After our exploration of the Edward Gorey house, we stopped not far away at a small Audubon nature area. The sun was trying to come out and we knew a short walk through a butterfly meadow [no butterflies yet] and a woods that came out at the animal shelters. These are "working animals"-- sheep and goats that are allowed to wander the lawns of the director's house [the area was a private estate that was willed to Audubon Society] where they maintain the lawn by grazing on the grass.
L. gave me a new camera for my upcoming birthday/mother's day just past but I had forgotten to bring it so she and I went back the next morning because I had fallen for Tom the turkey and was pretty well smitten with the haughty ram as well. White turkeys are handsome birds. This one was a true show off who puffed up to become a huge snowball with that incongruous red wattle and his tiny eye daring one to come near and touch him. The first time I visited this place I also saw some fat, happy pigs noisily rooting into a briar patch doing what pigs do while helping clear the land for a future organic garden which is now staked out and ready for roto-tilling.
Later in the summer this Audubon center will have weekend farmer's markets. Probably there will be goat cheese for sale but, I think, probably not fresh turkeys.
