Chapter 12

JENNY-O

Jenny owns a place in my memoirs of the fowl group of our pets.

We didn’t keep the geese long. I thought they would make nice pets, and found out that birds usually only make good pets if you get one, and pay that one a lot of attention, like having a parakeet or a parrot. It isn‘t fair to the bird, though, as in that case, they aren‘t free to be the bird Nature meant it to be. The geese had each other, and were like watch dogs that didn‘t want anything or anyone approaching, and if you did, you risked being goosed in the rear end or anywhere, and it hurt. Whereas there are weeder geese who will help you with your garden, ours wanted to eat any green juicy shoot from whatever we were trying to grow. Every other dropping had to quality of permanent India ink, and if you tracked it in on the rug, forget ever getting that spot out of the carpet. We ended up selling them at the Nicholson farm auction for less than each cost at Agway when purchased as goslings.

Of the 6 turkeys, one of them thought he was a duck, and would spend his days on the edge of the pond peeping for his webbed footed friends to join him on the shore. That made a good story for my grandchildren, and in the story, I envisioned finding a tiny inner tube for him to sit in so he could join the ducks.

The male white turkey, Junior, and the Bronze breasted turkeys and were raised for their meat. I thought Junior was a goner when a dog had attacked him and pulled a large piece of skin from his underbelly… feathers and all. I was to learn about their ability to regenerate serious skin wounds, as after keeping him separate from the other fowl until he was feeling better, as when a bird is wounded, we found that their nature is to peck on the wounded bird. I suppose this was to keep strength in the flock. Nature doesn‘t pussy-foot around. After a good scab formed over the spot, he joined the rest, and within a month or so you wouldn‘t know that he was ever harmed.

We kept the Dutch white hen turkey we named Jenny-O, who ironically was named after a brand name of processed turkey meat. She had earned a place in my heart. She was the funniest turkey I ever had. I’d be sitting in the lawn swing, and feel something tugging at my blouse or hair, and turn to see Jenny-O. She’d let me pick her up, and then she’d do a little settling thing like my lap was a nest and she was making it comfortable. If I was sitting out on the lawn, she would come up to me and reach one of her feet up to my leg as if to see if it was feasible to climb on my lap. I’d help her and she’d sit there in the sun with me like a cozy cat on my lap, rather than a dumb Thanksgiving Turkey.

Maybe it was because she was female, but Jenny seemed able to survive and never got overweight. I had heard that hen turkey’s make wonderful mothers, and would have loved to have Jenny mate and raise some poults, as she had such a pleasant nature. Turkey farms artificially inseminate the female turkey, and forget about that.

So Tom bought me two adult Royal turkeys for my birthday one year. They which were a lighter bird and would have no trouble reproducing. The first day we had them the two went too close to the road, and the female got hit by a car. That was a problem with turkeys free ranging, they seemed to like the paved road in front. It didn’t take me long to figure out that we were going to let Jenny see if she could hatch an egg.

The only problem with that, once she laid fertilized eggs, was she going to be too heavy brood them. We did what fertility clinics do, and collected enough eggs so that perhaps a few would get through the long brood [28 days]. We tried to keep the nest soft and deep. Jenny pulled off her down to line her nest, and would try to avoid stepping on the eggs as she nestled down on the eggs. They have to cool the eggs once in awhile, and turn them daily, and in the process would ruin an egg now and then. One at a time she’d roll out an egg. We’d check it, and see a hairline crack… if not obviously crushed. She had started with about 8 eggs, and by day 27 there was just two left. We listened and one was still viable. We left them both, hoping the one that wasn't tapping from the inside was just late. Next time we went out to the garage where we had her nesting box, the next to the last egg was rolled out on the floor. It would be a pity after all that brooding if none hatched. I kept checking.

It was amazing to me that, here was a mass produced plain white turkey from a long line of mass produced turkeys, whose genetic background still sprung up to the forefront when it came to her mating and hatching her own eggs. To me this was so miraculous. Those people who discount turkeys as being so stupid they’d drown if they looked up in a rainstorm hadn‘t met my Jenny-O.

