Our Thanksgiving Turkeys

I always smile when I open up magazines this time of year and see photographs and stories of The Noble North American Turkey.  Having briefly attempted to raise a flock of our own, I can say with certainty the term is an oxymoron.  Turkeys only appear noble in still shots, or carved in wood, or stuffed and roasted, on the dinner table.  They are altogether something … different … in real life.

Turkeys also have the singular distinction of being the only animals to have escaped our farm en masse, alive, never to return.  Not that the donkeys haven’t tried multiple times, but it’s harder to hide in the road-side ditch when you have the size and disposition of fat, lazy horses, and the local sheriff knows who your owners are.  Darn it.

The Noble Turkey ... in a flea market

It began like this:

“Hey, we can raise our own Thanksgiving Turkey!  It’ll be fun!” Jim announced as he beamed over a box of poults (turkey chicks).  Behind him, the biting horse glared at me balefully because I’d shooed him out of the chicken coop where he had his head in the feed bin; the indoor dog (having once again slipped the bondage of the house) was chasing rabbits with reckless abandon; and the donkeys were blissfully scratching their rumps on the split-rail fence.  Fun indeed.

Although they started out cute enough, the wide-eyed poults quickly outstripped chicks and ducklings in size and intellectual dullness.  With maturity, the down on their bodies was replaced with iridescent brown, black, silver, and white feathers, while the soft fuzzy down on their heads was replaced with, well, nothing.  For the rest of their lives they would wear only their mottled and bumpy skin for adornment.  The tom turkey’s head turned chalky blue, and he grew a bright red snood that dangled untidily from his beak, and an offensive red wattle that seemed to ooze down his throat.  He eventually gained a full set of feathers, which would lie flat one moment, and the next puff out until he was twice his true size, like pulling a ripcord on an airplane safety vest.  Then he would stand, stiffly rotating before the drab turkey hens, eyebrow raised, as if to say, “I KNOW! RIGHT?!”

I would normally insert a photograph of a turkey for you here, but it turns out I don’t have any.  Even now, I recoil at the thought of taking one.  If you have never seen a real, live, genuine turkey, I would have to say that it looks a lot like a real, live, genuine vulture, only not as handsome.

By mid-summer, the turkeys stood thigh high to a short adult (me) and did not fit into the chicken coop.  Thus began their Goldilocks Phase, when they searched diligently for a place to sleep.  The flat-bed trailer parked by the chicken coop was too low, as they discovered one night when the roving coyote pack howled a little too close for comfort.  The $700 Goliath basketball goal – unarguably the most expensive bird roost EVER -- was too high, as they discovered the night of the great big electrical storm.  I watched the six of them huddled together along the backboard, shoulders hunched against the rain, raising their heads to ponder the black sky as lighting skipped from cloud to cloud, and occasionally from cloud to ground.  Wherever they roosted, they left tall stalagmites of turkey droppings, and Jim lamented, “If only it were worth as much as bat guano!”  They finally found a place that was just right: the Honey Locust tree that overhangs the back patio.  This was because they could bound up to the safety of the branches in stages.  Notice I did not say, “fly.”  They dismounted from their perch in the same manner.  The first morning they did this, we thought someone had dropped a bowling ball onto the roof.  Later we witnessed the turkeys leaping from the branch to the roof, where they staggered drunkenly until they ran out of roof and plunged gracelessly to the ground below.  There they picked themselves up, shook out their feathers, and proceeded nonchalantly to breakfast. 

During the day, the turkeys foraged for insects in the tall hay, venturing farther and farther away from the house as the hawks turned their attention to smaller prey.  And then we noticed they were not appearing as often.  We knew they’d nested when a hen appeared with a dozen speckled and striped, fuzzy poults fanning out behind her like the train of a wedding dress.  But she and the babies vanished if anyone approached. 

This wariness could not possibly have anything to do with the visit of my sister and her family near the end of summer, when her son and my sons passed many happy hours hurling empty pop cans out in front of the three-wheeled electric golf cart as they careered around our circular drive, whooping, hollering and occasionally succeeding in their goal of crushing a can with the front wheel.

I know what you’re thinking: What responsible parent allows a child to drive a golf cart unsupervised?  Jim may have considered this, which is probably why after the golf cart sputtered its last dying gasp, he bought a gas-powered chuck wagon.  It had fewer seats, but seatbelts and greater ground clearance, for when the children are  driving 25 miles an hour and hit a dirt mogul.  Safety first, we always say.

I got one!

Jake in Heaven

When they weren’t on the golf cart, the boys chased the tom turkey.  “Hey, let’s chase the turkeys!” Jake would suggest hopefully, and shortly after, we would see the boys streaking after the tom, which cut back and forth at break-neck speed, always just out of their reach.  In more stealthy moments, the boys would sneak up behind him as he strutted for the hens.  “Gobble gobble gobble!” They would dissolve into howls of laughter as the tom jerked around to stare at them, equally insulted and bewildered by their attempt to communicate.  Then he would draw himself up and stalk away, abandoning his dignified retreat as the boys gave pursuit.

In the end, they were too wild to tame.  It was no great surprise the morning we were not awakened by the familiar thud and roll on the roof.  They visited less and less frequently until we realized they hadn’t appeared for a week.  I can imagine how they must have looked that crisp autumn morning: a rippling mass of earth-hued bodies, slow-stepping past the wire fence that marked the boundary of our property; past the faded No Trespassing sign, and out into the freedom of rural Butler County. 

Did I mention it was hunting season?

No, they weren’t really noble; not pretty, nor bright.  They were endearing. 

So don’t be surprised if you are in Butler County driving along behind a dusty white SUV, and it suddenly brakes beside a dense field of standing milo.  All the windows might roll down, and all the occupants might emit a raucous chorus of “GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!” at the retreating backs of a flock of wild turkeys, followed by shrieks of laughter. 

Be forgiving.

Old habits die hard.