Wild Turkey!

And I am not talking about whiskey. I was outside a few minutes ago when something caught my eye as it silently slipped into Willie's forest. If I haven't already explained this, one whole side of our property is lined with fir trees that the previous owner (Willie, of course) planted years ago. He set out 2,000 fir trees, thinking he would sell them as Christmas trees. (That is something of a failing business proposition out here in the bush where people tend to help themselves to the queen's trees at Christmastime. ;-) But as the trees grew, he found--like Robert Frost in his poem "Christmas Trees"--that he didn't have the heart to see them cut down and sent off to town as decorations. So he thinned them to 1,000, and they make the best privacy screen you've ever seen. Because they form a long, narrow border on our property, they also provide a secure thoroughfare for any wildlife coming down from the forest across the road from us.

I have only seen wild turkeys once before when we had to stop for a flock that was crossing the road a few miles from our house. Someone up the valley apparently feeds them. They are amazingly beautiful and agile birds--not like the domesticated, over-busty ones raised for meat.

Fortunately, I saw the bird, but our dog didn't. She dares any bird to land on her property, and she would have run it off if she'd got the chance. I wonder what else is out there that we haven't seen yet.

Book report: I am about halfway through a book I picked up at the library because I loved its title: If No One Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor. The premise is fascinating. It begins with an ordinary street scene in a town in northern England. We get to see all the sights and hear all the sounds of street life. Then a tragedy happens. We don't know what it is. And the rest of the novel (so far) details the personal tragedies and worries of the residents of an apartment building on the street. It's not clear if there really was a big tragedy outside, or if each is so caught up in his or her own drama that it is as if everyone has experienced something awful. Very captivating novel!