Turkey Bomb

I was reminded yesterday of what has to be the funniest thing that happens around here. For years, a friend of ours would fly around a few days before Thanksgiving, dropping off frozen turkeys to many of us who might not have been able to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. I never knew who all he delivered to, but ever since we moved here, going somewhere before Thanksgiving was impossible for one reason or another.

Now, you may say, "What's so remarkable about a turkey delivery?" Other than the generosity of it all, that is. Well, as I said, he flew around dropping off frozen turkeys. Sorry about doing one of the biggest writerly faux pas by repeating myself, but this is significant. You see he didn't land to hand us the turkey, he dropped it out of the window as he flew over. I don't care how much snow is on the ground, a 25 pound turkey will punch right through it.

It was during these once yearly deliveries that our dog learned to search out these turkey bombs and from there she learned to watch the planes that buzzed us, waiting anxiously for whatever may come down so she could chase it and happily bring it back. She's never been able to manage a turkey bomb though, but she sure was instrumental in finding them. Bob would wrap each turkey in a large black garbage bag and tie a long red ribbon to it, but even with these obvious markers, after going through upwards of five feet of snow, there's not much left visible. More than once I've needed to strap on snowshoes and hike around looking for this illusive little hole in the snow.

Though he didn't call in advance, he did buzz over first, so we could get out in the yard to spot where the turkey landed. There would have been no finding it otherwise.

For those of you who don't know anything about snowshoes, walking in them is only part of the fun. Bringing a turkey up from under four to five feet of snow is like standing on the table and picking up a 25 pound something off the floor directly under your feet, knowing that if you got down on your hands and knees, standing again might be really very interesting if not impossible. Snowshoes will hold you up on that snow but your hands and knees won't. Do that and you're instantly too feet closer to the floor/ground and your feet are now up over your back. -> don't cheat, you can't back up so your knees are on the table. If you take your snowshoes off so you can kneel on them - well that's an option, but putting them back on in deep snow is another one of those interesting things about snowshoes.

Okay, now you've got your hands on this garbage bag with it's 25 pound weight, now you have to get yourself and your find back up on top of your snowshoes or back on your feet up there on the table. Just how flexible are you? Just how acrobatic are you? Now remember, you've just created a big hole in front of you getting that turkey up from the ground, so there's no such thing as stepping forward - do that and you stand a very good chance of doing a ballet on the toes of your snowshoes - probably only one of them - and if you're as good at ballet as I am, you'll join me face first in the snow. Fortunately, though I am nearly 200 pounds, I have always been very flexible - it helps.

The last couple years Bob hasn't been well enough to do all that flying so the turkeys were all delivered to some central location and phone calls went out to tell us all where to pick them up. As I've said before, going somewhere before Thanksgiving has almost always been impossible, and this year I don't even have a phone - it died. That's okay though; 25 pounds of turkey is a bit much for just the two of us. There's only so much you can do with all that meat before you get really tired of turkey.