Turkey Trot

 

Cluckingham Update

It was a gray-skied Friday afternoon, whereby the hazy clouds had tempted us with rain all day and never delivered. It was in the late afternoon that I had arrived home from seemingly running miles in the operating room when I received a text from Amy, a fellow farm lady herself. Amy, if you recall is my pig influencer. So it seems she had been given three turkeys from someone who did not want them and herself decided the turkey life was not for her either. She’s asking if I wanted them and when I could come get them. Translation: Please come get them. Ironically, David had been pining over some turkeys recently and now he very well could be blessed with some of his very own. 

Time for a Turkey Run. It was now after dark on Friday night that we loaded up a big crate and head over to Amy and Cody‘s farm in Anna. We were to pick up Paul, a male turkey along with Stella and Bella, two female turkeys. The late night turkey run to Anna would bless us with three turkeys for David. It was dark and hard to tell what we were getting ourselves into - which happens to be the theme of our whole life.

No, we’ve never had turkeys and have no idea what their needs are but as usual we will figure it out. Back home jiggity jig. As we carried the big crate with three turkeys into the barn, David at one end of the crate and I at the other, the anticipation of what was about to happen moved over us like a rushing wave of uncertainty. These creatures are big and kind of scary, truly like medium-sized dinosaurs. Their claws were the size of my own fingernails except more elegant and shaped nicely as if they've been to the nail salon. Paul, the male turkey is black with some white/multicolored feathers and significantly larger than his haram. David and I set the crate down on the floor of the barn and look at each other. Now what. All the chickens are roosting quietly for the night in the barn and the wind is low and it’s the sweet spot of the night, before the predators come out and our livestock guard dogs, Levi and Whisper start their long night of barking and patrolling the perimeter. David and I review our options: 1) leave the turkeys in the crate until the morning or 2) let the 3 turkeys out to roost with everyone else in the barn. We pick option two for no particular reason and as soon as David opens the crate, Stella and Bella hop out and in a blink of an eye immediately fly to the top steel beam of the barn and in the second blink they are on a beam ready to roost for the night. 

Had they already picked their spots out?

What the what just happened. I looked down and Paul is standing still one step out of the crate just like a statue at the wax museum. Then, in the next blink of my eye, Paul takes flight and arrives on top of the coop knocking all the chickens off their roosting spots just like a bowling ball making a strike. The chickens stumble and fall from the coop roof top and wonder what missile just struck them. Paul settles in up there like nothing just happened with only a couple of the chickens who were able to keep their balance during the missile strike. He looked around and must have thought: Perfect, I’ll sleep right here. All while my other chickens struggle to get back up to their spots. Once everyone was settled again, Paul was very satisfied with his place, snuggled in tight with the chickens, all while Stella and Bella are high up in the rafters on a steel beam roosting for the night there. 

Vultures or turkeys. You decide. 

Night night. 

Fast forward to a cool Saturday morning and three new-to-us turkeys are roaming in and around the barn. Meanwhile, David is gone to the Texas/TCU football game and I’m doing things in the barn so I can keep an eye on the turkeys. My main goal is to see how the new turkeys do with the chickens. Turns out, Paul is great!

Paul, without his feathers all puffed out.

Paul is very laid-back and doesn’t even hang around the female turkeys much. But Bella and Stella have plans, as usual. They are busy chasing the chickens, scaring them, trying to fight them and ultimately attempt to get all the chickens out of the barn so that they can have it all to themselves. In particular, the dust bathe area with the mirror. 

No, this is not going to work. Amy had told me the female turkeys picked on her chickens and now they are doing the same with ours. Did I mention Paul is great?  Saturday morning turns to lunchtime, then to dinner time and it’s around this time that I happen to have a worker over to trim a tree with a big broken branch blocking our gravel road. I just 'happen' to say, Hey would you like some turkeys? Seemingly without thinking, he says Yes. Perfect, I have Stella and Bella needing a home as they can’t stay due to their aggression towards the chickens. Paul can stay as he’s not hurting anyone. So, turns out after our worker trims the tree and gets that all fixed up, he will take the broken limbs away and come back with a crate. And he does immediately. Bella and Stella are easily caught and are now heading to their next destination in life. I did ask if he’s going to eat them. He tells me no. I’m not sure if I believe him but off they go. And if this story isn't weird enough, I also asked him if he wanted some of the ducks Amy happened to give us as well (I forgot to mention she gave us 10 ducks along with the 3 turkeys). We were able to catch six of the ducks, and he takes 3 turkeys and 6 ducks and heads back to his home. He hit the Fowl jackpot on that tree trim job. But David and I really think the pond is best with a few less ducks -  and our chickens are better off without the aggressive female turkeys around. Whew what a day. 

