My Entree Just Crossed the Road

     It is a beautiful time of the year here in NH.  We look forward to fall just as much as we desperately wait for summer. Just because we live in NH doesn't mean we all love winter!   The trees are changing color and after a couple of so-so years this year is a good one!! The boys and I went to the Highland Games like I typed in my last blog and I had my meat pie with HP sauce and was very satisfied. Sebastian and I got into an argument that sometimes fries are called chips and that I paid 10.50 for them and he had better eat them! 10.50 was my meat pie and fries.
     Monday presented me however with another surprise. On my way to work I had to let about 27 turkeys cross the road.  Turkeys in New Hampshire have an attitude that no other foul has.  In the fall wild turkeys are everywhere. They may be in your front yard munching in your garden at 5am squawking and waking everyone up.  Many times they are crossing the road in flocks. In the fall they LOVE the plowed cornfields. 
     When I was a teenager I remember living in the studio apartment on the bottom floor of my parents house.  To throw my trash out I had to go out the sliding glass door and walk to the dumpster. The yard was lined in forest as we are also locating in the White Mountain National forest.  One particular Thanksgiving Day I remember cleaning my studio because family was coming over. On my way to throw out the trash I neglected to notice a flock of about 15 turkeys were right in front of me. They are not polite, they do not want to be pet. They stare at you daring you to just try and hurt them.  Armed with a 4 foot birch tree branch I swung my way to the dumpster and back. This is a small introduction to the New Hampshire Turkey.
    After watching these turkeys cockily cross the road, I thought to myself, that is one animal that I would not feel bad about hunting with a bow. I'm not a hunter, never have been, I fish.  Living in New Hampshire hunting is a very prevalent sport.  I had never considered it until watching my entree cross the road and remembering that I had just bought a butternut squash this past weekend and that there might be a dusty can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce in my closet.  It's times like this that the natural hunter comes out in you. You wonder, is this what it was like for our first settlers and Native Americans? Did the turkeys taunt them or have they decided that they have as much freedom as any other animal on the hunting lottery. 
     I was contemplating this further when about another mile down the road I had to stop again for three more very fat turkeys.  Frustrated I called my husband and talked about my thoughts on bow hunting and taking out a turkey. He pointed out that he could dress it and pluck it. My motivation was killed however when I recalled how he felt the first time he gutted a fish at one of his previous jobs. Bye Bye turkey dinner.