Tales From The Tomerosa: Turkey Edition

Two Turkeys At My Door, Won't Be Hungry Or Lonely No More...

Queenie eyeballing her next beverage

Turkey's are peculiar creatures. As of right now, I only keep one turkey. She is a Midget White Turkey, her name is Queenie. I think we are her pets.

I find this quote about her breed from The Livestock Conservancy especially funny:

These diminutive turkeys are unusually friendly and will approach people and pets without much concern.

Friendly? How about as possessive as the pronoun their with an apostrophe! (This would be a joke grammatically inclined folks, please don't think too unkindly of me). Our white bird is known to roost off of our back porch, runs and throws herself on the ground in front of you as a living speed bump for you to dodge as you walk, and will hop onto the arm of our Adirondack chairs as we sit sipping a beverage in the yard during the summer.

As far as approaching pets and people, Queenie is very approachable when it comes to other life forms, if by approachable you mean chasing them far away from her human's presence. If a brave cat or my Border Collie mutt dog Chuck tries to get a belly rub or a nice ear scratch, Queenie comes running to the scene, neck stretched out like a speeding raptor, and destroys the domestic pet bliss opportunity with a a wing flapping, screeching flourish.

I often walk outside and the first thing that I hear is her "EEE-EE-EE" call. I'm pretty sure this is turkey for, "It's about darn time that you came out of that EE-EE-EE house." She is often on the railing to my back door, head cocked to the side, eyeballing me with her ancient bird eye. I usually respond with a pathetic "EEE-EE-EE" in return, and stride, with bird in tow, to whatever chore that awaits me for the day.

Frick and Frack, as adolescents, they are no longer with us due to the occurrence of 2015 Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Aside from their entertainment value, turkeys are a fantastic form of insect control. There is a bit of a plague of pine beetles in our neck of the woods. We call them Bob, as they are kind of bad house guests, you throw Bob out of the house, and when you turn around he's right back at your kitchen table. I especially hate it when Bob flies through the air, and sticks right to the side of your head. Bob sucks. Our Bob population has diminished greatly due to Queenie and her consorts.

Speaking of consorts, we also have a couple of male turkeys hanging around. One is actually my neighbor's tom, but like most animals in this neck of the woods, it has adopted us. He is a Bourbon Red tom. He is a gorgeous creature. He's also a bit of a Richard Noggin. I do have to confess that I giggle a bit when I look out of the kitchen window and see the children running through the snow with a sled full of hay, trying to evade that forty pound jerk. He's usually puffed up, gobbling, trying to intimidate my kids for some reason. I have no problem with him. I told him in turkey that I have killed his kind before.

Red and his over large ego would be enough to deal with, but he made a friend, a wild tom. He is a gentle soul, and has never ran up on us with the intent of intimidation. I think he may never return to being a feral creature. I'm pretty sure oat hay and corn may have something to do with that, but it could just be the company. Both Red and Wild Tom tend to hang out at the hay shed with our rabbit, Spotless Sputnik, when they aren't parading around the farm or corrupting our house railings with their vocal presence. Yippee.

It's been below zero here for the last couple of days, and Red and his wild cohort have been haunting my front porch railings every day. I really wish they would take on a hating attitude towards me. I really detest tripping over frozen turkey dung when I step outside to grab some firewood. I'm not going to mention what I found on the roof of our Suburban the other day. At least it was frozen. I think neighbor and wild turkey might be on the menu for Christmas dinner.

Wild Tom chilling outside my front door

All of the images in this post were taken by the author

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