Wild Turkeys -- summer

by Rain Trueax

Living on  little ranch in the Oregon Coast Range, we have wildlife as our neighbors. Sometimes that's worrisome like coyotes with sheep. Other times, it's such a blessing. Such is with the wild turkeys that live part of the year in our yard and pastures. I learned a bit about them out of curiosity as to how they fit into history.

In Oregon, they don't. It is claimed that the first wild turkeys were introduced here in 1961. I thought maybe they'd been over hunted as they had other places but apparently no evidence to show that they were ever here. They were elsewhere in the United States and have played a role in even stories about pioneers and Native Americans.

Of the four subspecies of turkeys, we have two in Oregon. The Merriam's wild turkeys were the first. They were live-trapped in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Montana. Today, it's believed that they hybridized with Rio Grande

wild turkeys brought to southwestern Oregon in 1975. They were native to riparian zones and scrub woodlands from the southern Great Plains into northeastern Mexico. They flourish in places like our ranch land here in the Coast Range.  
In researching, I learned wild turkeys evolved more than 11 million years ago although probably not exactly as they are today.  There are five subspecies of wild turkeys with different ranges and feathers. 

Ancient civilizations, like the Aztecs revered the birds and held religious festivals twice a

year. They thought the turkey was a bird manifestation of one of their gods-- a trickster. In the Mayan and Aztec culture, turkey feathers were used to adorn jewelry, clothing and headdresses. Although they regarded the turkey as of spiritual significance, they did also eat them. Navajos, in the American Southwest, penned wild turkeys to fatten them. 
In pagan and nature based religions, the turkey represents spirituality and Earth Mother. The red wattle, which is that flap of skin that originates from the forehead and is seen on the toms, is said to represent the energy center of intuition. 

The stories of them with the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving are well known. Maybe less so is that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be our national bird. He considered the proud, adaptable turkey superior to the eagle, whom he had little use for.

Most of the West had turkeys and then they were nearly hunted to extinction along with their natural habitat being reduced. It was time for an intervention and that was begun as hunting was limited to seasons and the birds were moved into areas, like Oregon, where they had never been. 

We had long seen them around us but two years ago is the first time that they began to raise their broods here where it's a natural habitat for them with the oaks and meadow like pastures. 

Some think of them like domestic turkeys, but they are not. Domestication takes a lot out of any animal. Wild turkeys have a wide variety of sounds they make to call each other, fight, or just express enjoyment. To hear them outside is one of the more enjoyable part of my life here in Oregon. 

Most often, we see the toms and hens together with the chicks but they are not monogamous birds. It's about the community. A tom may mate with several females but the hens only with one. They lay about twelve eggs, one egg a day for two weeks. The hens sit on the nest until the eggs hatch after four weeks. She stays there to protect those babies from all that would eat the eggs. 

When the poults hatch, they are up inside of a day. They must walk to find food as this isn't like the birds that can feed their young. The job of the flock is to get the young to food sources. Until the chicks get their flying feathers, they are vulnerable on the ground to snakes and other predators. Turkeys can be very aggressive and don't have spurs on their legs for nothing. One year, Ranch Boss watched a sad story as a hawk was attacking a chick that appeared crippled. The hen fought with him but the battle was hers to lose.

Something many don't know is adult wild turkeys fly quite well. They roost in trees as soon as their babies have enough feathers to fly. Ours here roost about 40 or 50 feet up. To hear them take off for their big branches is like a whirl of wind. They come down with less noise. The sounds in the trees range from gobble gobble to tweets and almost purring sounds. 

They generally will not stay one place for long. Even though we put out some grain for sheep and birds, they never linger but always move on. I expect them to not stay on the farm here although they get along quite well with the sheep. Both like the grains from tall grasses and what drops off the hay bales. It appears we have four flocks with varying ages of chicks. Earlier as the chicks were growing, it seemed the toms hung with the flock for protection. Now, they are hanging more together than with the hens and chicks. 

We have taken a lot of photos but haven't had much luck in capturing the sounds they make. They are very defensive and if you watch them in a flock, some will be looking behind and some ahead for predators.

