Linda vs the Wild Turkeys

Here at Sandhill we have a problem with wild turkeys. This is a more or less recent problem as when we first moved here there were virtually no wild turkeys. A few years back wild turkeys were introduced or re-introduced (I'm not certain which) to North Idaho. In any case they have certainly flourished and have made an absolutely stunning comeback. Even two or three years ago you only saw turkeys once in a while. Then last spring, because of an easy winter I guess, suddenly they were all over the place. There were so many for a while we sometimes had to stop the car to let them clear the county road. Every hen turkey seemed to have somewhere between five and ten chicks. There numbers have been reduced since then, probably because of coyotes, hunting season, and other predators. But we now have about eight or so that turn up in our yard every day. I don't know what it is about our yard that seems to be such an attraction for them. They scratch and dig, especially the mulch that Linda puts down over her plants, and scatter it everywhere. She used to think it was great that we had wild turkeys. Now she hates them with a passion hard to believe. Whenever they appear she rushes outside yelling and shooing them away. She throws pine cones at them. She throws sticks at them. She even takes our son's old bb gun and shoots at them. She threatens to shoot them all for real, season or no season. I have to admit it is kind of hilarious to watch her. In fact, at this very moment she is out there chasing them with a push broom! Interestingly, the turkeys don't seem to mind. Oh, they leave okay but in a short time they are back. They get on the roof of the house. They get on the decks. They get on the front porch, in the garage, everywhere. And everywhere they go they poop, incessantly. They even get on the railings within three or four feet of the kitchen windows and have to be chased away. People think we domesticated turkeys but it is obvious from our experience that the turkeys domesticated people. They simply refuse to take no, go away, for a command. This is all the more puzzling as we do not feed or water them. Our neighbor who lives about 300 yards away does both. But the turkeys have found a home here with us. From the window of my study I can see them perching on the fence. They look very much like vultures. Remember, they are really just the last surviving dinosaurs and they are pretty stupid. Imagine what the intelligence of the extinct dinosaurs must have been and you doubtless have a hint as to why they became extinct. I don't know what we're going to do this spring when these eight show up with many more.

I have just finished The Amber Room (Catherine Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy). It is a non-fictional account of how the Germans looted the famous Amber Room from the Catherine Palace during the second world war and its subsequent disappearance (I guess there are still people looking for it). It is a rather fascinating account of the search and gives one a pretty good glimpse of Soviet society both then and now. But it is rather like a non-fiction facsimile of War and Peace in that there are names upon names upon names, and places upon places, and dates and dates to the point where you can scarcely even keep up with it all. You still come away in a general impression of what seems to have happened. But I can't understand how it could have become a bestseller. You have to be a very dedicated reader.

Some say that Bush/Cheney are going to attack Iran. Of course they say they are not. But who believes anything they say anymore? I doubt they will attack Iran. Not because they don't want to, but because with public opinion so completely against the Iraq "war" they would doubtless be immediately impeached (besides which, having pretty much destroyed our military, they don't really have the means). But who knows? We'll know soon enough.

There are those who claim that Al Gore will run for President and those who swear he won't. I tend to believe he will enter the race at the last minute and if he does he will win in a landslide. With a nomination for an Oscar and a nomination for the Nobel Prize, and a record of having been opposed to the Iraq "war" from the very beginning, as well as having been right about global warming for a long time, how could he miss? I hope he will run. We need him desperately. Imagine how different the world and the U.S. would be now if he had not been cheated out of the election in the first place (by an absolutely disgraceful Supreme Court).