Turkeys and ruined bridges in Vermont, by Edward Huse, 2007

[This was written on April thirtieth.]
Today I drove the back roads to Rochester. The weather was beautiful. The rivers are busy this time of year - full but not ferocious. They are still wicked fast though, like thick viscous clear liquid glass running by as fast as possible.
It is a definately scenic route, so that the drive itself was great in the trusty, zippy old Saab. And then to arrive itself is a pleasure, it is so nice there in the little town of Rochester, Vermont. Everyone's gardens are perking up there, things are looking crisp and green already, the chickens were out busy, and the mechanics were taking a break watching traffic while I made a judicious u-turn to visit a bike shop.
The turns can be decieving, and on the way home I almost ran over a couple of turkeys - Who says they can't fly?!
They split in different directions. One played possum at the side of the road, but the other lept instantly into muscular flight and sailed through the woods and over the river with apparently just one initial swift stroke. I was very impressed. It was like watching a C5 cargo plane taking off from a hot zone at dawn or something.
This happened right after I passed a favorite view of a ruined bridge that is only visible during 'stick season' - that, plus the awe-inspiring turkey exhibition of powered flight, made me stop at the next turn-off and make a few drawings, one of them is here.

Edward Huse, Artist, in the garden in Spring, item 1,

Here we see my all-time favorite cat, the accomplished Huntress, Miss Kitty - she was allowed to rest in the seedlings because she was such a good cat.
This image is of my recent hand-pulled drypoint engraving, from a drawing of MK that I made several years ago, it is on display during May of this year, at the Howe Library, in Hanover, New Hampshire.

According to the older neighbors, the folks who lived here for half of the last century brought a cartload of horse manure to spread out every Spring and now the fine rich black topsoil is a foot and a half thick and we can grow anything that has enough time to mature in the short New England growing season.
One neighbor told us that during WWII, everyone in the neighborhood cultivated food crops all over, treating the whole of the lawn as a garden from property line to property line, imagine!