They're Everywhere!

I keep hearing Ray Stevens in my head.  To paraphrase the lyrics from "Santa Claus Is Watchin' You," they're everywhere, everywhere I go.  Turkeys, that is.  They hang around outside the front door in the morning.  Dozens come running when I go out to put down birdseed and let the hens out.  They gather by the water bowl.  They jump into the chicken pen to share the scratch and even go in the coop to get out of the rain.  Lately, twelve or so turkey hens have been lying in wait in the goat pen and run after me as I head to the barn.  We make quite a parade.

Yesterday rain was falling while I was milking, making a racket on the metal roof.  The little barn birds were inside, sitting on the square-wire dividers between the stalls.  And then there were loud bumps and thumps overhead and strange scritching sounds and then running back and forth.  No.  It couldn't be.  But yes, it was.  The hens were up there, hunting for I don't know what among the twigs and bark fallen from the old oak.  These girls were on the roof of Louie's old room, the photo taken in a gap between the big room and the little shed.  It's one thing for the sparrows and jays to stand on the roof and quite another for the turkeys who must weigh over 20 pounds each to walk across the plexiglass panels.  I really feared that one would break through, get herself trapped, and I'd have to figure out a way to free a frantic wild turkey; not something I wanted to do.  Goats milked and barn cleaned, I made ready to slog back up the hill with the milk buckets.  The girls always accompany me as far as the gate, usually racing to be the first.  Yesterday the brigade included the contingent of turkeys following behind.  Me, the goats, and the turkeys.  I can't get away from the turkeys.  They're everywhere.