Two words: Baby. Turkeys.

In my continuing babblings about wildlife, here is a new and, I'm sure, highly anticipated entry.

Not far up the road from my first turtle rescue, I saw a large male turkey (a tom, right?) plop out of the thick grass on the left side of the road and slowly bobble his way into the grass on the other side (which is, incidentally, an abandoned graveyard featuring a tombstone reading: Gone but Not Forgotten. Ha!).

Being a country girl from way back, a turkey is no big deal. I've seen tons of turkeys. (My grandfather shot a turkey in his front yard two weeks ago, it being turkey season and all. Turkeys are part of our heritage. As is eating them.)

Next, a little gray bit of fluff hopped out of the grass, with a hen next to it.

"Oh, a baby!" I thought. Still, no big deal. I've seen baby turkeys before, too, and while their cuteness melts my heart to near-turtle levels, it's nothing to get ridiculous about.

But they kept coming. When the sixth baby tumbled into the road, I was impressed, and getting a bit wiggly with happiness over all the tiny fuzzy creatures.

But there were still more turkey babies. (For all you trivia buffs, a wee turkey is actually called a "poult". But don't feel sad if you didn't know. I had to look it up. Also, I was right about the toms.)

By the time the twelfth little one bounced out of the grass to bring up the tail end of the Turkey Parade, I was downright giggly. It was a good way to end the seventh-to-the-last day of school (not that I'm counting).

Conclusions:

1. Poult = cute. 12 poults = immediate joy.
2. Turkeys in Virginia are very fertile.
3. Turkeys expect you to wait for them to cross the road. Really.

I was going to write about something else, but Radar is whining and whining because I took his stuffed throw-Panda away from him because he was being impolite about it. If it occurs to me, I'll let you know. I'm about 100% sure that it wasn't about turkeys. Maybe.

Summer Reading List

After reading Richard's comment about Bridge to Terabithia, I had a brilliant and self-serving idea. I've been trying to locate book titles that I could read this summer--really, really good juvenile fiction is fine (research for the young adult novels I may never write), but I'm looking primarily for accessible, literary kinds of adult fiction. I like books that surprise me.

In theory, I'm looking for pointers about the novel I'm supposed to be writing, even now, this very moment.

I'm in the midst of reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated, and then his other novel. My favorite novelist on most days is Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

So. Read any good books lately?

Turtle Crossing

As I turned onto the dirt road where I live, I said to myself, "That's a big rock in the road."

Then I realized. It wasn't a rock at all. It was a turtle.

A cuddly, adorable, plodding little turtle.

I braked the car, put it in park, and clicked on the four-way lights, intent on saving my shelled friend from a highly-unlikely-yet-possible demise. I was vaguely nervous because I'd never picked up a turtle.

As my shadow fell over him, he shuddered, and began to pull his legs and head inside the shell. "Cute!" I thought. I bent down and picked him up. I had expected the turtle would be heavier. I thought I felt him breathe--or maybe his heart beating. He must have known, as I set him down in the grass on the other side of the road, that I was a friend, because he began to emerge from the shell even before I put him on the ground.

Saving turtles feels good, it turns out.

Otherwise, I've signed a contract to work here in Culpeper next year, since in my fifty million interviews I didn't manage to land a position anywhere. (I suspect all the offers will be coming in now that I've signed.) It's depressing, but I don't see that I could have made a different choice.

Some day, I may have other, important news, but for now, it's turtles, turtles, stupid job, turtles, turtles.

Finaly!!!!!!

The naybors fond the puppys a good home!

Free! Im free!

i hope noone is to sad but probly i wont rite as much now that the puppis ar gone sins rilly i jus lik to complane.

to tide yu ovr until i rite agin, heres a pikshur of me snifing my naybor dog gipsy. she smels good and shes not anoying lik the fatpuppys.



arrividerchi! syonara! goodby!

Luv 4 evah,

Radr

Remnants of the ice storm (December in Virginia)

That day, I awoke to a call from Maureen, my predecessor on the calling tree.

"No school. Ice storm."

I hung up, looked out at the darkness outside. Couldn't go to sleep.

Slowly, the sun crept up. I'd been listening to the clattering on the trees all night, all morning, and the sun began to unveil the ice, to scatter sparks across the landscape.

I put on a sweater, grabbed my complete manual SLR camera, prayed its penchant to double-expose wouldn't kick in. I thought of my love in Syria, the unbearably cold nights, the scorching days. I thought of him trudging up the mountains at night, sitting in his classes, the immediate world at once wholly foreign and utterly familiar.

I took my pictures, and with every snap of the lens thought of moving just one second closer to him, of holding a pearl-string of moments together, both of us in worlds that were entirely ours and entirely strange to us.

This Wun Gos Out to Richurd

Hay Richurd.

Luk. Its the fat puppys.

Arnt thay cute?

There suppost to go the the pund tomorrow, my nayber sez. But I don't beliv her.

Thay ar stil heer! (Fat puppys updat)

Hey yall. This is Radr agin.

Just wantid to let yu no that thos puppis ar stil heer. Thay where suppost to be gon tosday. And thin today. May be mom wil tak them to the pund.

Thay ar stil here, and thay git fattir all the tim! The gurl pupy evin came into my hows and rolld arund luking cute.

Did I menshin I hat thim?

As I promsed erlier, i am runing away frum home. Probly.

All this takl ov the puppys has got me thinking abut my tim in the pond. I wuz verry sik and skiny. I almost ded! And my name wuz Marvin. That suked.

Then on day Mommi came and tuk me on a wak. She wuz nice! And then she becam my mom. She sed, "Marvin, do you want to be my dog?" I likked her! And then I wuz her dog.

Evin tho I hat the fat puppys. I know its hard to be in the pond. I hop thay find gud homes. Wich thay probly will becuz there so cute and furry I hat them!

Love,
Radr

P.S. Mom sez she shood have puppi picshures tomorow. Stay tunned!