After dark

I’ve lived in New England for decades, but there are two things that will never seem natural to me: how early it gets dark here in winter, and the lack of a proper spring.

Since the time change, it’s dark when I walk Roxy after dinner. She has a light on her collar, and I carry a flashlight, but we are regularly startled by other walkers who dress in somber colors and don’t carry a light, their forms materializing out of the darkness like solid ghosts.

Tonight, it started drizzling just as Roxy and I set out, and after we turned toward home, forked branches of lightning lit the sky, followed by rumbling thunder. Since when, I wondered, do we have thunderstorms in November?

As we approached the house, a flock of roosting turkeys gobbled en masse from the trees across the street, as unsettled by the thunder as I was. You never know what surprises lurk on suburban streets after dark.

 

Thanksgiving prep

I suppose J and I could find our Thanksgiving meal simply by walking around the neighborhood in search of suburban turkeys, but we have a tradition of eating pasta for Thanksgiving. So tonight I went to the grocery store to do the weekly shopping.

The store wasn’t frantic–I purposefully chose a time when I felt there wouldn’t be mobs of holiday shoppers–but the aisles were crowded with people taking their time as they loaded their carts. You could tell everyone was preparing meals they don’t regularly cook, as everyone was poring over labels and consulting with companions about their selections. One woman was on a cell phone making sure she got just the right kind of pumpkin puree; elsewhere, I overheard a pair of college-aged women (roommates?) wondering how they’d cook various side-dishes given their relative lack of cookware.

One item on my list was cold-cuts for the dogs’ Thanksgiving platter. In the past, J and I have prepared a plate of dog treats and sliced meats to give to the dogs as their Christmas present, and this year we decided to extend the tradition to Thanksgiving, too. So while other shoppers pored over a case of frozen turkeys trying to find just the right size and shape of bird, I spent a long time poring over packages of bologna, sliced turkey, and ham trying to find the smallest, cheapest package of each. Only after I’d made my selections did I look up and realize another shopper was watching me with a concerned look, worried I was a poor soul who could afford to eat only bologna sandwiches for Thanksgiving.

Yes, we really do have wild turkeys that live in suburban Newton, as evidenced here and here.

 

Make way for turkeys

In Robert McCloskey’s classic children’s book Make Way for Ducklings, a kindly Boston police officer named Michael stops Beacon Hill traffic so a family of ducklings can waddle from the Charles River to the Public Garden. In Newton this afternoon, an anonymous driver in a Lexus pulled out to block traffic on Dedham Street so a largish flock of wild turkeys could cross unmolested.

Dedham Street is a highly trafficked suburban thoroughfare, Boston-area drivers can’t always be trusted to leave you unmolested, and it’s the weekend before Thanksgiving. The word “overconfident” (or even “oblivious”) doesn’t come close to describing these birds’ attitude.

Apologies for the poor quality of today’s image, but I hadn’t planned to be shooting wildlife pictures on the way home from running Saturday errands. Click here if you want some better images of an impromptu turkey crossing.