Gobble

Up here in the Great White North, we find ourselves enjoying an early-autumn long weekend. Yup, it's Thanksgiving in Canada. We do things earlier here because we simply want to be different from our American neighbors. For example, we punctuate our sentences with "Eh", worship at the altar of Tim Hortons, and use bizarre metric measurements like kilohectolitres instead of miles and pounds.

I'm not a big fan of turkeys. Aside from their uselessness as house pets, childhood memories of plates heaped with dry, tasteless "meat" persist into my present. I can think of many other ways to express my thankfulness beyond eating a lousy meal.

But turkeys apparently like me. On a bike ride to the beach with some colleagues last month, we stopped at a farmer's market to rest. As we set off, someone looked back and noticed that a group of turkeys had emerged from the woods. The birds were walking, rapidly, toward us.

I don't know about you, but overly-proactive turkeys kind of freak me out. So I rode away a few meters, and instead of continuing to ride like most logical folks would do, stopped, pulled out my camera and recorded the scene as our feathered friends continued to close in.

This is about as near as I dared let the most curious one get to me before I stuffed the camera back in its holder and left a dust cloud in my wake.

I am thankful I didn't get pecked to death.