Wild(life) and Crazy Day

(With apologies to Steve Martin, that 'wild and crazy guy.')

I'm beginning to think my name is written on a bathroom wall somewhere in Turkeyville.  These are only two of the five or six boys that showed up yesterday morning on the deck and railing.  Not only are they staring in the windows, they're beginning to vie for attention.  Just a short while later, the entire flock of twenty-plus gathered and went cruising past the front door on the way to the buffet.  Earlier, just at sunrise, a big, two-point buck had wandered past in the morning mist and stopped to browse the low-hanging leaves from the oaks.  It was a wildlife kind of day.

Being watched by the turkeys brought back memories from when we were new to Farview Farm.  None of the surrounding vineyards were here at that time.  Our then neighbor ran fifty or so head of Black Angus cross-breed cattle.  He had a Pa Kettle (old movies) attitude toward fencing; might fix 'em...might not.  One morning I stepped out of the shower, glanced out, and there were thirty cows staring in the bedroom window.  That's a little unnerving.  Throwing on some clothes, I went out to herd the cattle back into their field through the broken fence.  Talk about putting the toothpaste back into the tube!  I'd get them all headed in the right direction, running back and forth like a winded border collie, and five or six would go home.  However, before I could get the next bunch in, three or four of the first group would squirt back out.  I don't know if it was the running or the laughing that had me falling on the ground.  This neighbor once offered me a newly orphaned calf to raise for beef.  Steve thought that was a good idea, so I went to see this baby.  These neighbors had lived for thirty-odd years in a double-wide mobile home.  I hiked down the hill, knocked on the door, and was invited into the very small kitchen...where they were keeping the calf!  (Shades of Ma and Pa Kettle...again!)  We had not put up any barns at that time.  It was explained to me that this little one had to be kept indoors.  Steve thought that was not a good idea.  We never did raise beef cattle.