Turkey Trot

When we looked out the kitchen window there was a turkey in a tree on the front 'lawn'. They DO fly, but I've never seen one sit in a tree. When the dog across the street started barking he stood up on the branch, surveyed the scene and then flew down to the ground and walked off. He has been wandering around here for a month or so. I wonder if he is a result of the romance that sprung up here about this time last year when the turkey we thought was a jake turned out to be a hen who managed to attract a rather splendid Tom

The next thing we knew they were parading around the neighborhood with a brood of their own. They disappeared over the winter, and this one, also on his own, looks too young to be last year's tom. It's quite unusual to see a single bird for such a long time. It seems to love Janet's garden, but she's not so happy about it, as it seems quite partial to her bean crop. I told her that she'd better move her bird feeder because it is just the right for him to enjoy the 'turkey buffet'.

Gustavo and a couple of other guys weed whacked our field yesterday making a path from the street to the house so we took Spike for a walk up there to see what has happened since we last walked up that way. We've been avoiding it while the grass was tall because it was much taller than Spike and full of deadly fox tails and stickers. We saw several deer down by our fence so we filled up the stock tank with water for them. The guys also took out the echium by our back door that was threatening to invade out bedroom and transplanted a large grass by the fig tree into the hole. It would have taken us weeks to accomplish these tasks, but they had it all done in half a day.

As for me, I sat on the couch for a good part of the day stitching the binding around the 'party quilt' and listening to a podcast about the development of nuclear power in this country. Interesting that the only entity with enough money to fund the research and development was the military so the first nuclear discovery was a bomb.

There were quite a few nuclear power plants developed and running in the 60's and 70's. A proposed one for Bodega Head not far from us was opposed by the public for its location near an earthquake fault and on a beautiful coastline, and was never built.  A series of accidents put people off and there is little support for them now. Most of the plants in this state have been shut down and decommissioned. 

There is a certain amount of arrogance in thinking that it is possible to build a nuclear plant that is failsafe and put it wherever is is most optimum  for its operation regardless of public opinion.