Enterprise has
demonstrated yet again that wisdom is the better part of valor; she got herself
trampled by the sheep in her exuberant love of chicken feed and her reckless
unconcern for the hooves of the animals who tower so very many stories above
her. Consequently, Enterprise is confined to quarters by herself until her
busted foot mends. Nothing is more
irritating than the peening of an unhappy turkey, so it is lucky for me that
the ducks and geese tend to hang around the range pen anyway, so the turkey can
feel she is part of the flock.
I don’t think
Enterprise will be very long getting better, but in the meanwhile, she missed
the goxen’s first real juvenile delinquent activity. Last night, as my daughter
so neatly summarized it, instead of the ducks and geese going to bed, they
left. They slipped out through the rut under the barnyard gate and were
discovered steaming down the driveway past the house, discoursing at length
about their big adventure. My husband heard them and he and my daughter rounded
them up and drove them back to the barn.
Part of me would love
to have them out eating slugs in the flowerbeds, but not at dusk when the
foxes were probably lining up in the hedgerow, drooling, waiting for them to
come just one foot-slap closer before they pounced.
