Emily and the five adolescent turkeys that survived. (out of 16! from what I read and hear, though, that's not unusual; they have a pretty high mortality rate unless you coddle them, and we didn't these. Since they were born outside and we hadn't been trying to hatch any, we let Emily take care of them as she would. And we have a semi-resident hawk.)
They have taken to flying out of the chicken lot early in the morning and browsing about the yard. Here they're under the bird feeder tree in the side yard eating up spilled birdseed, which is fine with me. In the evening when John goes down to feed and gather eggs, they all come back to be let in the gate. (These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago; after many days of no rain whatsoever, things don't look nearly so lush any more.)
There are three hens (all brown) and two toms, one brown one and one colored like Emily. (He goes by the name of Dummy, since he's the one who is always stuck on the wrong side of some fence and unable either to remember that he flew over and could therefore fly back, or to find the open gate not five feet in front of him. The others have no names.)
NOTE: Ysabeau has an appointment at the Humane Alliance Spay-Neuter clinic on Monday. Only $50, and they'll give her a rabies shot too (I'm sure she hasn't had one, and they require proof or they give the shot themselves.) for another $10, and that will put her in line to get a 3-year shot next year with everyone else. Unfortunately, we have to have her there at 8 am, and it's across town which will require leaving at 7:15 or so, which will require getting up about 5:30 in order to deal with everyone else . . . and there's the matter of no food or water after midnight, so I will have to pick up ALL the bowls and EVERYONE will be highly insulted . . . but it's only temporary and they will all survive, even though they may not think so. And then we wait for Pixie to get old enough.
At least HE won't go into heat . . .
And I'll be able to open the windows! Ysabeau has chewed holes in one screen door and two window screens, so we've had to just close them all. And there's all that lovely fall weather outside!
She may not appreciate what's going to happen to her, but I certainly will, after nearly a week of clinging to my skirts and yowling plaintively. She even approached Sam last night, writhing seductively on the floor in front of him and murmuring sweet nothings in his direction.
He went to sleep.
So did she. . . eventually.