What I have seen besides photos are a LOT of feathers. I don't know why they drop so

many, but they seem to be most heavily below where they roost. I am trying to figure out if I can use these in any productive way. Someone told me it's illegal to keep any feathers, even from game birds. I need to do some research on this. The striped ones look like many Native American headdresses, where they suggest eagle feathers. Some say their feathers have spiritual significance.

This week, when I had to deliver a message to Ranch Boss at the barns, walking down the gravel and dirt road, there were two hens ahead of me, without their chicks. As Ranch Boss

approached from the other barn side, the hens saw they had a problem. They ran toward him, then looked back at me. I was standing still. I knew that soon they'd have to choose to fly, something they prefer not doing. First one, then the other took to the air, very cool to watch and part of the joy of living with wildlife.
They are hunted in Oregon in two seasons-- spring and fall. I guess it's a popular sport, but nobody better try shooting the ones on our land. This is a sanctuary. :) They are not as afraid of us anymore, but they still run when we approach, which is good. Not all humans can be trusted. 

All photos are from our Oregon home from June to August.

BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE by E. AYERS

It’s winter in the northern hemisphere and for most of us that means cold weather. The further north, the colder it gets. So we snuggle with a cozy throw on a comfy soft sofa, wearing materials that have been scientifically designed to keep us warm, and stare at a fireplace that’s connected to a remote control. Can you image living without such luxuries?

Yes, there are still quite a few of us that have real fireplaces that must be tended with wood. I have coal fireplaces, quite a few of them. And one fireplace that can use either coal or wood. Coal fireplaces tend to not be as deep. As I sit here my fireplace is casting a warm glow into my living room and tossing extra heat into the room. It’s beautiful. It’s electric. I popped in the fake logs and plugged it into the outlet. My real heat comes from an oil boiler. I got rid of the wonderful old boiler because I couldn’t take care of it and getting parts were very difficult. It was leftover from the mid-1800’s, and by the time it was yanked out of here it was quite old. It appears to have once been coal fired and then converted to oil. Big, bulky, and certainly not efficient, the old cast iron unit was broken into pieces and removed. Ah, here comes the wonderful super efficient new one that probably will cut my oil consumption to almost nothing.

No such luck! That was wishful thinking. Thousands of dollars later, this super-efficient tiny thing with stickers proclaiming its value in BTUs that seem to promise cheap use, it guzzles just as much oil, and I no longer have radiant heat in that brick room to keep my water pipes from freezing and to warm the brick wall to the kitchen. Now the bricks are icy cold to touch. And the oil bill has really has not changed. It’s probably gone up based strictly on gallons used.

Yes, I whine. It’s part of living in a house that dates before the Civil War. And when something happens and there’s no heat… I freeze. I’ll bundle up until only my nose can be seen. But let’s rewind the years.

My father was born at the beginning of the 1900’s in a farmhouse that was actually much bigger than my 3,000 sq ft city house. They had wood fireplaces and some wood stoves. The first stove to fire up every morning was the kitchen stove fueled by wood. My dad swears he never dilly-dallied because if he was the first one up behind his grandmother, he got to sit on the stove and get warm. Yes, directly on the kitchen stove. That meant the icy cold metal would warm under him.


He’d pull off his nightgown that he used for sleeping and get dressed for the day. Little boys wore dresses back then. Even in the winter, little boys did not really wear long pants. At least proper little boys didn’t wear long pants, but if he was doing chores then he had coveralls. It was kind of an honor to get to wear shorts or kickers instead of a dress. Boys had to be in their teens to wear long pants. And that fashion held until about WWII. I saw pictures of my older brothers in knickers in the 1930’s and the younger of the brothers in the early 1940’s in his knickers as a young teen.

Backing up again, my father would jump on the kitchen wood-fired stove and sit while getting dressed until it got too hot, and he had to jump off. It was large household and the first ones downstairs got sit on the stove. The first thing his grandmother heated on the stove was water. There was no hot water heater. So anything that you wanted to do, you needed water. His grandmother would fill several large pots with water before retiring. Often they were frozen solid in the morning even though they were inside the house.  That's cold!

