Flying Turkeys

This morning 2 hens and 16 poults  were up in the pasture. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.  Looking out to check on the sheep there was a  black shape, at first difficult to make out.

Then I realized a turkey had gone into the pasture, which was odd because of the electric fence. Once again the fence isn’t keeping critters out.  Dave’s lawn is mowed, so perhaps they had flown into the pasture to eat the bugs found around the sheep droppings. Why else would they go into the pasture when there is plenty of short grass on the lawn near by?

Adult turkeys fly low and and slow. You can sometimes see them roosting in trees by the road at night.  A very odd sight. We have a small group of birds that routinely come though the property. Maybe 8 at the beginning of winter. With the deep snow, they would sometimes come up the road to get to some of the berry laden trees close by. Turkeys are fine in the cold weather.  Tough, ugly, ancient looking things. Deep snow generally means a larger die off.  16 babies and 2 hens tending.  Social critters.

They have made a tremendous comeback from over hunting.  Now they seem to be more common then the red wing black bird.  I don’t think I ever saw any as a kid.

I grabbed my camera,  went up the drive and then  up the field by the back side of the pasture. The field grasses are high there and  several paths from other critters were clear.

I love the high grass. It must be difficult for the babies to get by. No wonder the hens move them to the shorter green to find a meal.

No attempts were made to hide. I so wish for a better camera with a zoom. It was all luck that I got so close. The sheep didn’t even notice my moves and I was able to watch for a while.

The poults peep and the mums make clucking noises like off key chickens. It scared me to think that I might upset a mother and she would come after me. Turkeys are pretty big.

I wouldn’t want to mess with one. Or suffer the shame of being run back to the house by a turkey. My luck, Bob from the town road crew would be coming up the hill, just at the time I would be running back home. I was still in my jammies.  No good to be seen like that.

Mother noticed me and flew back over the fence to join her babies.

I got too dang close and saw the strangest thing. The babies also took flight.  What a treat. 

I don’t want to be a phony

“I don’t want to be a phony. If I am going to be anything,  I want to be the real deal.”  Joyce Meyers.

You go girl.   I love her, in all of her mid-west rhine stone, bible toten’ praise yell’n way.

Being the real deal is not always socially acceptable.  Being the real deal is not always politically correct.  But at the end of the day, you gotta live with yourself,  for your whole life.  I would rather live with someone who I can count on being real then phony.

Last night I called someone out in a public meeting for a sexist comment that was made.  ” IF women stayed home there would be no need for day care”.  A public employee said this at a public, open town meeting, not under his breath, but to the entire crowd. The chair for the board did not address the comment specifically but shook his head and mumbled something about the man’s habit of not being PC.  Another board joked about which woman from the group would like to hit him first.

The problem with bigotry is that folks allow it to continue when the response to comments are met with soft condemnation.  The group response of being embarrassed by offending statements. We all knew it was wrong, but who was going to rise up, in front of others and call it out for what it was?

I was offended that our town has a public employee who thought is was OK to make such a statement in a public meeting.   I watched how the meeting went on to other business and the comment was never really addressed.  At the end of the meeting, when the public was asked if there was other business.  I raised my hand and out came my true self.

“Mr. ——, you are a town employee and this is a public meeting,  in front of a town board. What you said was offensive to me and I would like an apology.”

I got one.   I don’t know if I was the first person to call him on these type of comments.  It was the first time I have, in public, called someone out for something that I believe is wrong.  I am concerned the fall out.  But I am not concerned about me.

I was brave last night and spoke out.

This moment will go in my memory bank so that when I am faced with a situation that requires public courage, I will be able to go to the self that is the real deal.  What a comfort.