”

AFTER BURN: Less than a month ago, the Santa Monica Mountains were ablaze. Now, the blackened hills are already springing back to life (Ventura County Life, Page 28). . . . Though they destroyed decades of growth, biologists say fires will help the environment. Example: an explosion of flowers next spring because flames cracked open seed husks.

GIFT GIVERS: Times may be tough, but Ventura County residents aren’t skimping on donations to charities (B1). . . . That’s encouraging to Monty Clark, head of the campaign to raise $1 million to maintain the Ventura Pier. “We’re making progress,” Clark said. Total so far: just over $300,000. . . . The Pier into the Future organization is trying to sell $100 planks on the pier as an unusual holiday gift. . . . The group is also pushing gift baskets and T-shirts. Basket centerpiece: a bottle of Ventura Pier Chardonnay, a 1992 Sonoma County vintage.