Mid-May musings

Early this morning we enjoyed some mild thunder and lightning as thundershowers rolled through. Later, we watched a wild tom turkey displaying for a sole hen in the backyard. She didn’t seem interested, but maybe she just thought the field was too open to engage in intimacies. In any case, after ten minutes or so, the hen wandered into the woods, followed by a somewhat distraught tom. I’m guessing that at this time of year, most of the hens are incubating eggs and the mating season is winding down.

backyard tom turkey in mating display

Photo by J. Harrington

Once the back yard performance ended, we headed off to the farm to pick up this week’s community supported agriculture [CSA] share. It includes:

• ARUGULA
• MESCLUN
• SPRING "SPACE” SPINACH
• SIMPSON OR PIRAT LETTUCE, and
• CHIVES

One of the high points of my week is the drive to the CSA farm through the countryside of the St. Croix River valley, noting changes in the season’s displays. This year some farmer’s are either planting very late or leaving what looks like an unusual number of fields fallow. Other fields, that got corn planted early(?), are showing emergent corn plants already.

Now it’s time for me to go and refresh the planting trays and try again to successfully germinate some bergamot seeds. Cross your fingers for us, please.

Wild Turkey

Heid E. Erdrich

Not the bottle
Not the burn on the lips
lit throat glow
Not even wild     really
but a small-town bird
whose burgundy throat
shimmers like nothing ever
A huge bird    impressive
who lurches and stalks me
window to window in this
desert retreat
What does he want?
Clearly he is lonely
pecks his reflection
and speaks to it in a low gubble
(not gobble) gubbles so tenderly
Soon as I think of him     his eye hits on me
We have watched each other for days
His shifting colors fascinate me  his territorial strut
But it is his bald and blue-red head
his old man habits and gait that move me
If I even think of him        I taste whiskey
Drunk on solitude    I’d talk to anybody
I try his language on my lips
His keen response burns     like shame

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