Relative Something

The sun wasn’t up yet on Saturday morning when my slumber was interrupted by a mysterious sound invading my dream. The second time the sound occurred, I felt myself floating up out of the dream toward the surface of reality. The sound was no longer mysterious, in fact, it was completely obvious, but I wasn’t yet awake enough to know where I was. The sound seemed far away like it might still be in the dream I was swiftly leaving.

Between rather long pauses, the sound continued.

“Gobble, gobble, gobble! Gobble, gobble, gobble!”

There was a tom turkey in the vicinity. Reminded me a bit of the good old days when our rooster, Rocky, would announce the impending arrival of daylight.

I scanned the woods out our bedroom window but found no visible signs of life in the early light. Coming out of the bathroom, I was startled by a clear view of the tom through the deck doors, struttin’ his stuff out in the backyard.

I watched him slowly parading toward the house until he turned and wandered into the trees. I figured he was gone but soon spotted him through the den window on the other side of the house.

The images through the glass were sub-par but still do a fair job of representing his size and his proximity to the house.

By the time I was dressed and out the door to feed the horses, there was no turkey in sight.

It’s nice to know the coyotes haven’t killed all the big birds in the area. I suspect wild turkeys have a much more effective sense of preservation against predators than our domesticated chickens did.

We also have another new alarm that goes off in the mornings on the other side of the house. There is a robin who has decided to do daily battle against its reflection in our sunroom windows at too early o’clock. Before Cyndie left she put a few Post-It note sheets on some of the windows to disrupt the bird’s-eye view.

Yesterday, I noticed he had just moved over a couple of windows. He doesn’t bother me so much because my arrival in the sunroom to put on my boots before going outside shoos him away. By the time I return from feeding horses, he tends to have moved on to other pursuits.

In honor of the first day when it was warmer outside than it was in the house, I celebrated by leaving a door to the deck open for a few hours yesterday afternoon.

All sorts of spring sounds made their way inside on the fresh breeze, including one of my new favorites: pine cones clicking as they gradually pop open. I was not aware of the sound of this phenomenon until living here with pine trees just off the deck. Yesterday, I was hearing it from the cones in the large White Pine tree by the shop garage.

The first few days of dry warmth are such a fine reward after winter finally lets loose its prolonged clenching of our senses. I’m feeling a certain kinship with the pine cones.

.

.