We were somewhere in Western Nebraska, driving along interstate I-90 on a Sunday morning. Destination Wyoming. Overcast skies with the temperature at a comfortable sixty five degrees. Green, late June grass, strained a bit from the ongoing drought.
Which didn't fit at all with the giant snowflakes fluttering to the ground around us. Three or so inches in diameter, wafting across the interstate like we were in an oversized shake-up Christmas globe.
I worked it out five minutes later when we approached two semi-trucks. Turkey feathers. Miles and miles of turkey feathers.
The two trucks where hauling cages jam packed with white turkeys. Hundreds of them. No sides or backs on the trucks, which meant the turkeys were being treated to a 75mph terror trip on the way to a distant slaughter house.
I've seen the low slung turkey and chicken huts, where they live out an entire life from chick to chicken tender without a day in the Sun. I didn't realize that it got even worse when they left.
Make it cheap, whatever the cost. Small farms and ranches replaced by robotic corporations that nurture spreadsheets, not livestock. Chemicals, cages, computers: they are the new stewards.
I was reminded of the Turkeys as I read this article on Whole Foods.
We have a couple of good coop food stores in the area that feature locally raised dairy products and meats. It's a start, but not everyone wants to or can afford to shop there.
The duck photos were taken Tuesday morning on the walk to work. As we approached the beaver pond on Cross road the Mallard and his friend pushed off from shore. I stopped to take photos.
They didn't move further away so I moved closer. Not only didn't they flee, but they swam to me. I knelt down and they got out of the water and walked around, aimlessly, waiting for me to fulfill a sacred duck-human pact.
The white duck was probably someone's pet as she seemed to be the inquisitive and talkative one. "Ma?" she seemed to say, hesitant to approach more than a couple feet. I stood up and they flushed a little bit, but not very far.
Zeke was on the other side of the road during all of this. I hadn't told him he could cross. Having tame ducks on a busy road didn't seem like a good idea, so I invited Zeke over to instill a little fear. They flapped into the pond, but not far. Zeke seemed perplexed that they weren't screaming in horror from his terrible viciousness.
Later in the walk I started thinking about the duck relationship, assigning human characteristics to the odd couple. A love story. He, a well traveled and traditional Mallard, stumbles across the carefree white duck while visiting his sister and her new brood of ducklings.
The white duck was a new addition to the pond. Perplexing, otherworldly. His sister ignored the odd duck outright, certain that nothing but trouble follows such a being. Yet he was intrigued. Could this be the one he had been searching for? The one true duck?
And then I was at the office. Head buried in code, wandering around algorithms aimlessly, waiting for them to fulfill some sacred computer-human pact. No time for duck romance.
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actually that's fluffy. One summer Laura raised some wild mallards, their mortality rate was high, by the end of summer only fluffy remained and he was now my duck living in the pond. Would he knoow to migrate, well in the autumn he left, for some short trips and then back. And in the spring he and mate returned but she took one look at me and had lets get out of here.