4/15/12 WHY DID THE TURKEY CROSS THE ROAD?

WILL T HEY OR WON'T THEY?

A SERIOUS DAFFODIL DISPLAY

NORWAY MAPLE FLOWERS

Sunday, 8:00 AM.  50 degrees F, wind N, calm to light.  The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts rain, of which a few drops are falling presently. But the humidity is only 35% so I doubt there will be much  precipitation, unless the massive storms to the SW push further north.
    Daffodils are blooming in earnest now, and next weekend should be spectacular; the tamaracks are leafing out and the Norway maples are blooming.
    Yesterday being Saturday, we put recyclables and garbage bags in the truck (with help from Sam next door, since I am not supposed to lift anything) and headed for the recycle center on Hwy 13, west of Red Cliff.  Just before the Rez we saw two hen turkeys starting to walk across the road.  They rushed back into the woods as we approached, and Joan (I  am not supposed to drive, either...what a pain) turned around and we waited to see whether they would show themselves again.  After a few minutes we decided to give up, but just then a missile-like object hurtled across the road out of a tall pine tree.  It cleared utility wires and continued on at almost grouse-like speed.  I have seen turkeys fly before but only from the ground into a tree, or some other flight that took only a few beats of their giant wings. 
    To witness a grown turkey in full flight is to see an airborne anomaly.  A creature so whimsically put together just shouldn’t appear so swift and graceful when airborne.  I would guess this big gal was going forty miles per hour and picking up speed when she flew over he truck, and that from a dead stop sitting in a roadside white pine.  Which does not answer the imortal question: Why did the turkey cross the road?