Oh behave, Had a break-in the other day. I was sauntering down the stairs from my bedroom in the pinkish grey glow of dawn a couple of mornings ago, shaking off the sandman and grateful to feel the life force flowing through this ol' bag of bones when I saw what appeared to be one of the Aracaunas (blue egg layers) trying to fly out of Club Leghorn. She kept launching into flight only to be rebuffed by the deer netting that forms the roof of oll our chick domains. I thought, "thats weird". Thats when the real weirdness began. Turns out upon closer inspection it was a wild turkey caught inside. "No way", I thought. How's a feral turkey supposed to break into an escape proof chicken enclosure? Foregoing much of my usual morning ritual involving bathroom evacuations, yoga salutations, cacao preparations, doobage inhalations, premature injaculations, internet informations and standard prayers invoking generous monied people with a penchant for trickling down on the random visionary, I put on my work duds and my best tactical mindset and headed down the path to negotiate the release of this unwilling and apparently innocent detainee. Now unlike the cranky doofuses' bred for Thanksgiving and other non essential holidays the wild turkeys around here are pretty wiley and while not the type to actually pick a fight with a lumbering human will do their best to evade and defend. All of this is going through my mind as i'm walking and trying to figure out how best to approach this freaked out fowl. At this point, she's running head on into the chicken wire fence trying to fit through a two inch opening. I guess she figured that if her head fit through, the rest would follow. Poor geometry skills. I got into a kava kava mindset, you know, the one where whatever happens will be just another step toward a finite number of steps guiding us to a dirt nap, so might as well step lightly with open hearted acceptance and meet fate with a sardonic grin. It was with a measure of this acceptance that I entered Club Leghorn. The turkey had conveniently manuevered itself into a long narrow portion of the enclosure and didn't really sense my presence. She continued to test the fence as if any moment she would morph into a sawsall and fly free. I just stood there about ten feet away, watching this little slice play itself out. Figured if nothing else she'd get all tuckered out before long. I think she was about to take the flying approach again when she looked up and noticed me. I said, "hi there, you must be beat". I spread my arms out and hunkered down to guide her into the dead end. She trotted away toward no escape, all the while poking at the fence. When she got to the allys end I could tell she was breathing feverishly and not so much freaked out as exhausted. I still didn't have any real plan for this bird that stood as tall as my navel bearing claws that could snatch a small feral pig into a swoop and was trapped like a rat. Here comes the fun part. For some reason which will forever remain unknown , I recalled the prologue to Chaucers Canterbury Tales which I had learned from Mr. Curtis at Proctor Academy for the Horny,in 1963. So I started reciting Chaucer in the original middle english. "Wan that aprille with his shoures soote. The droght of marche hath perced to the roote, and bathed every veyne in swich licour, of which vertu engendred is the flour" and so on. I did it in kind of a singsongy way that seemed to calm her down. Long story short, I just walked up to her, mid recitation, picked her up from behind and carried her genlty out of the enclosure. When i put her down she took a couple of steps and looked back as if to say, "what the fuck just happened", trotted off and took flight. It got funnier when after freeing the turkey I remembered that the little Leghorns were kind of watching this whole thing go down, especially the part where I carried her out. They were huddled together like the peanut gallery at a Soupy Sales show and out of the corner of my eye I could see their little heads following the action as I passed by. Too cute. For everything else, there's master card (i get paid to say thet. Please forgive me). I did a thorough reconnoiter of the enclosure, inside and out, top to bottom and found NO WAY that that turkey could have gotten in there. Sweytagawd. I'm chalking it up to Natures way of telling me not to get too comfy in my routine and by all means, to expect the unexpected. In this case if I don't move on, its total brainfreeze. I love inexplicable moments. Anyway, she's still hanging around. I see her cruising the property. I know its her because she blushes when she sees me. Truth be told, she's kinda sexy. Hell, with gay marriage gaining widespread acceptance, the last great envelope to push would be acceptance of trans-species relationships, and I know she'd be loyal cause I'm the only one who knows how to take the top off the garbage can that holds the three way scratch, which as everyone knows, is bird world crack. If you came by today, you could get atemoya, cherimoya, papaya, avocado, eggs, some citrus, all kinds of greens, some beans and the usual House of Yumm lip smackers. I can say with some certainty that the same would be true tomorrow. Throw in a few culinary and medicinal herbs and a couple of live plants and you've had yourself a Green Moment. Hell, bring a friend. I've attached a picture of the turkey that I took right outside my kitchen door. She's getting a little forward, dontcha think? Went to my first rehearsal with the Hillbillys in three months tonite. Big gig on Friday. It was like a drive by shooting at Sam Goodys. Good times..................... Give us a call 878-6287, or 205-0430 for the nursery and come by for a shmooze. The more you come, the more we'll grow. Peace, jp