The Three Stooges

Larry, Curly, and Moe.

Spreading the benefits

Don and I, as often happens, underestimated the amount of hay we needed to get the livestock through the winter. I don't know why, but we do that a lot. So, late last November, we started looking for more hay to purchase.

But hay tends to sell quickly and can be hard to find off-season. We inquired of our usual sources and learned everything had already sold. Finally, through various means, we connected with a fellow who had oat hay available in 100-lb. bales.

Oat hay. Hmmm. We'd never fed oat hay to our livestock before, but the seller assured us his own cows loved the stuff. So, since the price was decent and (more importantly) he had some available, we ordered four tons.

Now here's the thing: By every metric we were familiar with, 100-lb. bales of hay should be fairly large, but these bales of oat hay were pretty much standard size. But, groan, they were very heavy, to the point where Don and I simply couldn't lift them. At all. The best we could do was push and shove and tip them to move them around, and we had to use the tractor to stack them with any semblance of neatness.We got about half the bales in the barn, and the rest we stacked in the driveway on a series of pallets, which we later tarped.

What made the bales so heavy? In a word, oats. This wasn't oat straw, it was oat hay, harvested with the seed intact. Whenever we moved a bale, a festive layer of oats was left behind.

Okay fine, but would the cows like it?

Oh. My. Yes. The cows stinkin' adore it. They attack it greedily, and prefer it over anything else we've ever fed them. Interestingly, it's boosted Maggie's milk output, too. Due to the natural decline of milk production with an older calf (and the fact that she's pregnant), I had been getting about half a gallon a day, even though I give her some grain every morning in the milking stall. But with the extra boost of nutrition from this oat hay, her output has ramped up to a gallon a day with ease. (I plan to dry her off, i.e. stop milking, in early March. Her calf is due in late June.)

With an eye toward having some hay put aside for next year, we called the seller and asked if he had any more for sale. Sadly, no, he'd sold it all. So we told him to put us on his list for this summer's crop.

Meanwhile, the oat hay is "spreading the benefits" as other animals have discovered it.

The Oregon juncoes, sparrows, and black-capped chickadees descend on the oat hay debris, whether outside in the driveway or inside the barn.

But the biggest beneficiary of this largess are the turkeys.

Turkeys, as I've mentioned before, are nature's Roombas. They wander the landscape, finding everything even remotely edible, and clean it up. They tend to aggregate in enormous flocks during the winter, sometimes in groups as large as fifty or sixty or more birds. Groups of about one to two dozen are most common. Now, it seems, one or more of those groups have found their way into the corral.

On any day of the week, I can creep into the barn, peer through the slats of the feed box, and catch a dozen turkeys inside the barn. They scratch through the cow poop and gobble up any oat seeds they find.

Sometimes they'll scratch around in the mud of the corral, breaking up cow patties and finding the edible bits inside.

Most, however, can be found on the barn waste pile. Turkeys love barn waste any time, but especially now that it's rich in oat seeds. Bonanza!

Such prehistoric-looking creatures, aren't they?

Turkeys perform a highly valuable service for us, since their activities aid in decomposition for the barn waste on its journey to becoming compost.

Eventually, either sated with seeds or spooked by my presence, the turkeys will leave the barn and aggregate in the lower pasture.

Then, with powerful beats of their wings, they'll become airborne long enough to clear fences and land downhill from any perceived danger.

So yes, the oat hay is spreading the benefits. The passerine birds as well as the turkeys get some meals. The cows are getting extra nutrition. I'm getting plenty of milk for making cheese. Not a bad deal.

The tick theory

Many years ago, when we lived in southwest Oregon, we had loads and loads of ticks. It was revolting, but it was life. We learned to keep a can of soapy water next to the sink during tick season so we could drop ticks we found on the dogs (or on us) into the water. The soap broke up the surface tension of the water, and the ticks would sink to the bottom.

When we moved to Idaho in 2003, we had fewer ticks. Some years were worse than others, but overall it was a lot better than Oregon.

Here in our current location, we have almost zero ticks. Maybe – maybe – once a summer, we'll find a tick or two on Mr. Darcy, but overall it's almost a tick-free environment.

We didn't give much thought to this phenomenon until a man at our church put forth what I'm calling "The Tick Theory." We don't have ticks because we have turkeys. Loads and loads of turkeys.

As I'm mentioned before, turkeys are nature's Roombas. All year long, flocks of these gigantic prehistoric-looking birds roam around, pecking at anything they find that's vaguely edible. At certain times of the year, it's not unusual to see flocks numbering in the dozens. Get one of these flocks sweeping slowly across fields and woodlands, and yeah – no ticks. Makes sense.

I'd far rather have turkeys than ticks.

Baby turkeys

We have baby turkeys everywhere. The hens seem to gather in groups (possibly related groups), and the chicks of each hen mingle with each other. Just let one hen stray away, however, and the chicks instantly sort themselves out and follow their mama.

I heard turkey alarm calls a while ago and peeked over the edge of the porch to see what was going on. Here's one of the mamas. She was looking alert, peering through the fence at the road on the other side.

Aha! Here's why the family was upset. A neighbor's cat was making its way up the road. (Sorry, it's gray and white and in the shadows, so it's hard to see.)

Once the danger passed, mama decided she wanted to get to the road. However she was too big to fit through the bars of the gate.

Easy solution, fly over the top.

The babies, however, were baffled, and piled up at the bottom of the gate.

Soon enough, however, the chicks were able to slip through and follow mama across the road to the other side.

Just a snippet of country living.

Signs of spring

Despite being in the middle of a chilly spell (windy, scattered rain, high of 50F), spring is indisputably here. One of the surest signs is the blossoming of the arrow-leaf balsamroot.

These large, showy blooms prefer shallow soil and sunny south-facing slopes. During this time of year, they positively carpet meadows and light up distant hillsides with color.

Another sign is deer. They're everywhere. I mean, deer are always "everywhere" here, but this time of year they're more "everywhere" than usual, if you know what I mean.

No fawns yet, though. It's too early for that.

the oak trees are starting to bud.

But the surest sign of spring? Turkeys.

Yes, the toms are strutting, and you never saw a more puffed-up crowd of self-absorbed grandees than these boys. I mean, they know they're hot stuff.

They always look so affronted when interrupted, glaring at you before closing down their feathers and slinking away.

I caught this fellow displaying below our deck. I was trying to sneak up without him noticing.

He may have noticed me, but he had better things to do. There were ladies present.

The ladies, however, didn't seem overly impressed. (They never do.) They soon wandered off, with our boy trotting in their wake.

Undeterred, he followed them down to the road and commenced displaying again. I admired his persistence.

Despite my poking fun at the toms, and however indifferent the hens may seem, evidently it works. You can bet we'll have lots and lots of baby turkeys trotting around in a few weeks.

Ah, spring.