Turkey Invades Neighbors



(No, not that turkey. This turkey!)

Calling all turkeys! It's mating season...

Last year we had an early morning visit of perhaps a dozen of the giant parakeets. This morning I was awoken by the sounds of an invasion! I took some of these from my apartment balcony and then walked around to the front of my building and found even more of the long legged things. For a moment I was thinking seriously about Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds in the scene where thousands of crows start gathering around the town. Look at this! I counted more than 100 of the noisy beasts.


It became surreal as more and more of my fellow apartment dwellers came out with their cameras and kids to gawk and squawk back at the turkeys. Each time a vehicle would need to drive through the rush hour turkey traffic, they'd have to honk their horns to get the flock to part their sea of feathers long enough to let the car drive through.




At one point, all the toms were gathered on top of one of the mounds, eye to eye and ruffled tail to ruffled tail strutting and puffing in competition to show off their male prowess to the ladies.

In my mind, a commentator was saying:

"today in Citrus Heights a summit of the world leaders have gathered to air their differences and seek resolution to the ongoing buildup of tension between their countries.

I tried to take a picture of that so I could send it to the local TV station with that caption, but by that time the batteries in my camera ran out... Ah well...

Everyone kept commenting that they'd never seen so many turkeys here before. There must have been a huge population explosion last year. I'm surprised and impressed that the environment around here is able to support them nutritionally and the neighboring humans are so tolerate of the big splatterers.












For anyone interested in the comparatively smaller traffic jam of turkeys from a couple years ago, check these out:

http://butrfly.net/2004_12_01_butrflynet_archive.html

My nephew was released from the hospital on Sunday and my brother and his wife are now home. Nephew is stubborn and as strong as hell and insists on walking around with a walker as his way to deal with the extreme pain he has. The drugs just don't dull it at all. He has a long road of physical therapy ahead of him, but is in good spirits. His cousin isn't doing as well. He was operated on a few days ago but is still in a coma and now has pneumonia. He is a fighter though and is still holding on. My nephew's cousin worships him, they grew up together and are inseparable.

Here's a couple photos of the car. It is unbelievable that anyone survived. We've learned that something to do with the power steering broke and that's what caused my nephew to lose control of the car. The EMTs had to use the jaws of life to remove both men from the car. My nephew said the car engine smashed through the dashboard and landed on top of him when they hit the cement retaining wall in the drainage ditch. Luckily a friend was following them home and called rescue squad when he was unable to get them out of the car.

Wearing seatbelts saved their lives. BUCKLE UP!!

Happy Birthday Dr. King.

We're having a hell of a cold snap here. It was down to 19 degrees here in Citrus Heights this morning and is supposed to get that low again tomorrow. It's 12:30pm and the bird bath on my balcony is still one solid piece of ice. I walked around to take a look at the streams throughout the complex and they have ice on the edges still.

It's only 36 degrees right now, and we're not expected to get much higher than 40 this afternoon. I think most if not all my plants on the balcony have bit the dust. They're all hanging like limp dicks with shrinkage factor from the freeze.

Very cold weather is headed to the Valley this weekend. Have been busy moving balcony plants closer to the apartment walls and covering them for protection.

If there is enough moisture in the cold front we might even see some snow.

Deep Freeze Coming To Sacramento Area
Snow Expected In Sierra; Possibly A Dusting In Foothills

POSTED: 5:59 am PST January 10, 2007
UPDATED: 11:17 am PST January 10, 2007

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A cold snap will begin Thursday in the Sacramento region, bringing some of the chilliest temperatures seen in nearly a decade.

Winds are expected to pick up in the high country today, and a dusting of snow in the Sierra is expected Thursday, with some snow falling in the foothills as low as 1,000 feet elevation.

Temperatures will reach the 50s in Sacramento today, but temperatures will drop Thursday and Friday and reach their lowest on Saturday morning. Residents are urged to take steps to insulate exposed water pipes and cover sensitive outdoor plants.


By Friday, morning temperatures in Sacramento will drop to the 20s, with windchill making it feel colder.

Highs in Sacramento will only reach the 40s Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Those traveling to the Sierra in the coming days should brace for high winds and snow over mountain passes.

My nephew-in-law was in a horrible solo auto accident at the end of the year. He and his cousin were very badly hurt, needing the jaws of life to remove them from the car. Cousin was airlifted to hospital while nephew-in-law went by ambulance. Neither of them were expected to survive the extraction from the car. Cousin is still in a coma and fighting for his life. Nephew-in-law is doing much better than first expected. Multiple broken bones below the waist and in a hell of a lot of pain.

My brother and his wife flew back to be with him and get him settled once released from the hospital. There aren't many opportunities to say something good about companies these days, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my brother's employer for giving him the week off and the air fare without even being asked. He's had a rough year in 2006 and the company's support means more to all of us than we can ever express to the company owner.

I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that my nephew-in-law will make a good recovery so his auntie can cuddle with him and his baby on the couch next time we are together.