With a more manageable duck population, we fast forward to the next day which is a glorious Sunday morning. Yet, we find Paul gobbling gobbling and nonstop gobbling. He is looking for his people turkeys. I realize quickly that I’m going to need to get him a friend and thanks to Craigslist (aka Farm Animal Trading Co) we locate him a young turkey friend who we can raise as our own and will hopefully be friendly toward our chickens. And since Sunday was spent in Fort Worth with Lauren, Ryan and sweet Brooks, the turkey run would need to wait til that evening. We had a blast in Fort Worth! 

All he really wanted was David's glasses. Success!

David and I walked little Brookie in his stroller down to the antique mall nearby and we loved every minute of our time together. Brooks had fun crawling everywhere and trying to walk and reach for all the vintage things people call antiques. I’d call it junk, but people might get offended. 

This best describes our little outing that day:

He's a antique shopper and we had no idea.

We cooked some lunch at their house, even rearranged some furniture at there too, and time sped by too fast and it was time to get back home. We kissed them goodbye and would see them again soon for Brooks upcoming 1st birthday party at the farm. 

Turkey Run #2

As we headed back to Gunter, Morning Star Heritage farm in Sadler Texas had emailed me that they had turkeys for sale (thank you Craigslist) and that we could come there that same night and pick out a young turkey. So sure enough, Sunday night we ended up going to Sadler, Texas to pick up a turkey. I know it's late, I know you're weary, but let's go anyway. It was dusk on that Sunday evening when we arrived to their farm and although hard to see them all, we were able to chose a young turkey to bring back home for Paul. Boy or girl - we don’t know yet, but either way, we are hoping Paul will be happy with his new turkey friend. 

Gabby instantly fit in with the chicken crowd.

She looks nothing like Paul, as her coloring is chocolate rather than black. But she’s a turkey whose young and we hope to raise her around the chickens and that everyone will get along. We would not know exactly how all this would go until the light of day Monday morning, and we placed the young turkey to roost beside the chickens in the barn late Sunday evening.

David named our newly purchased young turkey Gabby. Even though we don't know if she's a girl or boy, it's name is Gabby. We discovered on Monday morning that Paul loves his new friend. 

He's busy show-boating for her, and seems to enjoy her company. Gabby is wonderful, and fits in well with all the chickens. No one is bossing anyone around now. Very good. These 2 turkeys can stay. 

Paul shows off to his new friend.

They are fast friends and Paul will not quit showing off his lovely feathers all puffed out. He's making weird noises and this turkey world is something I know nothing about. What have we done.

Scoop there it is

More fowl means more poop, right? And turkey poop is no joke.

Oddly enough, just days before our turkey adventure began, I had gone to visit Colleen in Van Alstyne to see about getting a couple more silkie/frizzle mixes. Colleen is a true chicken lady who has a backyard of small breed chickens and lots of ducks. Lots and lots of ducks. BTW, I do not need anymore ducks. Just tiny chickens.

You know how much I love my little girl chickens - the frizzles, silkies and sizzles. I needed more. The nice thing is Colleen lets me pick out just the ones I want, and I picked out 3 new cuties. 

I wish I could tell you I have names for them, but not quite yet. Soon though. If you're counting, I think I hover around 60 chickens. Since I had gifted one of David's friends (Damon) 3 of my silkie/frizzle chickens, I added back these 3 little sweeties from Colleen. David's friend was starting a backyard flock of his own and we shared 3 of our small girls with him. Everyone loves a tiny chicken, right. 

New fear unlocked

When we last spoke (blogged), I was to be participating in the Augusta (GA) Ironman triathlon. And yep, with dog bite and all (i.e open wound on my arm) I decided I did not want to miss the race. I had trained for it, and all the reservations were made. I did not want to let this isolated incident get in the way of my goal.  

So I flew to Georgia late Friday evening (the weekend before all the turkey happenings) and did all the fun race things on Saturday which included picking up my race packet, picking up my bike that I had shipped there, took my bike to the transition area (for race day Sunday) and organized all my swim, bike and run things for the big race on Sunday. David had placed stickers he made all over my race things:

Sunday morning arrived and excitement was in the air. Everyone's nervous energy is contagious at a race like this. I made my way to the race start down by the Savannah River with the other 2,499 Ironman participants. We were all scited - excited and a little scared. We were about to embark into a river of who knows what and swim 1.2 miles. Then bike 56 miles in the Georgia mountains and run 13.1 miles around the city of Augusta. They fired the horn sound for the race to start, and 3 by 3 we would jump into the water off a dock every 5 seconds. Most all of us had our wetsuits on, goggles and swim caps. We would all jump into the deep water off a rocky dock, and immediately start to swim so that no one would jump in on top of us. The cold water sent a chill through my body and I had to tell myself to move my arms and legs. After all, I jumped in holding my goggles to my face so that I would not lose them while jumping into the water. Turns out, that would not the most stirring part. 

