Extraordinary Light: The Turkey

There are many reasons why I could never complain that my life is boring, the main one being my extraordinary middle daughter! Today, as I was getting back into my car at the local produce store after purchasing horse feed and hay for her horses, she jumped in beside me with a fully grown turkey in her arms!

'Brains'

This was the turkey she had rescued from the Christmas table while attending a horse camp at the end of last year. She arrived home from the camp with her horse AND a young turkey wrapped in a hessian bag that she had named “Brains”. She had fallen in love with this ugly creature at the camp and had badgered the lady who owned the farm to let her take him home. After I recovered from the initial shock and complained, she quickly said, “You’re lucky Mum that it’s only a turkey. There was an older calf that I was also allowed to take but could not fit it in the float with the horse!”

So, the turkey moved in with us. It gobbled loudly day and night, only quieting down when Jess was with it, following her around like a puppy and driving the neighbours crazy perched on top of our wall gobbling at the passing cars. After two weeks we had all had enough of the turkey and Jess agreed to find it a home.

The local produce store had a little farmyard with chickens, ducks and another turkey and they agreed to take Brains. Ever since then, for the last six months, Jess has complained incessantly about having to rehome her turkey, claiming that she still misses him, and he her!

Every time we went to the produce store to purchase horse feed, she visited him, and every time without fail, he recognised her and ran straight up to her. And every time we left the store, I would breathe a sigh of relief ...

Tiny rescued duckling ~ 'Jarpi'

Today, she impulsively decided that he was not looking at all happy, so she would take him to the nearby property where we agist the horses and he could take his chances with the resident goat and our three horses.

So, we have a turkey again, though thankfully this time not perched on our wall for all the passing traffic to point to and laugh at!

'Jarpi'

Over her childhood years Jess has brought home countless injured and stray animals. We have never known what she would turn up with next! We have had baby birds, ducks, cats, chickens, mice, rats geckos, even two strange eggs that she found in an abandoned nest and was so sure would hatch if she slept on them and kept them warm! But it was not to be. She fussed over and warmed those eggs for over a week before one of the cats found them while she was at school and attempted to consume them for breakfast!

Jess at 10 ~ At least this one got away!

I clearly remember one incident when she was in her second year at school. I received an urgent phone call from the school asking me to come in as she had had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. When I got there I was told that she had confessed that she had been ‘training bees’. She had found a bee hive at the far end of the playground and each day that week she had taken a few of the bees and was in the process of training them to be circus bees, much to the delight of her little classmates!