Old Turkey

It’s a beautiful quiet evening on Hideaway Pond. Added to our usual cadre of sunset critters, two new deer have become regular visitors during the past week. This evening, they dropped by and grazed by the ledge. Should they continue this pattern they’re likely to be endowed with names by my lovely bride. She believes that all of Mother Nature’s critters deserve the dignity of a name. Though it’s hard to define their gender persuasion from a distance. They don’t take well to close inspection. Thus, Joseph could be Josephine or vice versa. Frankly, I haven’t heard any of them complain one way or the other. Perhaps they enjoy figuring things out for themselves.
Our noisy downstairs neighbor, Chuck the groundhog, has apparently mended his ways or left town. Pretty quiet down there. We’ve seen a woodchuck loitering by an unused drainpipe near the pond. It appears to be living in there. I doubt that it could be Chuck since he’s accustomed to much more luxurious digs than a drain pipe. Perhaps we should name it Diogenese after the 4th century BC nutty philosopher who ate and slept wherever he happened to be at the time. Which, while he was in Athens, was a very large ceramic jar in the marketplace. Chuck would cringe.
The house wrens who raised a family in our birdhouse and skipped town have been replaced by a new family. Shari cleaned the birdhouse and they moved right in. I guess house wrens are given to these wanderin’ ways and often raise two families per season. Oversexed little critters. But they’re nice tiny guys and welcome to the neighborhood.
A morose old Tom turkey hobbled through the front yard last evening. Well past his prime but no doubt heartened by memories of his youth. The bird bacchanals featuring hot little hens and fully flared tails. Ah, those must have been the days. All a fading memory now. By the way, is there such a thing as turkey tail disfunction?