The Fence is Completed!

One-half mile of barbed wire fence keeps the cattle out of the 16 acres of woods in the back forty of the
Home Place.    The Missouri Conservation Department encourages fencing of woods for promotion of quail and other wildlife.   Cows eat down the undergrowth that serve as food and cover for wildlife.  Then, too,    maintaining the fence will be easier for Richard.   Trees fall over the fence that runs through the woods and over wet weather creeks, making it hard to repair.      A tremendous work project which was only completed with the cooperation of family members.

Vultures are Our Friends

Near the lake in the very nice housing area in which my daughter and her family live, many turkey vultures roost in a group of trees.     It is the hang-out for a "venue" of vultures as  my resources tell me is the name for a group.     The ugly creatures have bald heads to spare their feathers from getting messed up when they eat carrion.   As nature's garbage disposals, they clean up dead animal carcasses quickly and efficiently.    Vultures prefer to eat dead herbivores not dogs or cats or humans.     Their bodies are developed to protect them from bacteria;   waste excretions, a kind of white-wash, run down their legs and kill harmful bacteria.   They often can be seen perched with spread wings to cool their bodies.

There is a recorded instance of a vulture becoming attached to a boy and waiting for him at the school bus stop every day and hanging around his home at night.    We find these birds revolting because of their diet of death, but they are an important part of existence.

Housing development streets have "Bluebird Lanes" and "Redwing Drives", but I have never heard of an
address such as "999 East Vulture Roost"!