Orcas Island has a fine collection of stories about animals causing mischief.
Rogue Chickens in the Island Market parking lot have made the Sheriff's Log. Freida the Pig, who swam ashore after jumping off the inter-island ferry, is a Salish Sea heroine. A bear paddled to Orcas and made the rounds till it was caught in a trap that looked a lot like a dumpster with a blackberry pie in it.
With social media and community pages, word travels fast. This past week, another pig was on the lam.
Note: This was NOT our pig.
The pig, named Lola, jogged a fair distance and was eventually reunited with their owner, though not before chasing a couple folks back into their cars.
We get calls to the farm quite often asking if we can take an animal or two (or ten). If only we had a nickel for every call about a rooster. This week we got an email about this handsome fellow:
While off island for a few weeks, our friends Ruth and Parham heard from the neighbors that they had a squatter on their property. They weren't too worried, figuring that he'd move on by the time they got back on island.
This was not the case. The state of their deck proved that this guy was settling in for the long haul. Their car bore the marks of his turkey toes and the neighbor's dogs were fairly certain that they were the answer to a quick dispatch. Very quickly they realized this was not a sustainable situation.
This led to a call to the farm, and amazingly, Eric and Amy agreed to give the turkey a try. We figured he could become a watchbird for our chickens. Granted, this was in spite of a "NO-TURKEY" policy that three out of four of us had voted to pass after a fateful Thanksgiving in 2021.
With the No-Turkey policy in the back of our minds, we sent out one email inquiry. Buckhorn Farm has been home to a colorful menagerie, including donkeys, geese, llamas and even emus (the escaped emu story is one for the books, but I'll resist temptation). The email to Buckhorn Farm read simply: "Youwanna Turkey?" with the above photo.
Within the hour, we received a message from Tish at Buckhorn that read: "Any chance I could buy a whole live man-turkey? I'd just love to have one on the farm." I quickly sent the Buckhorn's address to our friends, who were actually en route to the farm with a crated man-turkey in the back of their car at that very moment.
We heard not a word the rest of the day, so assumed all had gone well. This morning, an email from Ruth:
"Clyde's new home is perfect! Today we are missing Clyde and just have this new friend, Sid, on the deck to keep us company. We don't think he needs a crate!"
Sid, living his best life.
We even received a little video of Clyde in his new digs. It appears we've reached a happy conclusion to this rogue animal story. That said.... anyone want a goose or two?
Special thanks to Ruth and Parham for being responsible stewards of a wayward critter, and to Tish at Buckhorn Farm for taking this handsome man-turkey in.
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