In the heat of the summer

 

Here's a repost for you, thrown out from a much too hot France that is tossing fitfully under a giant, continental heatwave, to remind me of... colder times. We do have air conditioning, which struggles a bit to keep up, but I'm not complaining.

Oh, wait, I am complaining. 

And reposting a years old Winter classic.

Nevertheless I appreciate the cool relief of our apartment, which is palpable when we walk in from the baking attic hallway. We recently found out from a neighbor that despite some far bigger and fancier apartments below us, we are the only ones in the building with air conditioning! I think it was put in around the edges of the permissions for the building, and perhaps by virtue of the persuasive charms of our young French/Italian landlord who lived here at the time.

But I'm just guessing.

The other reason I am reposting today is so I could watch the France vs. Norway match, but Norway, in what I consider to be an unwise move from their coach, and a bit cowardly, is "resting" their star player. It takes some of the fun out of it, but, so far the game is not without fun, so I'll head back to it, and leave you to this:

I wandered out into the gritty center of Winter. One might even say I trudged, as I soon found myself in a local, sidewalkless neighborhood, plodding in unplowed streets where the snow had turned to what my wife calls brown sugar and butter. It was a mild day, in the twenties (270 kelvins), and though I had two cameras I had walked a long way without feeling the slightest compulsion to photograph anything.

And then, down a long street, coming from the railroad track's dead end, there were the turkeys. 

It is, after all, the turkeys' neighborhood.

I took pictures of them, dark in the snow and under a dim, gray sky. I came close to them which always sets them on their slow way, though they never linger too much anyway. All day they make their long, stately rotation through the backyards and streets of the neighborhood. I love how it is all a world of humans, with grids and walks and straight ways, but the turkeys move through it as a wild world, a world of turkeys, hilly and flat, grass and snow and cement, but all of it open equally to them, none of it straight or for one place to another.

As I stood photographing, the turkeys strolled by me so close that I could not get a picture, partly from the movement, partly from the limitations of the lens, and partly from my beating heart, thrilling at being all among the wild turkeys.

I do my best not to impinge upon the hospitality of the turkeys. I'll linger with them where I first come upon them. Then sometimes I'll follow around to meet them on a second street. After that I get the sense that maybe they've had enough of me, even if I, not always, of them.

I have shown you many pictures these years of the turkeys, but rarely have I gotten ones of them so grouped together, and so I hope that a couple of those give a feel for the flock, and for being among them.

Thanksgiving

 

Dayenu: It would have been enough

My darling wife and I were driving back from somewhere in the south suburbs, and as a scenic route to our home, we turned in along the river. There, on an expansive grassy median between the river road and expensive houses, were some turkeys.

"Ohhhhhh, look," I said. "Turkeys!" Because turkeys, glorious, round, colorful, wild turkeys, always warrant an observance.

And, as if that wasn't enough, there were more turkeys.

And more and more and more turkeys.

And then more turkeys!

There were more turkeys than we could count. Is Dayenu a number?

I have found that any overly magnificent spectacle of nature takes on a touch of delightful comedy.

I mean, unless it's killing you. Like, maybe seeing a Grizzly with its cubs isn't so funnily wonderful if at that moment the mother is mauling you.

But these turkeys totally weren't killing us. And there was a magical whimsey to seeing more and more of them long after it was already a wonder. They were all very chill, pecking around on the ground peaceably, gathered together perhaps for some annual bounty of nature. 

Maybe there was something good to eat in that grass?

I mean, besides the turkeys.

No pain no gain

 

I almost walked right by the turkeys.

I was looking at a little elf someone had put on a little swing next to a creek that ran between two houses. And then I realized there were  dark shapes huddled near one of the houses. Once I saw them I saw the rest of the flock scattered up the creek. It was unusual to see them so hunkered down. Maybe it was just me, it was probably just me, but they looked cold. They looked like Winter had been going on for a long, long time.

I stepped off the sidewalk and edged closer to them. Then I crouched in the snow, taking pictures. The rare opportunity of their stillness was a gift. Their usual, constant, bobbing movement makes them hard to get a focus on. 

A couple of times I inched half a dozen small, careful steps closer to them and crouched again. I took more and more pictures. I long ago learned that I am the kind of photographer who gets good pictures mainly on a percentage basis rather than on a precision basis; taking a hundred earnest pictures will get me two good ones far more quickly than trying to take a few exacting ones.

