Lucky to farm in a wild land! You never know what is around the next corner!
So one day, a couple of weeks ago, I was walking along the farm road through the meadow back home. Everything was just fine and dandy and I was whistling my tune. As I rounded the corner before the pear trees where the turkeys take cover in the heat of the day, a kerfuffle erupted in their midst like I had never heard before.
I ran toward the pear tree only to behold chaos: Turkeys flapping, flying, squawking and fleeing in every direction, downy feathers in the air. One almost ran through my legs!
"What is happening turkeys!?", I asked, but of course, they were too busy to reply.
All of a sudden, a little chick emerged from cloud running fast as lighting toward the thicket of the creek.
And then I saw him.
One of the turkeys was not a turkey but a Golden Eagle bounding, swooping, and pouncing with his mighty talons, trying grab our little friend.
The little chick ran so fast. Just as she was about to reach cover the Eagle leaped up with his furry legs, heaved his might wings, aimed his sharp talons and descended. The Eagles talons closed.
Air.
Chick darted to the right just in time, and skittered down into cover.
As quickly as it had begun, the turkeys were gone. Eagle was alone, standing in the road.
Just then, he noticed my presence. He looked out of the corner of his eye at me and I could almost hear him say, "Shucks." With a resigned sigh he looked aloft, and with one powerful stroke of his wings, he launched off the ground, two, three, four and he was a hundred feet in the air, where another Eagle was circling. A piercing scream lit the sky.
The nervous chatter of the mommy and daddy Turkeys could be heard from the shade of the thicket for some time. I imagined little chick huddling in there with them, smiling proudly, replaying her lightning escape.
To think of the stories she'll tell her little chickies someday.
See you in the fields,
David & Kayta