Soon the chick in the one remaining egg was working its egg tooth at cracking open the egg, but the shell had dried out and was sticking to the chick’s back. Feeling like a mid-wife, I got a warm wet washcloth and soaked the egg shell to remove the parts that were sticking to the chick, staying with Jenny practically holding my breath while her only poult successfully hatched. I was overjoyed. I didn’t want to leave. I was so worried about this tiny chick surviving our HUGE Jenny-O sitting on it keeping it warm (think a little cab compared to a huge apartment building).
Jenny was very motherly and would tuck the little chick under her and then sit. I had to check and make sure the chick wasn’t being sat upon, but Jenny had been very careful. I finally let nature take it’s course and left the maternity ward to eat a missed meal and have some coffee. I felt more like breaking out the champagne. But I didn’t want to jinx things… we didn’t want to get too excited.

Next time I went out to check on the chick, it was nowhere to be seen. I began to panic. I made Jenny stand up, and searched to see if it’s life was flattened out into the nest. It was nowhere. How the hell could it just disappear? I thought to feel inside Jenny‘s downy feathering between her body and her wings, reaching up into her rich warm feathers and then felt two wiry legs. The chick would climb up into Jenny’s downy feathers under her wings like an apartment dweller in a four story walk up.

The first few days the poult hardly left his “apartment.” The second day he explored the nesting box. …Then the area right in front where we kept some starter feed, ...and finally his mom took him for a walk around the garage. At about 5 days old Jenny took him out on the lawn to show his handsome strutting Royal gobbler dad. Jenny kept herself between the tom, Dano, and the chick. He looked like any proud dad. It was a short outing the first day. Soon Jasper, as we called the poult, was out with Jenny looking for insects in the grass. Dano would join them for a family outing. When Jasper got tired, he’d simply jump on his mama’s back and take a ride.

What I had heard was true. Hen turkey’s make wonderful mothers. I really loved that Jenny, and would agree that she was an okay Turkey to over-winter, but she ended up very lonely after Jasper grew up, as we sold Dano and his son, and some more cross breed poults we raised using a broody Aracauna hen, as the ‘mother.‘ Reason being that the lighter turkeys could fly and chose Tom’s truck as a landing area, scratching the hood.

Jenny couldn’t fly, but she was enamored to trucks and cars, and almost got run over a few times when she wriggled down in mating position awaiting the car to mate with her. Her tail actually got trapped underneath the front tire of a car when someone dropped in to visit. We had to have him back up to free Jenny-O who was otherwise unscathed.

One day when I came home from Montrose, I was to find the Silver Lake Police Chief parked next to the driveway. I asked him what was going on, as he was walking down the driveway, and I saw Jenny-O sitting further up the driveway. He said, “I was driving by and saw your turkey just sitting by the road, and got out to see if she was okay. I couldn’t see any harm, and carried her up the driveway. She’s just sitting there and won’t move.” I went up to inspect her. She was fine, but was in a swoon… the way she gets after something’s tried mating with her… or so she thinks. Cars make her swoon, so I told him how cars put her in a swoon.

Jenny lasted another winter, and then chose to nest in March when there was still snow on the ground in an old unused dog house. It was just easier to let her try to hatch her unfertile eggs than to carry her over to the coop to safely shut her in for the night, as she wouldn’t go on her own. We hadn’t realized that raccoons would already be out on the prowl, and sadly, on a snowy morning in that March, we found Jenny's mutilated body in the snow near the back steps. I felt badly about not having protected her. Though I don't grieve over fowl like I do over other types of pets that die, I felt sorry about having lost her and I'll always miss her. There will never be another Jenny. She was unique, and we shouldn’t have tried years later to over winter a big Bronze Breasted turkey who was almost paralyzed by his weight alone. Jenny stands out as my favorite memory of all the fowl we’ve raised… thus far.

Chapter 11
THE PATH

When we first bought the land, and from the very first walk up the hill and through the field above on someone else‘s land… someone who lives in NYC and hardly ever comes up to even check on it… in that field was a path, carved out by wildlife, I simply followed across the field to the road bordering it.

