So, tonight, Brian and I were debating what to have for dinner and couldn't really decide or agree on anything. We went through the list of usuals (which needs some serious updating, FYI, so please feel free to leave some yummy recipes) and nothing was really grabbing us. We finally lacklusterly decided on burgers... it was quick and we figured the kids would be happy with our decision. I brought my daughter inside to get some juice as Brian cooked on the grill, and then heard him call for me a couple minutes later........ "Hurry up! Come outside! There's a gaggle of turkeys in our yard!" To which I replied, "A google of WHAT?" Apparently, there were a bunch of wild turkeys running around in my yard... more specifically, a mama and her 5 babies that aren't so small anymore. These turkeys are well-known and have been making their rounds around town, visiting each home along the way as if they're campaigning for something. Anywho, I went outside to take some pictures, and my camera (or my crazy dog) must have scared them off because they all started to jump the fence! Well one of the babies jumped the wrong way and hopped/flew right into the tree in our front yard. I turned and intently watched the mama turkey's reaction, as I would have been annoyed if I were her. She circled around the tree a couple of times, went and chatted with the rest of her babies, walked to the street and I kid you not, got a running start and tossed her old, heavy body into the air and just barely made the lowest branch, which reminds me of the camp song, "The other day... I met a bear.... a great big bear.... a way up there...."Anyway, back to the story.... so, the mama turkey is now lodged in between a hundred branches and looks thoroughly annoyed. The baby didn't move, to his credit, he was scared and I started to feel really bad that I even contemplated Brian's suggestion of a turkey dinner instead of burgers (kidding). I watched the baby beg for help and the mama put her foot, uhhh, claw down, and demand her baby learn a lesson from all of this. I don't think she was planning on teaching this lesson to all 5 of her babies, but that's what it was looking like was going to happen as I watched each and every single baby, one by one, fly up into the tree, blindly, because that's where their mama was. By this time, the mama turkey was fed up and started to ignore the babies and totally started giving herself a bath and biting her nails, and who can blame her? I hung around for awhile to get some pictures, and then caught the eye of the head-of-household turkey and I swear we had a woman to woman moment. It was as if in that brief second that we held our gaze, I could hear her gobbling, "Listen lady, these kids aren't coming down until you're gone... I have things to do, you can relate... do a sister a favor and hit the road!" And so I left. I came inside, and started thinking about the word 'gaggle'. Gaggle? I wasn't so sure a bunch of turkeys was referred to as a gaggle, so I googled gaggle. The Webster Dictionary says that a gaggle is used to refer to a flock of geese, specifically when not in flight. Hmmm.... these were not geese, and they actually had been in flight. I read on to see where Brian may have confused the definition of the word and read a second definition.... a group, aggregation, or cluster lacking organization
The baby calling her mama... And it was a happy ending, FYI... they all are safely out of the tree! :-)
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