Tues May, 19th... Timmy Turkey Succumbs to his Lung Disorder... He’s Gone...

I found Timmy dead about three o’clock this afternoon, crouched on the floor as if he was sleeping, with his head lying on the floor. He was fine this morning when I was in there and gathered the eggs, but had succumbed sometime after that. He had COPD from the lung worm he had last winter. The worms left his lungs so scarred that he had trouble breathing, so we had him and Tina both to the vet for treatment once and bought medicine from Curt several times to treat them; twice for the actual lung worm and then several times for their breathing. Tina holds her own, but gets winded easily. Timmy was actually gasping for air if he walked more than ten feet. I suppose Tina will sometime die from it too, but right now she is hanging on. We have pills we can crush and dissolve in water; then, using a syringe (without a needle) we flush it down her throat, which will dilate her lungs so she can breathe easier. She doesn’t need it just yet, but we have the med’s if she does. We’ve spent well over $175.00 on both Timmy and her for the lung worm and its complications. We’re going to miss Timmy but he’s better off. We have five poults in the brooding house and there is a Tommy among them, but he cannot replace Timmy.

At seven o’clock, we will go to Stanley’s art class, which was called off last night due to his fall. He was checked out at the VA hospital and after x-raying his hip, decided it was only bruised badly, but not fractured or seriously injured. This will be the fourth or fifth class we’ve taken with Stanley and we learn something new every time. He paints beautiful scenery pictures and is known as “Mr. Tree”. He specializes in tree pictures and doing an apple orchard or a distinctive old twisted tree excites his creative juices. He has won several awards and his tree pictures are in many galleries and museums all over the United States. His latest award was for a picture called “Evening Embers” which can be seen by clicking on the blue link, which will take you to the “Hudson River Valley Art Workshops” website. We love going to his classes or just spending time with Stan and Joyce dining and chatting during an evening out. Stan and Joyce are good friends.

Vicki just came in and told me that we have another chick breaking through its shell in the incubator. That’s two today; Added to the twenty six already under the heat lamp. As we said last evening, we had the twenty four Araucanas and the two that hatched under a hen in the barn..... Now we have added the two from today. We still have twenty Bantams in another section and five we raised in the early spring when we hatched three and Isabelle gave us two from Ashley.