Life is a highway

I don’t think that I have told you about the time I gave a turkey a ride on the hood of my truck.

This was back in the mid 80’s in upper Michigan. I lived in a town called Roscommon, and worked in Grayling. The commute was 60 miles round trip. No biggee because it was good, Michigan paved road. Round curves, up and down hills, and the final 10 miles or so were on an interstate. Life was good.

So one fine fall morning I am going to work and this turkey is coming out from the side of the road. And it wasn’t a small bird, it has some heft to it. Turkeys are not known for their flying ability. They can, and do for short distances, but they really don’t get much altitude.

Anyhoobies. This turkey is walking out onto the road, and finally figures out that my S-10 is bearing down on him at a fairly rapid rate of speed. The turkey gives a lame hop to gain some altitude and lands on the hood of my truck.

Traveling at somewhere around the legal speed limit.

And the turkey decides that it is now time to dump some ballast so that it can get more altitude. And the bird poops in a line from the front of the hood, up the windshield to the roof of the truck where it finally is able to do its semblance of flight to the other side of the road.

I was laughing so hard that I had to stop the truck. And then I had to figure out how to clean the turkey crap off.

The reason I thought about this was I had a pheasant run out in front of me the other morning, and it was so distressed at hearing my horn that it stopped in the middle of the road, turned and ran back the way it h ad come. Stopping after only a couple of steps to, again, reverse its direction and go back the way it was originally going. Before stopping and doing it all over again. That stupid bird ran around in circles for a good minute before it finally got off of the road.

‘Tis the season in the farmlands of America. Birds, deer, and other animals are going to be shooed out of their habitates by hunters and such traipsing through. Be aware, or else you might get pooped on.

Namaste.