Wild Turkey

AI-generated image of a 'rafter' of wild turkeys.

Typically, if you write a blog post titled 'Wild Turkey' people assume you are writing about bourbon. I'm not writing about bourbon. Its Easter weekend folks, have a little decorum. Plus, I find wild turkeys to be fascinating. There is a flock--actually called a rafter--that lives about a mile from my house. The term rafter goes back to colonial times, when early European settlers would see turkeys roosting in trees at night. Apparently if enough turkeys chose the same branch in a tree, the branch would bend under the weight of the birds until it looked like the rafter of a house or cabin.

The rafter that lives near me is large, somewhere between 35 and 50 birds. They live in a little patch of forest but come out into the fallow farm field at the end of the day, usually an hour or two before sunset when the sun is low on the western horizon. It's amazing to see them altogether; they are so different that commercial turkeys. I love to watch them run. They stretch their long necks out before them and they can really motor. They look like the cartoon roadrunner. The farmer was prepping the field for planting yesterday, so I probably won't see the turkeys much until fall. Unfortunately, they never come as far as my house, although I'd love for them to roam in the wild parts of the yard. When I was little, we lived about five or seven miles from a turkey farm, if you drove by car. If we hiked across the fields behind our house (which we did every day) it was probably only a mile and a half. My older brother and I liked to hike over and herd the birds around their pasture. If you were gentle, you could move them around at will, but if you got crazy, they would run away and scatter. Once we took out two younger brothers with us. Joel, the youngest, was about five and was not any bigger than the turkeys, so we chased the turkeys and the turkeys chased Joel. Fun was had by all, except Joel, who was terrified.

My publisher has updated their description of Love: a novel of grief and desire on Amazon and their website. I like their new approach:

He lost his wife. Now he’s face-to-face with the family who took her from him.

After his wife’s sudden death, Ed Gideon survives by keeping life simple—his work, his two

daughters, and the walls he’s built around his grief.

But everything changes the night he meets Bobbi Love.

She’s fifteen.

And she’s the daughter of the drunk driver who killed his wife.

When Bobbi’s mother lies in a coma after an intentional overdose, Ed is pulled into a situation he never imagined—helping the very family that shattered his own. Torn between compassion and resentment, he must decide whether to walk away… or confront the pain he’s spent two years trying to bury.

At the same time, unexpected desire enters his life—complicating everything he thought he

understood about love, loyalty, and moving on.

As past and present collide, Ed must face a question he’s avoided for far too long:

Can you heal from loss… without first forgiving it?

A powerful novel of grief, guilt, and the fragile, complicated nature of love.

I'd definitely read that book!

We cannot abide cruelty. Call it out when you see it.

To learn more about my novels, visit www.jeffersonblackburnsmith.com