The Flock

Goddamn turkeys. If they get into the mushrooms, like last year, I'll kill one of them. They were behind the shed today, where I always get my first morels. I'd already checked the area this morning, so I just watched them for a while. I do love seeing them so close, so stately and handsome, and so busy. I finally go out and run them off with a firecracker, hoping to keep them away for a few days. This flock roosts over beyond the graveyard, I can hear them in the morning. I'll shoot a young one, a yearling, cook it in the smoker, and serve it as an open-face sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. I'll skin it, instead of plucking it, because it's so much easier, then lard it with bacon. Even a small bird will dress out at four to six pounds, so I'll end up making a pate, with leftovers and mushrooms; a different season I'd just make a soup, but I like cold food when the weather gets warm. Reading and grazing can be high art, and I enjoy eating with my fingers. There's a thicket of honeysuckle down the slope from the house, and the resident doe, with two yearlings are feeding in a frenzy on the young leaves. I was half-listening to Science Friday on the radio, and that meant listening to the news and weather on the hour, so I heard Trump pontificate about punishing women for having abortions. I got so mad I had to go throw rocks, which didn't help the situation, but did make me feel better. Who, the fuck, does he think he is? He falls into that set of mostly white, mostly male jackasses that should be forced to clean hog pens. I have to take a walk to calm down, sacrifice an old sweatshirt to the Green-Briar God, and listen to running water. Flushed another woodcock, which is something that never fails to get my attention, and I was fine when I got back to the house, jolted back into the natural world. I'm struck almost dumb, making a cup of tea, boiling water on a hot plate, sitting at the island, rolling a smoke, thinking that there are two worlds, at least, the inside and the outside. The natural and other. They're so distinct. You wake up in a bed, eat breakfast, listen to the news, get in a car, go somewhere, do something; or you dig roots and feed crows. There's some overlap, the food-store, the pub, the laundromat, but they're very different worlds. I don't even defend my position: I don't care and it doesn't matter. The fact that I just went back and added a semi-colon, a semi-colon for god's sake, struck me as funny. Semi-colons are like adverbs: you shouldn't use them very often. That whole cry wolf thing. My position is that I don't have to take a position, because I've separated myself from anywhere it was necessary to take a position. I'm a student of oak-galls, I don't give a shit about the rest of it. The good news is that I'm not a threat to society.

Tom

That deaf, dumb, blind kid, sure plays a mean pinball. I'd type out a prime number, and he would immediately give the next prime, which seemed to go on forever.