Nearly everyone has heard a story or two about the in-laws who came to visit for the holidays and forgot when to go home.

                Maybe some of them are considered "turkeys" but what do you do when the real thing comes to visit and, through no choice of yours, decides to stay.  How about six of them.

                Perhaps they were successful escapees from a possible Thanksgiving Day fate.

                It's an issue that Allen Gowan and Barbara Harney are dealing with right now at their home, just off Bower's Mill Road in Upper Hanover Township.

                On a recent visit to the farmstead, Gowan told this writer that the turkeys showed up about 10 days ago and have been there since. They seem to live peacefully among the sheep, goats, chickens, cats and dog who call the Gowan and Harney homestead, their own.

                They are beautiful birds.  Gowan believes that two of them are Narragansett, two are Slate and two are Bourbon Red.  They are definitely not the eastern wild turkeys we're used to seeing in the fields and forests of Pennsylvania.

                When I showed up in the driveway, all six of the turkeys were at Gowan's feet, following him around the yard.  My arrival didn't startle the birds, in fact, they welcomed me. 

                After the toms displayed their handsome tail feathers and gobbled their hello, they were eating out of my hand.  Though I'm sure the tail feather display was more for the lone hen among the five toms.

                Gowan said he sees plenty of wild turkeys in the area, but these are obviously not wild.  If the back door to the house is open, the feathered wanderers will even take a peek into the house and, dare I say, step in.

                According to Gowan, the turkeys roost every night in a willow tree in the back yard.  The nightly trip to their evening abode can be comical to watch.

                Nightly, the birds hop onto a fence, then onto the roof of the sheep-shed, then onto the roof of the chicken coop where they can now hop onto their favorite branch of the tree.  All is well until they hit the chicken coop, where the metal roof is sloped and a slip of the claws on a turkeys feet will send them back to the fence to start all over again.

                Eventually they all make it to their roost.

                Gowan enjoys watching them and said they "always are in motion; never just standing still."

                As I fed the turkeys, I enjoyed watching the bantam chickens pecking near my shoes, eager to snap up anything that fell to the ground.  The turkeys didn't mind and neither did the chickens.

                As I was ready to leave Gowan and the feathered visitors who are, at least temporarily, making his home their own said that I didn't stop smiling since I got there.  He was right.

                Standing among the small flock, knowing that they have no trouble comingling with the chickens, sheep, goats, cats and dog they share the property with makes you wonder.

                What do they know and understand that people don't?