Houses weren’t insulated very well, if at all. Historically, batts of grass were used in the attic until we began to use fiberglass, and that, too, has really changed over the years. Houses leaked, and the warmth escaped, as the cold penetrated, it allowed the snow to sneak through any cracks especially around the windows, unless it was hotter than Hades, and then the super heat worked its way inside the house. I know the house where my father grew up wasn’t insulated, nor did it have an attic. The attic was finished with a wooden floor and used for the older children in that multi generational house. Besides my father said that batting encouraged mice. So houses were cold in the winter and it was important to stay warm while sleeping.

There were wool blankets. After many years of use, if the moths didn’t get them, they were virtually felted. The survivors were thick and heavy. Very heavy...curl your toes over sort of heavy, especially if you were a child.

The other option was quilts. Feather quilts were common and when someone like my dad who lived on a farm, there were lots of feathers from the chickens. There was also down quilts. The down feathers were the teensy-tiny feathers and it took lots of those to fill anything. They were saved for important things such as down quilts, down pillows, etc. If you’ve never experienced the difference, well… Feather and down quilts, also called duvets, were more apt to leak a feather. The quill would poke through almost any fabric and without fail poke whoever was under it or on it. But those little, darn, down feathers would also work their way out and they had tiny pointed quills. Quilts were used both under the sleeper and over the sleeper. The quilts were often tucked inside something like a big pillowcase made for a quilt. Usually the quilt was buttoned into place so that the quilt didn’t shift within the big pocket. That way the quilt cover could be washed because washing quilts is… Crazy. The feathers mat and it’s terrible. So the cover keeps them cleaner.

Today most say to have professionally cleaned. Back then, the concept of professionally cleaned meant anyone other than main female of the house. When my sister bought a duvet about 20 years ago, she called me up laughing. “You won’t believe how it says to clean the quilt. Dry Clean Only.”

If you like the smell of dry cleaning... But for years quilts were washed and fluffed and you can't use a dryer on them and... So most people prefer a quilt filled with cotton or a polyester filler.

When my sister discovered her new duvet with the matching cover was lacking buttons and her quilt would shift, she called me again.

“Okay, dear sister. Go buy four kilt safety pins. That should work.” Perfect. Problem solved. Her duvet was secured with big gold pins. No shifting.

We think of the beautiful quilts that we love to make today, and those were never meant for everyday use. They were hope chest items and used on the marital bed mostly for show. The average quilt was made from scraps or worn out clothes. Often they were quilted over quilts. That made them warmer. Sometimes they covered the walls or windows. Sometimes they even were used on the floors.

If you’ve snuggled under wool blankets and layers of quilts, you know how warm you can stay. Even as a small child growing up in a “modern” home, I froze. My parents figured if the thermostat was set 65F, the house was plenty warm. I guess the way they grew up, it was. Our great big fireplace and an ample supply of hardwood were supposed to provide plenty of heat when mixed with a big furnace in the basement. But climbing into that cold bed and snuggling under the layers of wool blankets and between two big down quilts took only a few minutes to adjust to my body temperature keep me toasty warm.

No longer do I do that. I set thermostat at one temperature and sleep under a nice cozy blanket. If it’s extra cold, I have some really warm fuzzy PJs. I might awaken to discover that my pipes have frozen in the brick room that houses that new fuel-efficient boiler, but I will be warm. And yes, I still own a pretty patchwork quilt, a few fancy down quilts and a couple of duvets with covers. I have no desire to go back into the 1800’s and freeze my my toes, my tush, or any other part of my anatomy! Nor do I want to discover that the hand pump is frozen solid and there will be no water.


Although not a fail safe, my heating buddy comes in the fall and services my boiler, and the oil company has me on an auto fill. They track the cold days and promise that I won't run out of oil in my tank. I like my modern life even though I pay enough money for oil each month to build several nice houses in the 1800’s and probably a small town each winter. I fill my car’s gas tank for what most men made in the whole year. Today, life is good – not perfect, but it still beats stepping back in time. But there's nothing like a cozy room, a comfy chair, a warm blanket, and a really good book. And I'm certain that women back then who could read, loved a good book just as much as we do, because some things never change. Stay warm! Stay safe! And count the good things we have.