In honor of Thanksgiving, I am going to share some wild turkey pictures from around our farm. Some I’ve shared before and others are new…
A hen roosting for the evening…
Some fluffed up hens trying to stay warm in the middle of winter…
Hens and chicks trying to get the berries off a tree…
A little one jumping the fence…
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Something caught my eye at the dinner table the other evening, I couldn’t quite tell what it was until I was able to get a clear look…
This little wild turkey hen was roosting for the evening in the snag in back of the house…
She’s all nestled in for the night…
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In our menagerie of farm animals we have 3 turkeys, two toms and a lonely hen. The two toms are constantly trying to out do the other. They puff all up and turn blue in face waiting for the other to pass out, then they will do a charming little dance to impress the poor little hen. Their even kind of entertaining.
On Saturday Mark and I had some errands to run up town, when we headed out to the pick up this is what we saw up at the barn…
A whole herd of turkeys...
The wild turkeys decided to mingle with our little flock. They would try to get into the area with the sheep and Dugur would puff all up himself and chase them out. He did not like them in there at all! Later that evening when Sawyer went to feed we found out why. They ended up killing one of the toms…so now we are down to an even pair. :0( The little boys were all sad that one of their turkeys died but understand that this is how life on a farm can be. Life Lessons.
Sunflower and moon...
A turkey...
Another little turkey!
This weekend we harvested half of our potatoes and all of the onions . They are now safely tucked away for the long upcoming winter. The weather has been a bit strange here and not at all very fall-like, we have been having very nice warm weather (80’s to 90’s) with a few cooler days thrown in once in a while and no frost. That was until this morning when we awoke to a thick coat of frost. I need to get out and see what is salvageable from the green tomatoes and get them inside and eventually we will have to put the garden to bed and start the dreaming/scheming process over again for next spring. The weather looks very promising for the next week though.
Still have a bit of canning to do, we have been saving strawberries for the whole month of September so we want to make some strawberry rhubarb jam. We also need to make some pumpkin butter and apple butter and I hope to can some black and kidney beans. We sent the last pig to be processed last week and we should be able to pick it up sometime soon! Then when the weather gets a bit cooler we have a couple of sheep that will be headed to freezer camp and some turkeys that will follow. Then of course we have hunting right around the corner which is all Sawyer can even think of! Lots of stuff to keep us busy.
Saturday night I combed Teigen’s hair straight up and he thought it was so funny and wanted me to take a picture of it…
Teigen after a tub...
Hope everyone’s enjoying this last day of summer!
This is what we returned home to tonight after a nice evening picnic at the lake…
The turkeys roosting on a brace post...
Turkeys at moonlight...
The geese and ducks normally sleep in this corner…hopefully they watch out for little…umm…presents!
The turkeys have become big enough that they were set free from their captivity. They roam through the pastures, and garden and surprisingly enough not too often in the yard. It has been a tad on the warm side here lately so I thought it was sort of funny to see turkeys turn duck the other evening…
Durkeys...
Sitting on the sheep waterer...
We all thought it is was too funny to see the turkeys wading around in the stock tank like the ducks do in their pool. After they left I peeked in the tank and they ended up leaving lots of little durkey droppings in the water…not so funny. So after cleaning the tank and refilling it I was sort of worried about them returning and making another big mess but so far there hasn’t been any more durkey mess in the stock tank. Yeah!
Right now we have an abundance of grass hoppers and both the turkeys and ducks seem to be keen on eating them.
The Toulouse's out on pasture...
The geese have also proved to be good watch dogs, tending to the little ducks they grew up with. So far we have not lost a single duck to predators.
Toulouse goose guarding the Indian Runner ducks...
Last year it was a bad year for ducks around here. We ended up loosing 3/4the of our flock in two nights to the fox. The lone duck buddied up with the hens and eventually she turned up missing one day too.
The little kids do not like the geese anymore…at all! The geese are nearly big enough to look them straight in the eye with a glaring little look that scares them to death. Which makes the kids run and then the geese let loose and chase after them. They don’t seem to bother any of us bigger people yet. They even sorta bug me out when they start the stare down but it seems if you hold your ground and just keep going about your business they just leave you alone. Hehe! We’ll see…
After surviving another busy week….
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A little bronze turkey...
A little giant white turkey...
And then yesterday Mark’s birthday present arrived!
The label...
Teigen checking them out..
Mark's Top Bar Hive that he built
Mark removing the queen box...
Mark dumping the bees in...
Happily in their new home...
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