Thursday, August 03, 2006

The Great Turkey Roundup

Well, I had all good intentions of getting out to the torch early this morning but hesitated because Rob had some friends here from school and I wanted to see them off early - on their way to Odicon (I guess that's how it's spelled) in Baltimore.

I went out to the shop anyway and was toying with the idea of heating up the kiln when the phone rang. It was a neighbor - at least half a mile away. It seemed the turkeys were in her peach trees and she wanted us to do something about it.

Bob wasn't here, but I got in touch with him and he came home right away. He headed right over to the neighbor's house. Apparently the turkeys had left - on their way to terrorize someone else.

About 15 minutes later, the phone rang again and it was the neighbor's neighbor. The turkeys were headed back their way. So, we piled in the pickup, Bob, Rob, Rob's friend Molly and me. We had a number of cages in the back along with something that looked like a large butterfly net.

We screeched into the neighbor's driveway and searched the area around the peach trees for signs of turkeys. Finally, we spotted them out in the field across the road, seemingly headed for home.

Bob headed out on foot with his herding tool (the butterfly net). He told Rob to bring the truck and so Rob and Molly took off after him. Meanwhile, two other pickups stopped to ask if the birds were wild turkeys.

Rob came back and got me and then we all proceeded slowly down the road home. Bob was out on the road, herding the turkeys and Rob kept them from coming across the road and getting out of control.

I was relieved when we turned into our driveway because Bob and the turkeys were really exposed if any other vehicles had come flying along the road the opposite way.

So, the turkeys were "home", but of course, they weren't staying here. They immediately headed up the hill to our next door neighbor's yard. It was extremely hot and at least they were out of the peach trees, so we just decided that when they came in to roost tonight, we would try to capture them. We have another neighbor who actually raises a lot of birds and haad said he would like to have a pair of the turkeys, so we figured he'd be happy to see at least two, possibly four of them.

Rob and his friends left on their latest adventure and we made plans for the evening.

Mid afternoon and Bob was going out to prepare things for the big roundup tonight. He was outside for probably 45 minutes and came in looking quite proud of himself. "The turkeys are in the big pen!", he said. It seems they were headed down from the neighbors and Bob asked the kids and the neighbor's wife to help him guide them into the pen. They calmly and slowly guided them in and shut the door...

Later he took two pairs of them over to the bird guy's place. The rest, 5 of them, are all males and I think they may be going on a ride to the State game lands tomorrow.

The moral of the story is, don't allow wild game birds to imprint on humans. They had absolutely no fear - and no sense. I think we may be finished raising Wild Turkeys. The Pheasants are still great and certainly not tame as the turkeys were. The Chukkers had to be released so the large pen was available for the turkeys. They certainly didn't imprint on us - just the dang turkeys!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maryanne I'm sorry but I just can't stop laughing about the Great Turkey Roundup!

I know it probably wasn't funny at the time and very frustrating but to see it in print and visualize it is hilarious :o)

Honey you should start writing children's books about your adventures complete with stick figures of course hahahaha.

Seriously it would make a great story. A few words and a picture per page and a new famous child's storybook author is born!!!

{{HUGS}}

Zonnestraaltje said...

No, no.... you should have a sitcom... I can hear the laugh track now as you look down one of those corridors and see the old multi-door gag where we find Bob and his wild hair and butterfly net chasing turkeys in and out of different doors! Now that would be comedy!

I was in Baltimore on Pratt Street for a depo on Thursday and saw a bunch of the Odicon people sitting around the Convention Center building in chairs for some reason. I was thinking of your Rob and squinting across the street to see if he was "hanging out" in the crowd! LOL!