Po', po' possum...

A haunting elegy for a tragic occurence on Hickman Street, from the ever observant Fritz Schranck:

[...] A large, fully mature turkey buzzard calmly stood near the semi-flattened marsupial, picking at a fine morsel or two as I approached. (Fine for the buzzard, that is. Raw possum is not my idea of lunch.)

This bold bird didn’t move as I drove around it.

After I picked up the girls, we returned to the same street. Another vulture had already joined the first one, and the two birds stood by their roadkill prize as we passed them.

The girls produced the usual “Ewwww!” sounds. [...]

Ah, yes, a bitter, bitter end. Such is the way of the passing of many of my less speedy brethren.

Speaking of carrion-eating avian scavengers, (and a story that should give Chuck a chuckle) a couple of weeks ago when I was taking Catherine for her pony lesson, just near the front entrance to Camp Coleman I caught a glimpse of a dark shadow moving through the underbrush down toward the river. "Catherine!! You know what?" "What, Daddy?" "I think I just saw...A TURKEY!!" She was unimpressed. "Where?" "Back down the hill there!" I was going along at a pretty good clip since I was going to go in the back gate, but halfway up the hill I had already decided to go back and see what I could see. Got to the top and turned around, "Where we going, Daddy?" "We gonna go see us that turkey, little girl!" "Okay."

She wasn't really very excited. Got back to the lower road, and pulled off. No bird. "Cat, I think it's done gone home." "You not see it?" "No, swee...HEY! Look over yonder!" "WHERE?!" Right over there under the low hanging branches, a long, low, carefully walking black shadow...I was so surprised to see one anywhere close to houses and stuff--but their reputation is for being so smart that they can read the hunting schedule and know that he was still safe for another month. I rolled down the window, "What you gonna DO, Daddy?!" I gave a few little hen turkey squawks, and all a sudden the magnificent bird took flight! "OOHH!! DADDY!! It flews up! What a pretty turkey!"

"Ahh, no sugar--daddy just called up a big buzzard."

"Oh."

Oh well.
posted by Terry at 9:11:00 AM