The best laid schemes o' Turkeys, Dogs and Men Gang Aft Angley

                                                      The valley is starting to bloom
 

                                                                 Last winter shot

Okie dokies by popular request I shall now relate a tale of woe a tale so traumatic that only now after many years have I been able to come to grips with the events that unfolded on that fateful night so many years ago.

Now as with the many other things mostly bad, I might add that have happened to this poor wretched soul, this horrid event occurred shortly after I had taken up residents at what was to become the Swallow’s Nest and home to the many friends that I was to make during my tenure here. I had moved in the previous fall and all was well or so I had thought, there I was alone in my own little world and I had made it through my first winter in the wilds of Manitoba with nary a scratch. Ok there were the deep gashes left by the owls and the totally unprovoked attack by a killer Deer but other than that I had made it ok. 

As I recall I had retired early that night for no other reason than that I really had nothing better to do, I was at piece I was contented I was the complete master of my domain. It was spring and it had been raining gently all evening, the grass was greening and the first flowers were poking their heads out to start life a new, things were pretty good. But as we all know things can change.

Now having consumed more than a few lagers the night before I awoke around 2am with that pressing urgency that we have all experienced from time to time. What to do What to do? Well the common sense thing would have been to simply go to the little boys room that was and still is just around the corner from my sleeping quarters, but did I do this? Not on your life did I do this simple and most logical thing and indeed it would have been a most simple thing, get up in a sleep and lager induced haze, go for a tinkle a flush and back to bed to sleep the sleep of the righteous and just with hardly a thought given. This would have made sense, but we’re talking me here so logic and common sense are not an issue, they however should have been, I mean like they really should have been an issue.

Now I’m a man, ok so I’m an idiot as well but I repeat myself and I decided to do a Guy thing. Sadly women simply cannot understand this guy thing stuff. I imagine that much of this failure to understand the male need to do the ultimate Guy thing is a matter of anatomy and whoo hoo for that but it’s like they may well have the plumbing but they , (women that is) lack the fixtures I believe that this fact explains much.

Now having been married for what seemed like an eternity I had gone through the lid up seat down trial by nag and being the subservient and completely non combative sort of fellow that I am I had taken to the habit of squatting, (I know it ain’t a guy thing but) Yuh know to put myself on a level playing field , well I have news for any male reading this” It’s never been a level playing field, never was and never will be” no matter how often women tell us that it is, they lie in that condescending way that all women have, just like patting a puppy on the head and telling him what a good boy he has been for going tinkle on the paper instead of the floor. Just with men they pat us on the head and say” What a Good boy, you lifted the seat when you went tinkle and put it back down too, Thata fella now run along.”

Anyway my wife having passed some time previous I was now alone and free to tinkle were and when I chose, the nearest neighbor was some miles away and besides it was the middle of the night, who was to know? 
Now where I live there are no lights to speak of, the nearest town is some 44klm away and far down hill and so is not an issue and the nearest neighbor is surrounded by forest also not an issue. Adding to that the fact that it was a moonless night and overcast with rain clouds when I say that it was dark I really mean that it was black. As black as the inside of a hat there was simply nothing to see. I negotiated my way to the front door feeling my way along the walls, I reach the front door and slid it open gently so as not to wake my guardians and friends AKA two Great Danes and a Min Pin who were fast asleep on the bed. I mentally paced off the distance to the edge of the deck, did I mention that it was like really dark, well it was and I had my left hand out in front of me Yuh know to touch the railing. I was almost there, relief was at hand yeah I’m right handed.

As I reached out I felt my left hand touch something that I was sure had not been there the night before, it was firm and get somehow soft and yielding, I then did that which besides going out in the first place I should NOT have done, I poked it. It woke up. It was not amused, It was a twenty pound ball of startled fury, it was a Wild Turkey and it was Not alone. 
It seems that these killer birds had taken up refuge on my railing to shelter from the rain and when I poked it that bird startled from its slumber simply exploded. It went straight up in the air gobbling flapping it’s wings and squawking and it started off a chain reaction. In launching itself like a pershing missile it delivered me a roundhouse right to the head that was like being handed a two fisted back hander by Jimmy Conners I screamed, the rest of the turkeys woke up and they screamed, I screamed louder, they flew around in the dark and beat me more. The dogs woke up and hearing that their master was in dire distress and was in need of rescue joined the mayhem. Odin the Magnificent leads the charge, with a woofing volume that only a Great Dane is capable of, it’s dark remember and he can’t see me standing in the doorway. I yell No Odin No. He charges forward like the magnificent beast that he is and hits me smack between the legs sending me flying ass over knuckles , I land on the deck screaming, Nicole the Beautiful couldn’t see me either but knew that she had to save her master at all costs and Odin the magnifisent was after all only a male and couldn’t be trusted with such an important task.

She barrel asses over me lying there whimpering. Yuh just haven’t experienced horror until you have been run over by a 185 pound Great Dane in the dark. In case you don’t know it they have Huge claws designed to eviscerate wild boar. Then came Natasha the Brave Min Pin yarpping with all of the ferocity of a full sized Doberman Pincer. She ran over me as well. The mayhem simply can not be described, Turkeys flying hither and thither in the dark beating the dogs about the heads and shoulders with wings like snow shoes, The dogs woofing, snarling and snapping at unseen attackers. And me simply wishing for death and realizing that this must indeed be what hell was like and if so I most certainly did not want to go there and that I would reform my evil ways if only this horror would end. All the while the hell sound of Gobble Gobble Gobble reverberated though the valley.

Finally the turkeys managed to find their way to freedom and the dogs quieted down after what seemed to be an eternity of me yelling “Shut the fuck up already”. Then after checking to see that I had survived the attack of the killer monster birds and knowing full well that they and only they had been directly responsible for this most heroic rescue, the bastards went back to bed leaving me there bruised and bleeding in the dark. Needless to say that my urge to tinkle off of my deck was no longer an issue.

Thus endth the story of Turkeys, Dogs and a Man who can’t seem to change even if he should I guess.