Shoe Flies

Best Laid Plans

As they say...go astray.

Fed the Boys in the morning. Fed the menagerie--now four wild turkeys, four squirrels, a groundhog, at least one chimpmunk, and all the birds. Had my own breakfast and went back outside to ride. But then I remembered the turkey pictures, so, as you can see, I took some. I can get quite close to the birds now and I guess they are associating me with the food. Today, acutally there were four turkeys out there, but two of the more skittish ones ran off when I went out with the camera.

I think at least one has signs of a red throat. Could be these are all youngsters, not yet mature enough for the males to show the characteristic red wattle. I guess by the end of the summer I'll have a better idea. Apparently, they can get quite bold about getting fed, so I may well have a permanent residency here for them. Fine with me. They do seem to browse around the lawn, so I suspect they are eating bugs. From what I've read they eat ticks, especially. That would be fabulous!! I'm sure I have lots around and we do have Lyme disease here in NJ, so getting rid of ticks is a big plus! Come on Turks! You can stay as long as you want.

Tucker was missing a shoe. Shoeing is due next week on a 6 week schedule, so apparently, he is on the five week plan. Came back inside to call Scott. Then realized that if he was going to come to shoe, I needed to get rid of the big branch that had fallen on the lawn where he parks his truck. This is the one that fell across the driveway. Because of all the rain and very wet ground, I hadn't yet dragged it away with the tractor as it would have cut up the lawn pretty badly.

So, out I went with my pruning saw and sawed the thing up into chunks I could at least move by myself. Then I emailed my friend Bill to see if he wanted it for firewood before I cart it off to the hedge row. That wore me out considerably, so I relaxed for a bit before heading back out to take the last bales of bedding out of the truck in order to go to the feed store to get the grain and alfalfa cubes.

While I was inside, Scott called to tell me he was going to try to drop by today to replace Tucker's shoe. He was hoping I'd found it to make it a simple replacement and not "make a new shoe." I hadn't looked yet, but promised I would.

By then the skies had opened up in a downpour--appparently very local-- and the humidity was on the rise again.

I only got three bags of grain as that was all they had available. I ordered more for next week and went to the other feed store for the alfalfa cubes to save a dollar or two.

Came home and the phone rang. It was Scott again, telling me he was on his way. I headed out on a shoe search. I covered the paddocks near the barn, the arena and was out in the pasture when two events occurred almost at the same time. Scott's truck pulled into the yard and I found the missing shoe!! Talk about luck. (As anyone who has ever hunted for a lost horseshoe will attest.)

Scott just left a little while ago, and I'm back inside trying to decide what else to do.