Not that I have ever really taken an exacting picture.

But you know what I mean.

The snow started to melt into my pant's knee, and my exposed fingertips started to hurt.

A nosey person came out their front door to see who was crouching at the edge of their front yard. I toughed their scrutiny out, pretending they weren't there, and they vanished back inside. It was cold out. I stuck my fingers in my mouth to ease their pain.

I took more pictures. Surely one or two of these would turn out. But just because two out of a hundred normally turn out doesn't mean those won't come from the four pictures I will take of birch trees in half an hour.

Finally the turkeys moved on.

I stood up.

I turned off the camera.

My knee was frozen and wet. 

My fingers stung with the cold, so sharply they felt cut. 

But I held my head high. I knew that I would be able to return to my photo editing program with the gifts of my hunt. 

And clerkmanifesto would live another day.

Turkey portraits

 

Yesterday I concentrated on my pictures of The Flock, but turkeys are individuals too!

There's Tonya.

And Tanya.

Theo and Theodora.

Ted, Tet, Tem, and Tess.

Trent, Trudy, Trixie, and Fred.

There is Cleobell, Tam, Petunia, Flip, and Tinny.

There's...

 

What's that?

You'd like to just move on to the pictures?

Sure, sure. We aim to please here.

The names of these turkeys should all be obvious, but if you have any identification questions just drop me a line in the comments below.

Turkey village

 

I wandered out into the gritty center of Winter. One might even say I trudged, as I soon found myself in a local, sidewalkless neighborhood, plodding in unplowed streets where the snow had turned to what my wife calls brown sugar and butter. It was a mild day, in the twenties (270 kelvins), and though I had two cameras I had walked a long way without feeling the slightest compulsion to photograph anything.

And then, down a long street, coming from the railroad track's dead end, there were the turkeys. 

It is, after all, the turkeys' neighborhood.

I took pictures of them, dark in the snow and under a dim, gray sky. I came close to them which always sets them on their slow way, though they never linger too much anyway. All day they make their long, stately rotation through the backyards and streets of the neighborhood. I love how it is all a world of humans, with grids and walks and straight ways, but the turkeys move through it as a wild world, a world of turkeys, hilly and flat, grass and snow and cement, but all of it open equally to them, none of it straight or for one place to another.

As I stood photographing, the turkeys strolled by me so close that I could not get a picture, partly from the movement, partly from the limitations of the lens, and partly from my beating heart, thrilling at being all among the wild turkeys.

I do my best not to impinge upon the hospitality of the turkeys. I'll linger with them where I first come upon them. Then sometimes I'll follow around to meet them on a second street. After that I get the sense that maybe they've had enough of me, even if I, not always, of them.

I have shown you many pictures these years of the turkeys, but rarely have I gotten ones of them so grouped together, and so I hope that a couple of those give a feel for the flock, and for being among them.

Pike Island: The turkeys

 

So where we last left it, I had been adopted into a herd of Pike Island Deer. And I was taking their pictures in a friendly, communal sort of way, when I looked up to find that a flock of turkeys had decided to come hang out with us deer!

The turkeys mingled with our herd!

I laughed out loud. 

No one minded.

As you have seen I didn't get great pictures of the mingling turkeys with the deer, but I hope you can see here that they did indeed mingle! The turkeys just waded right in amongst the deer.

Eventually the deer all slowly tottered off up the island. 

The turkeys followed along in their wake. 

I got a couple of clearer pictures of them as they went. I'm better with portraits.

And then I let them all go on their way. "Miles to go" and all that.

 Plus, in the end, I'm not really a deer.

Pike Island: Honestly it gets almost ridiculous

 

So there I was, among the herd of deer, like almost an honorary member of the crew.

I'm well off the trail, deep into the Pike Island woods, among the grasses and tangled wood, just pointing my camera around, surrounded by deer.

When a person is adopted into a herd of deer, and that person is also a bit of an amateur photographer for whom only one out of a hundred shots is likely to turn out really well, that person is inclined to at some point just sort of point the camera around taking all kinds of shots to boost the odds. 

So that's what I was doing.

Wait.

What is that?

Between the deer's legs?

Let's look a little closer?

That is a turkey!

The turkeys had arrived!