Sunday Visitors

Here we are, Joe and I, sitting at the breakfast table yesterday, enjoying our oatmeal and coffee, when all of a sudden he says to me, "Look over your shoulder."

Now I know from long experience living in the wilds of Down East Maine that "Look over your shoulder" immediately translates to "Get the camera!" So without even stopping to glance where Joe was pointing, I galumphed to the study, grabbed the Canon, pointed it straight out the window by my desk and snapped away like a madwoman.  Most of our visitors had already gone a-gobblin' off into the woods by then, but I managed to get these shots.

Then back to b'fast, where my oatmeal hadn't even begun to cool.

I think there were about a dozen of our bird-brained visitors yesterday. Several years ago we counted 21 big ones in the driveway, and last spring a mother hen shepherded her fuzzy little brood across the dooryard. The day our sweet kitty cat Griselda left us in October of 2001, six big toms and seven hens dropped by to pay their respects.

The locals (which we'll never be, even after these 20 years here) tell us the wild turkeys taste much better than the supermarket variety. I don't doubt it, and we've thought that one of these autumns when bow hunting season rolls around, we might find out for ourselves. I was a pretty good archer (a Sagittarius, you know) as a teenager, so ...

But not now. Not with spring tiptoeing in, not with the sun shining on those smooth shiny feathers, not with the simple joy of seeing these majestic creatures (that Ben Franklin preferred over the eagle for our national bird) strutting their stuff across the lawn.  They were here before we came.  They'll be here after we've gone.

No, not now. Not ever.