I wondered from the beginning as to ‘why this path?’ as it ambled, or rambled. In other words, it wasn’t an efficient straight line from one side to the other, but seemed to lean a bit to the right or left. I could picture a fox as the first beast to trod the path, marking small plants that grew in the field since the last time it was mowed. (A neighbor got permission to cut the hay for his scrawny cows of which we always felt a pang of sorrow for their lack of sufficient food, but that’s another story.)

Foxes like to claim their path. It’s as if they say with a little urine that goes a long way, “these plants that I mark, and any game housed in the nooks and crannies of this land belongs to ME. Therefore, do not touch!” But then, other animals follow their scent to see 'why' the previous animal went this way.

Or maybe it was a deer, stopping here and there ruminating as only a deer can do in the wild, looking for a nutritious bite wherever she can, perhaps sticking to this path as her little Bambi look alike is nestled somewhere in the grass nearby.

So, years go by and I’ve always gone on this path across the field, staying right on it through its bendy inefficient way, until it got lost. First time I lost the path was on a particularly rainy summer, whereas, rather than get my jeans wet on the damp grass bending across the path, I’d go through the woods where no undergrowth to have dripped or otherwise have its moisture rubb off on me.

Then there was an especially hot summer where the comparative coolness of the wood made it my preferred route to and from Cranberry Lake.

Then my husband, knowing what route I used to take through the field, made two straight parallel paths with his ATV, erasing ‘my path’--the old wild meandering one--for a more efficient and direct route. I should have been thankful. I started using one or the other of the two paths made by the wheels of the ATV, and felt something lost, and began seeking out the old well worn narrow path that, through wear, was deeper and more distinct. Then last summer the man who used to mow the grass dumped his cows' manure all over that field, making paths every which way with his manure spreader. I had to more or less play hopscotch between manure piles rather than seek out my path. But recently I realized I missed the meditation of the wild path that went on inside my head each time I walked through that field on that almost extinct path. I missed the meditation. It was to me like the difference of the modern to the old fashioned. I missed my less traveled and more reminiscent trail of the wild.

Now I’m determined to find it again. Sometimes the dogs would somehow just instinctively know the path, I’d think I was on it when following them, only to have them get distracted by the smell of a mouse under the sod, or the fresh trail of a rabbit and they’d go off in a totally different direction. But with or without their help, I’m going to try to find the old deeper path and mark it with ribbon until it gets pressed well into the field again. There is a lot more at stake here than just a way through the field.

I walked that old path with my dog Wendy; then Gayle and Holly; and then just Gayle, until we got English Springer, Millie; then both of them; then just Millie when Gayle died; then Polly and Millie when we got our little beagle basset mix. Then after Millie died; we got a German short hair, Domino, who leaped over that path with the freedom and zest of a wild mustang. He died when killed by a vehicle in Jan. 2003. It was a sad, sad time in our lives, as we loved this dog so very much. But on my path, I think of the good times with Domino leaping through that field each time I walk there. I had to watch those two dogs, Polly and Domino… keep one or the other in check, either through leash or electric collar, as, when I’d turn my back, they’d go off hunting for days. As much as we loved Domino, Polly loved him more, and grieved him as much. But that’s another story. After Domino died, we got Bear, and he would never run off. I never had a dog who was so fixated on me. He stayed on my paths or nearby digging -- his favorite hobby. If he isn’t digging, he’s carrying a big stick. He’s left so many big sticks in that field that I doubt if it could be mowed again until someone goes through picking them up first.

But, now not even the dogs know where the path is, but I’ll see glimpses of it in the melting snow, as the path… the old path… is the last to melt… kind of. Here and there I’ll catch a glimpse, and think I’ll somehow mark the places of the original path, and then maybe I can figure out where to join the missing parts that have grown over. Why? I don’t know. There are actually grants given to colleges to go around taking pictures and asking residents or seeking out historical evidence of just how the countryside has changed. I don’t seek out the purpose of the change, I seek out the old and to stick to the old path. And I still don’t really know why. Maybe when find the old path and keep it for good, I can go back to 1986 when we first bought the land. For the few minutes it takes to go across the field, I can step into the past, and be suddenly be the age I was in 1986, or the age I was when I had the dogs I think about and remember when taking my daily walk. I think it’s worth it just for that to find and keep that old trail.

