Everything that holds a little part of my heart…..

Years ago, when I lost my pet doggie, I had vowed that I wouldn’t let anyone of these four legged or feathered being enter my life. Then the inevitable happened and a big house along with some old staff plus my ever-persistent son made me break my own rules.

Thus, entered our lives and our home two feathered beings who were the cutest turkeys we had ever seen. Both were inseparable and they took to an unfamiliar environment and settled down in the being-renovated house with elan. We hadn’t even shifted then, and my son would drive in every morning and evening to feed them and spend time with them. We later had a naming ceremony and so Bruce Lee and Goblin got their names. Every time I called out to them, they’d respond with their signature turkey clucking.

Suddenly life without their clucks and feathered presence seemed impossible.

I then made my second mistake and got in some cutest balls of fur in the shape of rabbits. One thing led to another and now they occupy a huge part of my life and my heart.

I should have stopped at that. But when you start making and breaking your own rules then the lines between rationale and imprudence blur completely. We added four more turkeys to our group. These were white and beautiful as the ones before them – Bruce Lee and goblin who were a lovely black and shades there off.

Being small 3 months or so, they all stayed together like one big happy family and life was cool.

Then they grew.

Both the turkeys and the bunnies.

And they decided to reach for each other’s throats. (literally!)

Result was a crisis of sorts at home because we suddenly ran out of accommodation for them all even though our home was huge. Many a sleepless nights later we made the arrangements we have in place now.

With staff which does not perform normal tasks, caring for my pets became a herculean task. It took up a lrge part of my time and having my son with me helped immensely as we divided work and monitoring between the two of us. Yet each day was a challenge.

Problems ranged from inconsistency of work attitudes, callousness of the staff, general apathy, disregard for normal SOPs and our list of grouches were endless. It resulted in a huge spending on equipment so hat despite their best efforts at cutting corners our turkeys and rabbits would not have to suffer illnesses due to the disgusting absence of work ethics in the support staff.

We thought we had our problems under control.

We were sadly mistaken, for a couple of days of missing a direct monitoring started to lead to casualties.

We lost three of our cutest bunnies from a litter of 6. We had to deal with mites in one bunny and chronic allergy in another. Our turkeys too took a toll. We lost 5 of the Chinese guinea fowl and one big white darling turkey – Ginger.

They all took away a bit of me. Time did allow us to speak of them with the fondness of memories which were pleasant but each time we’d end up ruing why we had got laxed in our monitoring.

I thought I was on the top of my act now after two and half years of doing stuff on my own. With a system which seems almost fool-proof and has been streamlined as much as possible.

But today as I gathered my wits to start my day, I got news that I had lost one of most adorable darlings – a turkey who I had reared myself and who had grown up with us in the last year and half.

Minnie took away another small portion of our hearts today.

We will miss your naughtiness and your twittering. We will miss every bit of you dear bird. But we shall hold you close to our hearts forever.

I vowed today yet again that these are my last pets in this lifetime.

No more. Ever again. Never again.

I plan to keep those I have closest to me and hope to keep giving them the life we want to, for that effort is so miniscule and so insignificant to the amount of delight and happiness they all give us each moment of the day.