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Levi and I have a new chore to do each day around dusk: herd turkeys back into their pasture shelter.
Of our 26 bronze broad-breasted hens (and one tom, although we only ordered hens), about 18 have decided the roosts in the pasture pen are not high enough and get out each evening looking for somewhere else to roost. The other eight to 10 frantically try to figure out how they did it.
It is not hard to shut them up in the pen if we do it before dark, but turkeys are notoriously night blind and if we wait till after dark, it is much more of a hassle.
You would think that a 20-plus pound turkey bedding down on pasture would be pretty much predator proof. I did until two years ago, when I went to shut up the turkeys before Thanksgiving and caught a fox dragging off a turkey it had just killed.
I went to get my shotgun, figuring the fox was gone. He circled back around me and took down another turkey.
He paid the price. Now we try to remove temptation from the local predator population rather than resorting to shooting. But it is still an option if needed.
Popping garlic
Garlic is popping up through the straw mulch!
It is a needless worry every year, wondering if the garlic will make it through the mulch. I fret that the mulch may be too thick and smother the garlic. But garlic knows what it is supposed to do.