Chapter 10

THE LAND

We had other poultry after the pheasant venture also before moving up to THE LAND. We thought about having our own eggs, got an assortment of chickens from Agway… some of which were supposed to be Rhode Island Reds, which were supposed to be good layers. But the only thing I remember about those chickens was how tough they were when we ended up having them slaughtered for meat (guess we thought they weren‘t good layers… Especially the roosters). For some reason we were having a guest over when we had our first home grown chicken barbeque, and I was embarrassed for the chicken being like eating chicken flavored string wrapped around chicken bones.

But having the land was a promise and an escape. Although we had great neighborhood which regularly had block parties, it was still suburbia, and we longed for the country. Our second group of chickens were meant just for meat, as they were capons. I hadn’t realized that they’d mature and be ready for market so fast that their bone and muscular development could not keep up. So when they got so heavy that they went lame, I thought they had some kind of malformation. We had them all slaughtered, and had to await company before roasting up one of them, as there was hardly a one that wasn’t over eight pounds. And those were less than 3 months old. We were to later find out that the capons were usually ready for market at 8 weeks, and if kept too long, they went lame. Still, that was to be the last time we raised capons. We settled on getting the white Cornish Giants type of meat bird were also ready for market at six to eight weeks old, and were subject to heart attacks if not slaughtered by then. By the time we had the Cornish giants, we were then living at the land. I raised those lovely chickens for years and years, giving them tender loving care for their sweet short lives. I had a nice coop lined with hay and straw. Since I had electricity wired to the coop, I’d have light on for a few hours in the evenings for my Aracauna layers. We had two sides to the pen, and had a portable tape player in the outer coop earlier when we had raised bob whites, over wintering them and had released them in the spring. We had recorded their “bob-white” call to have them come back in for the night, which brought a few back, then fewer, then none came back, but we were hopeful that they survived. We kept the old radio-tape player combo out in the pen, and would sometimes would put music on for the enjoyment of the fowl.

The Cornish Giants would go outside for the day and just waddle about, and sit down hard and stay there for the day trimming the grass and enjoying the sun on their feathers and trays of food and water nearby for their dining pleasure. They were placid and happy campers. They had the best of lives, and whereas they would die anyways if not slaughtered for meat, I was saddened to see them go at that point of the summer, but knew I’d given them a good life. They were the funniest birds aside from one white New Holland White turkey I had named Jenny-O.

Our first summer at The Land we wanted it all at once, as we had looked forward to this adventure for six years. We got 6 Aracauna chickens; 6 Khaki Campbell ducks; 6 turkeys (4 Bronze breasted and 2 white); and 2 Toulouse geese.

The funny thing about having all those fowl together as chicks, they got along just fine. It was before the coop was built, so we had them all in what is now the woodshed, with many joined extension cords leading to it up from the garage for a warming light while they were still chicks. They were all one big happy family, getting along so well together it kind of busted up that slogan of “birds of a feather flock together”. I just accepted their ways the first year, but late summer, we were all eating out on the back porch. Our daughter and husband with us. And just before sunset, a female mallard flew over the pond, circled around and came down to size it up. We thought, “Wow, wouldn’t that be neat if this wild duck joined our motley crew of fowl…” and just as we were discussing this, all our birds in tandem got up from their roosting and calm positions, taking a fighting stance, and went after this poor little mallard like she was an opposing gang member horning in on their territory.

I began to study the fowl like an anthropologist, and could see rudiments of human behavior in these birds, even though they were so different from mammals. I've seen it myself when straying into a new neighborhood as a child and the local children pelted us with rocks...while we fleed for our lives, though none of us got injured from the stones. The birds did group according to species, but got along with the familiar that they had been brought up with together. I think if children are socialized so that they realize that their world is bigger than their neighborhood or schoolyard, that their differences are only skin deep, they become more accepting of their uniqueness.

The simplicity of country life with its take-your-time pace was good for me at a time in my life when all our children were on their own, and our greatest responsibility was to feed the chickens and walk the dogs; to care for the garden vegetables and water the flowers; to shovel the walks and plow the driveway in the winter; and to remember and acknowledge the children's and spouses and grandchildren's birthdays. To have family visit, and visit family. It's a good life.