Henrietta

We think grocery gettin’ is always a chore, but one particularly mundane grocery trip turned out to be anything but.

Yup! The boring grocery routine ended in some drama. The excitement was facilitated by, of all things, a really ugly bird. She appeared about two-thirds of the way up our driveway as we were returning with our grocery bags. This was no delicate sparrow we’re talking about. She was nearly three feet long and stood tall enough for us to see her head above the car fender.  She was also determined to block our path. There was screeching, squawking, and all manner of bouncy, threatening fly-bys (fly-ats?)as we inched past her.

At first, we thought she was some kind of hawk or vulture, since they are sometimes visitors to the TRR, but she was just too goofy looking to be either of those. From the safety of our living room, we studied her. Once we could see her without her flouncing directly at us, we realized she was a rather large female turkey. Now, we knew absolutely nothing about turkeys, save for thawing and unwrapping a Butterball package!

According to Google, she was not supposed to be particularly aggressive, but this foul fowl held court on our driveway for several weeks. We eventually named her Henrietta. We also discovered that when we couldn’t see her, she was hiding in the trees just to the side of the driveway and would let loose with the squawking and screeching and feathered fisticuffs if we even attempted to enter her domain.

Prior to her siege, we had actually been taking afternoon walks down our quarter-mile driveway to the mailbox, but there came a point when neither of us was willing to imperil our lives for the mail. It often sat for a couple days until we picked it up as we drove off to some immensely necessary errand.  I did explain the situation to our mail lady at one point. She laughed out loud.

One afternoon, as I headed into the kitchen, Willie motioned to me to come to the dining room window. It was Henrietta. This time not only was she traipsing across the front yard, but she was also followed by four good-sized chicks. Bringing up the rear  was a huge Tom turkey!  Henrietta and family traversed the entire width of our front yard and headed into the woods to the west of us.  We haven’t seen her since.

What started as just another grocery trip turned into one of our favorite stories—and a reminder that sometimes, the wildest detours come right up your driveway.