Poultry Patrol

It’s a turkey.

This morning after the kids ate breakfast, I was in the kitchen washing a small part at the base of the mountain of dishes I have to do today.

MOUNTAIN.

Why I’m emphasizing my dishwashing laziness I have no idea, but there you go.

Anyway, I’m washing and sort of zoning out to the intermittent SHHHHHHing of the water as I rinse things, when I hear, from upstairs, the too-familiar sound of Julia. Shrieking.

She’s been doing this a lot lately. Shrieking. As in, when she gets mad or frustrated or upset or annoyed or hungry or thirsty or insulted or tired or (insert emotion here), she speaks in a shriek. And the more whatever she gets, the higher-pitched her shrieks become. Glass shatters and stray dogs think she’s summoned them for some important secret neighborhood sniffing mission.

So I figured she was shrieking at Alex because he had done something annoying like, oh, stayed in his own room with the door closed while she was avoiding brushing her teeth and getting dressed and was looking for another means of procrastination.

But no.

I was incorrect in my assumption.

She was shrieking MY name.

“MOM! MOM!”

“WHAT?” I hollered from the kitchen. (When you are an adult and your voice deepens, even a little, it becomes “hollering” instead of “shrieking.” Just so you know.)

“MOM! A TURKEY!!”

“IN OUR YARD?”

“NO! NEXT DOOR!”

I ran around in an excited circle (not really) – I ran downstairs to get my camera – dope that I am, I’d left it next to my laptop after uploading some pictures last night – grabbed it, ran back upstairs, saw the turkey march past our garage, almost collided with Alex, who also wanted to see the turkey up close, and hurried outside.

I got one shot, just as the turkey reached the end of the stockade fence of the neighbors behind us.

And then the turkey turned to the right and disappeared from view.

I was tempted to quietly run through the yards so I could get closer and get a better picture, but I take enough pictures in my pajamas already.

Plus Alex – in his jammies – would probably have followed, and then Julia, in hers, would have run downstairs and out the door just because she hates being left out. And then there would be a little parade of pajama-clad, tiptoe-running wackos chasing a turkey through the neighborhood.

And we don’t really need to be doing that.

So that’s all you get – this lone image, which I zoomed in on, cropped, and sharpened a bit for the first picture in this post.

Hope your morning has been JUST as exciting!