The Noble Turkey

While you’re bellied up to the table on Thursday, showering your potatoes with rivulets of gravy, consider these utterly random facts about Thanksgiving's bird of the hour:

--Californians are the biggest turkey eaters in the country. (really?) Each year they eat 3 pounds more turkey than the average American consumer.

--When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin sat down to eat their first meal on the moon, their foil food packets contained turkey with all the trimmings.

--Turkeys have great hearing skills but no ears. They have a poor sense of smell but a great sense of taste. And turkeys see in color.

--And here's my personal favorite: Benjamin Franklin much preferred the turkey over the eagle as a national symbol. He condemned the eagle, calling it "a bird of bad moral character."

"[The eagle] does not get his living honestly," he went on to say. "He is a rank coward... and is no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest."

His thoughts on the turkey? "It is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . a bird of courage who would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards."

Who knew that the turkey could be so noble? Perhaps we should pay homage to the nearly-national bird... before we stuff it with giblets and roast it in the oven.

Newsflash: Dads are parents, too

This morning Martin caught a flight to Florida with the kids. But when I tell people this, you'd think I'd just announced that Martin hurled himself off the barn roof. Or single-handedly hog-tied a rabid raccoon.

What?? He flew to Florida? Alone with the kids?

That's the response I get. Astonishment, disbelief, even bitterness, as in, "he's setting a bad example for other fathers by pulling a stunt like that."

Of course if I were making this journey, I'd hear, "Hmm, that's nice.... I need to get tickets for the new twilight movie..."

Because that's the way that people think. Mother traveling with kids? Ho hum. Dad? Call the local news, get a camera crew out there!

I should point out that Martin volunteered for this crazy assignment and he was pretty flip about 2 1/2 hours of airborne confinement. Though I wondered if he harbored any regrets when I dumped him curbside at the airport this morning with 2 kids, 4 bags, and a stroller with flat tires.

But low and behold, he called in the afternoon to say that the trip went fine. The flight was a success without the need to throttle either child or consume copious amounts of alcohol.

Which reaffirms what I've known for a while: Martin manages the kids just fine (probably better than me, albeit in his junk food-fueled, ply-them-with-new-toys style).

Besides, there was a payoff for his troubles: sunny warm weather, a swimming pool and brief return to life in flip flops and shorts.

Stay of Execution

In the final hour, as a mechanic stood poised to take our '87 pickup off the motor oil drip and rip the battery from it's belly....as a chop shop waited to extract the vital organs... the phone rang.

"Do whatever it takes to save Chitty! Save our truck!"

Chitty's been on life support in West Virginia ever since he tried to commit suicide in September. One fine sunny morning in early autumn, as Martin was en route to go kayaking, Chitty suffered a total brake failure. Fortunately the incident occurred on a back road, sending Martin on a cartoonish jaunt through the woods; a hilly incline ultimately stopped Chitty's free fall. But a subsequent tow to a garage revealed more than brake problems.

And that's when we decided to pull the plug on our faithful pickup.

But in the final hour we couldn't do it. We couldn't part with our trusty ride to the dump, our summer booze bus, our beacon of good will (Drivers can't help but wave when they pass our dented blue bomber.)

So last weekend Chitty returned home. With new brake pads, new brake hoses and custom fabricated brake lines, as well as other new parts (A caliper? What is that?) Chitty is back at home and good as new.

Except that he's far from new. He's a 22-year-old truck with a case of the stalls -- thanks to an ever-sticky carburetor -- and he bolts off at 10 mph each time you step off the brake. He's still got problems.

But he's our problem.

Meanwhile...

....as Martin and I tried to catch the mystery kitten, the Barbarian was stuffing her mouth full of cat food. Delish!

Look who just wandered into our lives

I'm curious, is there some secret message on our barn that only cats can read that says: give us your tired, your poor, your huddled feline masses....

Martin was at work in his office this evening when he heard a horrible yowling from the barn. He thought that one of our cats was stuck or in pain but when he fumbled for the light, he saw this:

A tiny ball of black and white fur --probably 8 weeks old-- with a powerful set of lungs. We don't know where the little guy (or girl) came from. I called the neighbors and no one reports having a litter of black and white kittens so someone either dumped the kitten at our house or possibly along the road. We'll never know. He was dry (despite the soggy conditions outdoors) and appears to be in decent shape. He's just hungry and lonely and very loud.

We considered bringing him in the house or locking him in the Mouse House, but ultimately decided that he's happiest with company. Spook, who also mysteriously appeared in our barn a year ago, has stepped into the role of foster dad.

Tomorrow we'll decide what to do with him. Tonight, we're hanging onto our Friday the 13th black cat.

The Intervention

Through our thin storm door I hear the unmistakable sounds of progress. Thumping and hammering, the muffled "whump" of a shovel sifting through dirt and a buzz saw's occasional outburst. In between, the lull and laughter of Spanish banter.

