Crazy Animals

My mother raised turkeys for food when I was growing up. They were always stupid birds. I figured it was a domesticated turkey trait. I figured the wild turkeys that grace our yard occasionally were smarter. How in the world can they survive if they are as stupid as a domestic turkey?

It turns out they are just as dumb. I was mowing my leaves the other day and happily filling my leaf bins. I noticed the turkeys were out and about. The turkey flock is huge. It is usually about 12-14 birds every year. Most of the flock was in my neighbor's yard, but two were still in my yard. Between the two yards is a fence. Towards the front and side of the house it is a nice pretty cedar fence, but way in the back it turns to chain link. I've seen the turkeys fly over the cedar part many times as I come close.

This time however the two turkeys were having a fit. They were walking back and forth along the chain link fence and calling plaintively to their brethren. They couldn't figure out how to get over the fence. I guess since they thought they could see through it, they ought to be able to walk through it. So I was walking back and forth on my lawn. As I got close they started freaking out and making a big ruckus. As I left for the other side of the yard they would calm down.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. I had to put the poor turkeys out of their misery. I herded them down the fence to the cedar part. As soon as they couldn't see though the fence they flew right over to their friends. Turkeys are really stupid.

Sadly I hadn't brought my camera with me. I didn't even think about it so there are no photos. The next crazy animal was also not photographed. I had the camera in my pocket this time, but I was so shocked by what happened I didn't even think to take it out and photograph it until it had disappeared.

I wanted to put a layer of compost on a couple of the lower beds that will be seeded very early in the spring. I had just finished using up last year's compost. I needed to start with some made this year. The best compost is on the bottom of the pile, so I started turning the compost over. After the first couple of shovelfuls a mouse ran out the bottom. He leapt up to my leaf bin and climbed to the top. I went over to have a closer look and he leaped to the nearby tree and started climbing.

It isn't the first time I've scared small rodents in my compost piles. Once I found a family of voles living there in the spring. But I've never seen a mouse act like a squirrel before. I was just shocked at this crazy mouse climbing the tree when there were plenty of leaves closer to hide in. As soon as he zipped over to the far side and I couldn't see him any more, I remembered the camera. Too late. He was gone.

The compost had its own variety of weirdness. I often have huge worms in my compost. Worms are common. This time I had a plethora of baby worms all through the compost. I coudn't believe how many there were. The baby worms were strange though. They were quite colorful and their middle band was orange. Usually I just get the typical pinky purple worm color. Instead I had brighter red and orange worms. Has a new variety of worms found my compost?

I took photos of those worms, but only with the camera in my pocket not my husband's camera with the nice macro lens. All the photos came out blurry. All I can show you is my garden beds newly limed and mulched with compost. The browner areas are my old compost that had dried out. The dark black is the worm ridden compost. It looks really nice from a distance, but it is pretty clumpy. I used a lot of newspaper in this batch since I didn't have enough leaves. Newspaper it turns out is very sticky. Ick. At least the worms appreciate it. Hmm maybe the newspaper is why my worms are different.