It is embarrassingly easy to make friends with turkeys in the winter. I put out about 4 cups of cracked corn from Towaoc every day, and often a dozen or thirteen turkeys come by to eat it. I think there are eight females that all flock together, and a separate gang of four or five males who started visiting when I started putting out corn.
Today about fifteen minutes after I tossed the cracked corn into the pine needles, a male comes by with a silly looking beard. He starts eating and I lay down in the snow about eight feet away to take some pictures.
I’m thinking “what a handsome turkey you are (wish I had on ski pants)”
as the snow melts through my jeans, and suddenly there are two turkeys in my viewfinder
three
and by the time I sit up it’s a turkey convention.
These turkeys know that I put out the corn–they’ve watch me do it. And they fell for it just like a five-year-old falls for hot chocolate spiked with cream.
The snow hasn’t stopped yet. Avalanches have closed the pass to the north and the pass to the east. Our power was out for 28 hours, along with the heat and hot water.
The mountain had 26 inches of snow in 24 hours, so after our first night with no power we all went up to the ski area for first tracks in the morning. As they say around here, we got freshies. Bob has powder skis, long wide straight Big Kahunas. But Sam and I don’t, and the deep powder was heavy enough that it’d redirect our skis on sections that weren’t steep enough. We both fell more times than you’d choose to count. It was epic, but not completely in a good way.
We got home to no heat, no light, no hot bath, no computer and a refrigerator/freezer that needed to be emptied. The coffin freezer in the cellar had gone from 3F to 27F. And it wasn’t just our road, of course, but whole swathes of the landscape. Communities to the east are still without power. People are starting to use the cots set up at the county center, and this part of Colorado had sold out of generators.
I was tired, so I went to town with Sam for food and a movie while Bob, my hero, dealt with the refrigerator. We doubled up on covers and the power came back last night.
The weight of the snow bent down the light on the barn, but that’s our only storm damage
and the turkeys didn’t seem to mind at all.
.
The wild turkeys have been on the porch every morning around sunrise, looking for stray pieces of dog food. They scratch and peck at the coir mats in front of the doors.
“I don’t want the turkeys on the porch,” said Bob. “They make a mess.”
And they did: I don’t mind a porch that is rarely swept, but a porch with piles of turkey poop is unacceptable.
This turkey was on the other side of the glass door.
“You can’t take a picture through glass,” said Bob.
“Umm hmmm,” I said.
“It doesn’t work,” he said.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.
The picture came out just fine, but the turkey pooped on the mat for the second time.
He was right about the mess.
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