Sunbathing

Yesterday was the perfect day for sunbathing...

in a winter coat!

Looking out of the window, it sure looks like spring.

Step outside the door, and it still feels like winter!

There is warmth to the sun, however.

If you sit in the sun long enough it is actually quite comfortable.

The naturalized daffodils in the front pasture will be blooming by the end of the week...

a sure sign of what's to come!

 Our roosters seem to have worked out their differences.

Prince is definitely the alpha rooster.

This one gives him wide berth.

As for the flogging... it only seems to be the neighbors that get flogged...

not us.

(Sorry, Jim and Kathy!)

Friday's comments yielded this question:

"How did the turkeys come to live on the farm?"

Here's the story....

10 years ago, when we moved to the farm full time and built our house,

we bought three just-hatched turkeys.

We had the idea that we would raise them for food.

Of course we made the "mistake" of naming them...

Thanksgiving (Tom), Christmas (Chuck), and Easter (Edith).

We very soon learned that we could never eat something that we named.

Actually, we learned that we could no eat something that had depended upon us for care.

And very quickly, three turkeys became part of the family.

After a few years, Edith was taken by a predator while sitting on a nest at the edge of the woods.

Three years ago, Chuck passed away, leaving only Tom.

Fearing he would become lonely, we went to auction and found

Fred and Ethel.

I didn't take long at all for Tom and Fred and Ethel to become friends.

We have learned that turkeys are highly social and attach themselves

to their humans... as you can see (when Tyler was a baby)....

They follow us all over the farm, and it is not unusual to find them outside

our house on the driveway.

(which is quite a hike from the barn area)

Whenever we do a project around the farm, they are there to help...

for instance, painting the garden shed...

Whenever we have a party, they are in the thick of things...

inserting their "gobble-gobble" into conversation whenever possible.

We are as attached to them as they are to us...

and cannot imagine life on the farm without a couple of turkeys.

No homegrown turkey dinners for us.

It would be like eating a member of our family.