First Robin of Spring, meet the first Turkeys of Fall

New England is, justifiably, famous for its fall colors - the leaves and the little towns, warm days and crisp evenings. If you climb up West Rattlesnake (which is a very little mountain in the Lakes region) in New Hampshire and sit on the ledge and look over the landscape, you see a farm with a grain silo and a red barn, and a little town with a white church steeple. It is fall the way people imagine it and, for all that it means that winter is coming, it is my favorite season.

The most classical sign of fall so far was a huge flock of wild turkeys that I passed down by the golf course as I was driving home this afternoon. There had to be at least 20 of them, wandering across the road, eating the seed off the neighbor's lawn. I used to see turkeys on the road when I worked in Bedford, Massachusetts, but I have never seen them around here before. It was so random. Wild turkeys are surprisingly big - one of the neighbor has a big, friendly golden retriever, who was visibly keeping his distance from them. Most of their feathers are an iridescent black. The wattles aside, they are actually quite attractive birds. I'm bringing my camera tomorrow, in hopes they'll be there again so I can get a picture.

This year has been a little strange. First, there has been a plague of "seed bug" in our development. I've seen them in smaller numbers before, but this is almost at the level of a plague of locusts. Big, slow, ugly, clumsy things. They are actually a variety of stink bugs, so even more incentive to keep them out of the house. Being absolutely terrified of bugs, I am sure that my neighbors have been quite amused at my daily yelping and swatting and running out the door rituals. Honestly, I may have to start entering and exiting via my living room windows. I shamelessly called Terminex on Friday, which was particularly bad in terms of bug density. Now, I have a pile of dead, ugly bugs on the stoop. *sigh*  The engineer part of me knows that they are harmless (if smelly), but there is just nothing I can do... they disgust me. I would rather they go away, then have to kill them, but I can't live with them.