Welcome to this week’s A-Z blog hop. The letter of the week is T, and for me, T is for turkeys.
The wild turkeys have been running rampant on the Cape. It seems like every neighborhood has their own flock and they migrate from yard to yard. I am absolutely amazed when I see them. I stop the car and take photos. I walk along side them and video them. Then, one day they were in my backyard walking around my fire pit. I was in my chair right next to the back door and there they were – three feet tall and parading not ten feet away from me. I jumped up and started the camera. I followed them from the backyard to the front. They crossed the street and walked up to the marsh. I was curious to see what they would do when they reached the water. (It was high tide and the marsh was full.) They turned around and walked back across the street and into my driveway. By this time I was so amazed by the large birds I was outside in the rain on the front porch. Then…suddenly…before I could open my camera…they spread their wings and flew up over my house and landed in the yard of the house behind me. I missed the shot, but the experience left me breathless.
Why? Why am I so amazed by these birds when everyone else here treats this as a commonplace occurrence – like the arrival of the mail? Perhaps it’s my life experience with turkey’s. Growing up, the only turkeys I ever saw were the ones that my grandmother made appear on the dinner table at Thanksgiving and New Years Day. Then when I married, my husband was a turkey hunter and spent many hours in a tree stand without even a siting. I was of the school that live turkey’s are a rarity. I had never seen one and it seems they are very hard to come by. My non-experience with live turkeys growing up would explain my excitement and fascination with them actually walking through my backyard today.
Could it be the same with how others differ from us? When we say they don’t believe as we do or they should do this or that like we do, could it be that they have not had the same life experience we had and we are asking something of them they just don’t have a reference point for? Hmm…instead of faulting them, could we maybe be more tolerant of the life experiences they have had?
And so, as another day goes by, who knew we could learn from turkey’s, and…I have written.
On our road Monday morning as hubby and I were leaving the house…
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