These are the sounds of an intervention.

Mom couldn't take it anymore. The demise of our house. For the past year she's been scrutinizing the farm's scars and battle wounds that we so conveniently ignore: the spider-web cracks in the plaster, the water stains on the ceiling, the curling wall paper in the kitchen, the radiators' seasonal shedding of paint.

Tally those cosmetic flaws and add some toddler-induced wear and tear -- an endless trail of wall scuffs, the crayola artistry on the bathroom door, and the mangled window blinds -- and let's face it. The house is looking scruffy.

So Mom stepped in.

A few months ago I hired a guy to repair the brick pillar at the end of the drive which suffered a vehicular blow many winters ago. Perhaps the driver was texting his girlfriend or squeezing a packet of ketchup onto his burger -- who knows -- but for some reason a car and its bumper parted on impact, leaving a spray of brick shrapnel along the road. Since then our listing pillar has been slowly sinking into the ground.

So I hired Jose to fix it. But on the day that he should have been roadside with bricks and mortar, I discovered him casing the house, picking at the clapboard and squinting at the windows.

"Your mom told me to look around and see what else needs to be done," he said simply.

By the time I arrived at work, an email from Mom blinked expectantly: "merry christmas," it read, "you're getting a new front porch!"

I don't know why Mom picked the porch. Maybe she planned to begin renovations at the frong door and work her way from room to room. No matter. Like everything else, the porch desperately needed TLC. The wood is thin and rotted -- old nailheads pop from the boards -- and the whole porch is pitched like a ski slope.

As a bonus -- a major stocking-stuffer, we got landscaping as well. In order to see the porch, much less replace it, Jose and friends hacked back the towering 90-year- old boxwoods that hover around our house. That led to more pruning, de-weeding, tree removal, poison ivy defoliation -- the works. Jose even unearthed the old slate slabs and voila, a walk way is reborn. Thank you, Mom!

To date, the paper-thin porch boards have been removed and a new porch framed out. When they demolished the old porch, I hoped to find some valuable treasures -- maybe a mason jar of mint-condition pennies, an old hunting knife or some civil war bullets. But the only relics were our own: a rusted Bud Light can, a bald tennis ball and a mouse trap.
Still, no complaints here. The Spanish chatter, the thumps of concrete bags smacking the ground and the buzz of chain saws shape my summer dream of a shady summer retreat, complete with comfy wicker chairs, a good book and a sweaty glass of lemonade...

AWOL

For the past week or so, I've been the victim of a vicious cycle: muck stalls, roust kids, go to work, feed/bathe kids, pass out on couch, go to bed.....muck stalls, roust kids, go to work....

My lap top has been abandoned -- keeping dust bunnies company beneath my bed or buried under a stack of bills on my desk -- it's little energy saver light blinking like a beacon in search of life form.

Sorry folks. I could blame daylight savings or stress at work or manic kids feeling the confines of winter approaching -- whatever the cause, I've been in hibernation mode this week.

We will return to your regular programing, already in progess, asap.

Luminescent show

In the early evening on the drive home, the moon reveals itself -- full and buttery over the horizon -- but a little shy. Hiding behind the tree tops.

It's only late at night -- when we coax the horses into the barn and take Maisie for a walk up the drive -- that we notice the moon's climb to the top rung.

It's so bright that the stars concede defeat. Next to the moon, they're just white pinholes in the sky.

Walking in the presence of the full moon is like gaining sight. The light casts shadows on the gravel and we see all that we're blind to: we step around the rain-filled potholes and avoid the purring mass of orange fur threaded between our legs. We call back Maisie before she charges the antlers in the woods. On most dark nights -- while we're stumbling down the drive and cursing the cat -- Maisie is bolting off in the darkness. The only tip-off: the sound of trampled grass receding across the field.

Back at home the moonlight washes away the farm's flaws. The darkness swallows the holes in the silo and the moon angles its rays on barn's towering white walls. We can't see the warped clapboard, the jaunty gutters and the pocked roof. Under the moon, the barn looks stately.

When I wake up in the dark morning hours, the moon looks smaller and has lost some of its luster. But before it blinks out it reveals one more trick: painting the foamy fog over the valley in a milky, ghostly glow.

What Just Happened?

It's Sunday night --the close of the weekend --and I'm stretched out on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, assessing the damage. Post 48 hours, here's what we're left with:

-a toppling mound of laundry heaped at the bottom of the cellar stairs
-a sink full of dishes
-two trash bags stuffed with crumpled wrapping paper
-a pile of sweat-stained riding equipment
-one dirty barn
-two filthy vehicles, both on empty
-one exhausted Thoroughbred
-one neglected, baleful-eyed border collie
-two zonked-out kids
-one chocolate-induced tummy ache

-and these memories: