November & December

Well, at the demand of Peggy to update, here I am. I never know what to say. Right now I'm working on some craft books that I truly felt I needed to read. Thanks to G, I finally got GMC by Deb Dixon and omigod, what a fabulous, eye-opening book. Then I read Hero's Journey, which wasn't nearly as fun to read as Deb's. Now I'm on Bob Mayer's Writer's Toolkit, which I really like a lot. Maybe it's because I've met him and I've heard him speak so I can get the tone and infliction and it's really fun to read it. Dunno, but that's what I'm doing. And I'm taking notes on my characters while I do it, so I'm actually working on a novel. Amazing, I know.

Did I mention I don't know what to write on here anymore? Gah.

Anyway, about the title of this post. November & December. That's what my dear, dear friend Shari calls my poor little turkeys. Granted, they WERE little. And super cute when they were tiny. Now they're not so little anymore. They're downright big. And they're not even grown yet. Oy.

So, we moved the chickens (chicken is all inclusive meaning the turkeys and rooster as well) to the back field and not in the backyard anymore. We took the old chicken coup that was in the field and revamped it. It's way bigger than the one we'd made, and since all of them are getting big now, they were really crowding it up. It's a bit of a PITA to go out to the field to put them up at night, but technically, they now put themselves up at night, so no biggie, right?

Uh huh.

And this is where the story really begins (Jennifer Crusie would hate all that above "prologue to the story" I put up there - my bad).

I waited a bit that night to go out, so it was already dark. I have Samson (the I'm-only-4-months-old-but-now-weigh-50-lbs-Newfoundland-puppy-who-comes-to-Brenda's-hips) with me on his retractable leash. I'm doing the chicken head count - should be 13 in there. I count. 12. Hmm. Hey wait - one of my BIG GIANT bright-white-can't-miss-him-in-the-dark turkeys (probably November, since according to Shari, he'd die first) is missing. I have my flashlight in one hand, the leash in the other, walking in a small circle, seeing if I could find him. Both turkeys used to attempt to sleep on the fence at night, and I'd have to grab their fat turkey asses to put them in the coup, so I'm looking over there. No turkey.

Then, in the pitch-black of the field with only a barely-there flashlight to aid me and a psycho, heavy dog wanting to play with chickens and I'm trying to constrain him and look for the stupid turkey, I hear RUNNING, fast, hard RUNNING come right my way in the dark.

Scary as hell, let me tell ya.

It was Titan, the thoroughbred, running at me full force in the dark. I almost crapped my pants. Samson, being the stupid puppy he is, starts jumping up and down like "OH GOODIE! SOMEONE TO PLAY WITH!" Yeah, well, Titan didn't think so and jumped all four freakin' feet at Samson at once, who circles me and wraps me in the leash. I thought how fitting it would be, dying on this damn farm with these damn animals I had to have, being stomped by a nervous horse who just scared me spitless.

Titan backs off, I untangle and I look up at the sky, I guess in an imploring look toward God, wondering about my life and almost dying, and there above my head, pirched on a limb in the tree, is a big white turkey butt.

My damn turkey was in the tree. Argh. He'd jumped up on the coup then jumped from there to the limb. What the HECK? I could touch him, but not reach him enough to lift him up and put him away. So I shove him from the tree, and this swooshing sound of big wings is something I can't even begin to describe, but at the time I thought, "This is what the coming of Christ and angels would sound like, and it's frightening."

He lands on the coup. Out of reach. I start finding little twigs to chunk at him. He finally jumps down to the ground, walks from the back of the coup to the front and into the shed.

I closed the damn door, none to happy.

Titan blows out air and shakes his head at me, and I swear the look he gave me was, "And she's a higher life form than I am?"

Then I called Shari and cried.

She merely giggled uncontrollably. What a pal.