My farm is almost all open land; pasture and hayfields. I've only seen turkeys on my land on about three occasions, other than the seven hens that spent one winter in one of our pastures, then left, in search of a gobbler, I suppose, that following spring.
I'd been bush-hogging around our fish pond a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised to see a turkey hen fly up ahead of my tractor and sail about 50 yards or so and run away. I had bush-hogged there earlier and was just back there to finish up some small patches that I had missed, and when I saw her, I stopped my tractor and went to look at the spot the little hen had flown from.
It wasn't hard to find her nest. A couple of days before, I had bush-hogged over it. What once was a pretty good hiding place in vines beside an old log was now a wide-open spot. How I had missed the nest with all six wheels, I don't know, but I had, and for a couple of days, now, she had been sitting on those eggs in a broad open spot. I just stopped and stared at the eleven eggs in that little depression on the ground in front of me and said a prayer for her, "Lord, look out after that little hen, she is trying so hard!"
Five days passed and I was sitting in the den on a Sunday afternoon, reading the paper. Somehow that little hen and her nestful of eggs popped into my mind and I got up and drove up to the pond. She wasn't there, but the eggs were still there and all intact. Once again, I asked the Lord for a special favor for this little mother.
It was five more days before I checked on the nest again, and this time when I got close enough to see the eggs, my heart skipped a beat. The shells were all opened but one, lying there just like they were before, but empty now, Their former occupants were nowhere to be seen! I brought the lone egg home to show my three year old grandson, and we actually had a little show and tell experience, opening that egg and seeing the little turkey inside, cold and dead, but still a beautiful creature.
I haven't seen the little brood or their mother again, but then, I'm not in that area very often, what with cutting and baling hay elsewhere, but ya'll, we have turkeys on Crook Farms!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom
