Turkey Heads Back To The Woods

On Wednesday morning when I was ready to take Mom to day care I noticed a turkey hobbling through the snow in the front yard. I watched it flap its wings and move a few inches through the snow and fall. I’d watched this very same turkey all spring and summer scratch for food in the yard. The reason I know it was the same turkey is because it couldn’t fly. It had no tail feathers. It was using its wings to make its way into the woods for shelter from the cold. I got out of the car and watched it hobble and wing itself down the hill behind Mom’s house and settle beneath a tree and fallen branches. I knew if the turkey weren’t able to walk and scratch for food, it would die.

When I got to my house that morning, I told Two Feather about it and we rode down to Mom’s to see if the turkey was still there. We walked down the slope just behind the house and there she was, huddled beneath a pile of brush. She was still alive.

Two and I walked up to it and when we got within just a few feet of her, she pushed herself off the ground and hobbled down the hill using her wings for balance. She was a fast ball of feathers, but not fast enough for Two. He ran down the hill and grabbed her before she crawled beneath another pile of brush. He carried her up the hill and we took her home.

She had a broken leg. Two put a pop cycle stick splint on her leg and taped it so she could heal. All day Wednesday and Thursday, he fed her birdseed and was able to get her to drink water. He kept her safe and warm in the shed out behind our house. Thursday she was a bit spunky and got up on her foot and ran around the shed. This morning when he went out to the shed to feed her, she was standing by the door waiting for him.

This afternoon we rode back down Mom’s with her in his lap. He held her for a moment, stroked her head and set her free back into the woods.

The splint he made seemed to be holding up very well. I wasn’t able to get another shot of her as she ran down the hill behind Mom’s house. I hope she makes it through the winter. We’ll know next spring if we see that funny looking turkey without a tail.

He Never Stops!!

Today was a beautiful day. Two Feather and I spent part of the day mowing again. There hasn’t been much rain lately so the grass didn’t grow a lot, but it still needed cut.

As usual, he loaded the mowers on the Mule and the wagon and hauled them down to Mom’s.

As long as we don’t get a drastic change in weather, heat and rain mixed, this should be the last time we cut this year. We’ll see.

Here are a few pictures of how nice the yards look after they are mowed.




These two are pictures of behind Mom's house and what we call the lower yard.
Of course, since the turkey hang out in all these areas, I had to run around picking up all the turkey feathers before we mowed. We clean them and Two Feather uses them to make Indian headdresses. He'll be making a special Eastern headdress here soon. We've probably collected enough feathers this year to make several different types and sizes of headdresses.

This is the yard above the house and above the barn. To the left in this picture you can see another fallen tree. He'll be working on that one soon. Right now he's still trying to get all the wood off the driveway from the oaks we had taken down.











After we finished at Mom's we had to mow our yard, too. I didn't get a chance to take pictures up at our place. I'll be showing a few pictures of that yard soon--after we work on the flowerbeds.

When the mowing was finished, Two Feather loaded a few more large pieces of oak on the wagon and took them up to our house to split them. He stacked more wood on the remaining skids we had ready for the wood. This is only 1/3 of the two big oak trees that were taken down. There is still plenty of room to add a few more skids and a large stock pile behind it. We won't be running out of firewood anytime soon. This wood has to dry for two years before it can be used, though.













I swear Two Feather is a workaholic. He never stops working! When he was finished stacking wood, he decided to cut up another fallen tree near the path going to Mom's. He had to weedwack the weeds around it before he could get to it though.

I get tired just watching him!