A Turkey Tail, Another Miss Sandy Misadventure and a Give Away.....

"For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

For flowers that bloom at our feet,
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear and see,
Father in Heaven, we thank thee!

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

I trust you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of turkey and all the trimmings, feasting on family gathered together, and filled with gratitude of the many blessings in life. I want to add to your day a bit of laughter (even if it is at my own expense). I have been saving this story for ever so long and thought it would be the perfect thing to share on Thanksgiving since it does involve turkey and being thankful.This actually happened just before last spring arrived here at the Quill. The weather was still quite chilly, the trees were still bare, and a carpet of crunchy leaves blanketed the forest floor. I had not been feeling well on this particular day with a headache. I didn't bother with any sort of a beauty routine and dressed in mix matched baggy sweat pants and a comfy long sleeved t-shirt. By late afternoon the headache got the best of me and I lay down on the couch and promptly fell asleep.I was startled awake by someone banging on the back door. Groggy from my sleeping stupor I stumbled around the corner to see Handy Hubby telling me to grab the camera. He was standing there yelling something about turkeys, pointing to the woods, and motioning me to hurry. Bleary eyed I had the presence of mind to seek out shoes and slid my feet into a pair of darling daughters, which happened to be handy. They were backless clogish things that were out of style and only worn for quick trips outside. I got the camera and stumbled out the door.

The cool air and the sight of five wild turkeys woke me up. They were putting on quite the show fanning their feathers, strutting around, and eating acorns from the forest floor. We got within five feet of them and I started clicking away with the camera. We started back to the house and I was going to preview the pictures when I realized that the chip for the camera was in the printer. I had snapped away all for nothing.I had an idea, I would trail the turkeys along the ridge line while Handy Hubby jogged to the house, got the chip, and then we would meet up at the old road crossing. I could get pictures as they crossed to the neighbors pond where they seemed to be headed. Plan set in motion, I am slip sliding along in those stupid clogs across a rocky ridge trailing after a bunch of turkeys. My hair, which happens to have its very own party when I sleep, is flat on one side and bunched out on the other is being further teased by wind and tree limbs which are leaving bits of debris deposited in my do!

We meet up as planned and I quickly place in the chip, look up and the turkeys are trotting away really fast. So I trot right along behind them trying to get a picture. Why I am so doggedly determined at this point I don't know. All rational has left my sleep fogged brain as I trailed those turkeys. Handy Hubby abandoned me and went back to the house at this point. Around the pond, down the hill, past the creek, across the property line we trot. All the while making a great deal of noise thrashing through the dried leaves. I lose a shoe a time or two and that slows me down.I heard a distant neighbor talking to his daughter and know I have gone further than I thought. Not wanting to step right into their backyard in my present unrepresentable condition, which is fine for chasing turkeys but not so much for greeting neighbors, I abandon my turkey trailing and veer uphill back towards our property hoping to avoid an encounter. I hear him shush his daughter and they listen to my steady footsteps crunching through the leaves. Then next thing I hear is a command to his very large, very hairy, very scary dog, "Sic 'em boy!"

The hair on the back of neck stood up as I realized that he thought I was a deer and the dog was sent to track me! I turned around and there behind me was a huge black beast of a dog and he was looking none too friendly. He stopped and I stopped and we both stared waiting to see what the other one would do. Turkeys forgotten I hissed at him to "Git!" and started to scram out of there. I heard a door slam and a thunderous crash through the brush and bramble which made me whirl around. I came face to face with, (did I mention this was a new neighbor that I had yet to meet?), a big burly guy with a big gun!He stopped and I stopped and we both stared, just taking the whole thing in. I think he took in WAY more than I did. He beheld what appeared to be a wild woman with bed head embedded with sticks and leaves in mismatched baggy clothing, sans makeup, bleary eyed from sleep, with pinkles (pillow wrinkles) on her cheek, shod in outlandish footwear totally inappropriate for hiking the hills, with a horrified look on her face, a camera slung around her neck, and pointing it at him as if to shoot first and ask questions later! I just saw a guy with a gun.

You could have heard a pin drop, not one word was exchanged between us, but he did grab his beast by the collar and back slowly away until he put enough distance between us and then he turned and retreated. Glowing fire engine red and muttering to myself, I tottered up the hill in those crazy clogs thinking I'd rather have been shot than caught!

So, what did I get for all this trouble, besides embarrassed? A turkey tail....Oh, and I was thankful that I didn't get shot. And so ends another Miss Sandy saga.

Today I am kicking off the Christmas season by holding a give away! I don't know about you but to get in the swing of all the decorating, baking, and gift making I like a little inspiration. So to help a couple of you to do just that I have put together two give away packages!The first package contains the latest issue of Victoria Bliss magazine. This Christmas issue is filled to the brim with entertaining, decorating, and baking for the holidays AND it comes with a Christmas CD! How blissful will that be to sit and browse through page after page of ideas while "The Magic of Christmas" a piano instrumental with orchestra plays softly in the background? Well, you can't have Christmas without the scent of evergreens, so I put in a couple of soft scented evergreen votive candles. While setting a relaxing mood with soft scented candlelight, mood music, and a great read you might want to sip a bit of gourmet chocolate goodness so I tossed in three cocoa classics, French Vanilla, Raspberry Chocolate, and Mint Chocolate! The stage is set for your decorating dreams to come true.The second package contains the current issue of Christmas Made Easy. This is an entertainers dream! It is packed full of 177 recipes and plenty of ideas for simple entertaining and memory making. You are going to want to hang out in the kitchen after drooling over this issue. Since that is where you are going to want to hang out, why not bake some Christmas cookies? For this I purpose I added a set of Wilton's holiday cookie cutter and a jar of cookie sprinkles for your baking pleasure. Cookies always go better with cocoa so I added three cocoa classics to the mix, same flavors as mentioned above! This package will really get you cookin'!

You know I cannot resist a little homemade something so there will be a little surprise in there too! To sign up, just leave a comment on this post. It would be helpful if you specify which gift package would be your preference, thanks. Winners will be announced tomorrow.

Not to worry if you don't win this one because I will also be holding a Spirit of Giving celebration here at the Quill for the next three weeks. Each week I plan to have a theme, a tutorial related to that theme, a few holiday hints, recipes, and a give away each week. The give away dates are Dec. 4, 11, and 18 with winners being announced on the following day. I hope you will join me for a little holiday fun.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy