Turkey Trot

The neighbors turkey and roosters have been making regular visits lately.  We have enjoyed watching them scratching around in the dirt looking for insects, but they make a terrible mess though. But at least they're cute.

The other day after being gone all day, we came home to quite a mess.  Al had recently put a lot of pretty red mulch down and evidently they had been working those areas, and mulch was spread everywhere!

The next morning, I was sitting on the couch, watching tv and reading blogs.  One rooster and the turkey were digging around in the mulch under the Mimosa tree.  All of a sudden, the turkey started running back up the hill towards home, with the rooster following behind.  I couldn't figure it out. I thought maybe he heard his owner call him for dinner or something.  It was kind of strange.

Later in the day, Al went outside with a rake in order to put all the mulch and dried grass back where it belonged.  He found a nasty surprise in the ground under the Mimosa tree.  He found a huge yellow jacket nest.  He figured easily a couple hundred of them were flying around.  Luckily he got away without being stung, and put them on his "to do" list for later in the day.  Remember, he is an exterminator :)

We think the turkey and possibly the rooster got stung by the yellow jackets and that was why they ran off.  We haven't seen anyone in our yard since!

Of course, now being the animal lovers that we are, we started to worry about them.

We've taken a few golf cart rides up to where they live and have not seen the turkey.  Al thought he may have heard him this morning though.  Hope so.  Poor guy, probably got stung pretty bad and enough stings could easily have killed him.

We have some other critter news.  Al has been seeing a fox in our pasture area again.  We used to see 2-3 of them very frequently but hadn't seen one for a while.  We assumed someone had shot them for raiding chicken coops or something.  But this morning Al saw one sunning himself in the pasture, just like old times!

We're enjoying the beautiful fall weather with night time temps in the lower 50's and even upper 40's.  It's in the 70's or low 80's in the daytime.  Perfect weather, with clear blue skies!

Fried Chicken, or Roasted Turkey?

The weather has been lovely the past few days with low's in the upper 50's and mid 80's in the daytime.  We’ve been staying outside as much as we can.  Al spent some time yesterday cleaning out the weeds  and previous garden items from the chicken coop.  He planted some snow peas.  We like to plant things in there because it’s enclosed and nothing can eat our veggies.  Like our friend,  Bunny Rabbit. 

We got up this morning and opened up the doors to enjoy the sounds of the birds and enjoy the cool weather.  I kept hearing a noise in the back yard but didn't know what it was.

Al's friend "Cowboy" was on the back porch, seemingly asking if Al could come out to play :)  I don't have a picture of him, but he's a little black and white dog that lives nearby, and he’s become Al’s new best friend.  I thought the noise I was hearing was him, but it wasn't. 

Here's what I found.

and more

and more

I think there were 4 Roosters and one Turkey.  The turkey was kicking up and digging just like the roosters.  I don’t know if that’s a turkey thing too, or if he learned it from the roosters?

They were having quite a time digging and kicking up mulch looking for insects.  They made quite a nice mess too!  We didn’t mind them around the Mimosa tree because it’s just grass clippings, but then they headed toward the pool area where Al has been putting nice pretty mulch in there.  It was time to chase them out of there :)    They weren’t a bit afraid of us, and we actually thought they were kind of cute.

However….all of a sudden, Al remembered, that he had just planted a bunch of Snow Peas in the chicken coop and the gate was open!  Oh, no….we didn’t want any chickens there …in the chicken coop!  He ran out and closed it before any damage was done.  We’ve never had any chickens since we’ve been here.  We thought about it for a while since there was already a chicken coop here, but we decided that would be just another “pet” to worry about and we sure wouldn’t have eaten them!  I’d have worried about them in the rain or cold too.  So anyway, it’s nice to have the neighbors stop by to visit.

Here are a few pictures of south Georgia in the fall.

This is from a Confederate Rose.  The bloom is larger than a mans hand and the tree is at least 30 feet tall with tons of flowers getting ready to bloom.  Unfortunately, it blooms late in the year and the frost kills it.