It was bound to happen. Things were just going too well. We all hear about it happening. We know to prepare ourselves. We think we are ready for it. But when it actually occurs we are still taken aback.
Now calling the event murder may seem a bit of a reach to some, but to my mind, that’s what happened. But that’s not how the story begins. Let’s go back to the start.
It’s a beautiful sunny day. By mid-afternoon, the heat is getting a bit too much for physical labour and so I decide to mow some of the land. In my second hour of mowing, behind the turkey coop, I see 2 patches of long feathers. Then against the section where I leave the long grasses grow, a big patch of feathers. Hmmmm.
I called Katie over and ask her to go count the turkeys. Yup. One is missing. That’s the mystery part of this story.
We have to assume that one flew over the cuckoo’s nest! So if the turkey somehow managed to get enough of a start to fly over the fence, the scary part is that it didn’t get very far before something got it. There is literally nothing but a few patches of feathers left. So we are a little spooked and down one turkey.
The next morning, Katie goes to do barn check and decides to count the turkeys. Something we don’t normally do daily. She counts again. Then a 3rd time. Eighteen turkeys! She pokes her head into the coop to see if we have a straggler.
Against the wall by the door she finds victim number 2. This one has had its back plucked and its head is rather bloodied. I can only come to one conclusion. MURDER!
Katie doesn’t agree. She thinks perhaps the victim was in poor health, or got heat stroke, or even maybe just couldn’t get enough feed (turkeys don’t share so well). That leads her to think that the bird died unfortunately but was not the victim of fowl play! I, on the other hand, think we have a murder on our hands.
Either way, I braced myself, got the bird into a garbage bag, Brian and I put it in a safe place until we could dispose of it. I did think that perhaps this would be a good time for us to learn how to process a bird. But it was full of flies and had been lying there for probably 12 hours. Not sure if that would make it a good choice to eat. So the girls took out the lawn tractor and drove the turkey out to the far side of the land (as far away from us as possible) to give the bird back to nature. We don’t want predators near the barn and coops but we also don’t want to waste a meal for them either.
We are down 2 turkeys. We should still be able to fulfill our orders for thanksgiving but we can’t lose any more birds.
All other animals are doing well and the garden is still supplying us with fresh salads and herbs everyday. We may only have 3 or 4 dozen corn this year and the tomatoes are not coming out as plentifully as I’d like but for our first year, we are doing well.
It’s a nice feeling when we run across butterflies, and we have so many here! I wish we saw more bees, but they are very rare. Next year I will try to start the bee hive.
I’ve decided not to wait until next year to prepare the large field for sowing. I will try to find someone in the area to get it ready for sowing in August so that we get one quick cover crop this year. That hopefully means that next year we can get a paying crop in the ground.
Unruffled Farms 