It was about 2/3 way through the participants jumping into the water that the race officials stopped the race. Odd, I thought. I was one of the participants who had not yet had my turn to get in the water to swim. Now the race is on Pause. Then, we hear the emergency vehicle. Then, we see it. The ambulance was at the water's edge not even a half mile down the river. Racers were still swimming, and then other people were doing things. Like getting a man out of the water, performing CPR on him and ultimately getting him into the ambulance. It was just out of my vision view, and I would later find out more details about it. Turns out, a male participant had a "event" that took his life during the swim portion of the race. He did not make it. I did not know this during that race and would later find out. They think he had a heart attack, although I still do not know the exact details. 

All I knew at the time was that the race went on. The race officials started letting the participants jump into the water again to swim the 1.2 miles, to then get on their bike, and then eventually run. When it was my turn, I jumped in the river off the dock and my race began. I swam the swim, and when I got out of the water and into the transition area, I changed the bandage on my arm so it would be dry for the bike. I then biked through the all the beautiful scenery that Georgia offers, and ran the miles to finish the race feeling good. I attribute my success to many things, but I knew in particular that my oncologist had helped me get there. I knew I could only do what my body would allow me to do and that is my life. I was there, I got it done and I was happy and safe. In an Ironman triathlon there are cutoffs for the swim, bike and run portions - and if you make each cutoff, you get to proceed to the next portion of the race. These cutoffs are not by age or gender, they are universal for everyone. No exceptions. I was thrilled that I didn't experience a bike crash (people did) or a flat tire. I was thrilled that I picked a steady pace of which to churn out the run. I did not want to be part of the 'walking dead" those last few miles of the race when all is lost for some. I just wanted to be steady and strong. God saw me through. 

I'm happy to report that I did not get an infection from the river water. I did not pass away in the water. And my heart goes out to the family for the racer who did not make it. It was shocking to hear of course, and I imagine that family is in complete disbelief and grief. The swim portion of the race is tough because there’s lots of people swimming in close proximity and it’s easy to panic with all the kicking of the legs and arms swinging. Plus it’s murky, deep water and it’s unfamiliar. It’s easy to feel out of control. I myself have to practice staying calm with all the chaos of it. The swim portion is where most deaths in an Ironman occur. It’s actually not unusual, sad to say. 

I felt fortunate to have made it back home safe and I feel like I made a good decision to proceed with going to the race despite the advice of many who were concerned about the dog bite on my arm and what exposure to river water would do to it. No, I didn't hit the Easy button and stay home. I really wanted to participate in the race and it was a risk, no doubt. I openly admit the risk in it. I'm so glad I went. Sometimes, hitting the Hard button is the most satisfying thing to do in the end. 

Tula Tot + Piggies = ❤️

On a different note, I wanted to share the new relationship that’s forming on the farm. It's between Tula, our Aussie and the piggies. The Odd Couple(s). They are extremely fond of each other, and I love that as Tula hasn’t found her bestie here on the farm. And the pigs are the closest thing that I see bringing her a connection that she’s been looking for. Winston is great for Tula too, but Winston is old and unable to engage like Tula desires. The fiesta piggies may be just what Tula’s been looking for 🥰

Prissy is esp smitten,
but Maggie enjoys Tula as well.

While Prissy, Maggie and Tula are a threesome that is odd, I hope they are able to become playmates over time. Tula tried hard to get them to chase her and she wants to be in their pen with them whenever possible. We’ll see how this progresses with time. 

As the farm is ever ebbing and flowing, we are excited about each new adventure we encounter. I know you're probably thinking that Thanksgiving is coming and we now have turkeys - and piggies. Luckily for everyone, David and I don't have the kind of heart that can endure eating our own animals. They will celebrate with us instead. And is this cooler weather just the best?! What that really means to us is that it's time to winterize. We will start making adjustments in the animals shelters for the cold weather to come, and make sure everyone has a warm place to sleep as Fall will turn into Winter. 

Thanks for being here with us 💕

Cyndi