multi-hyphenated-me

No posts for a few days, you may have noticed or perhaps not. I have been slowed with a cold.

Sunday night I felt better but then this incredible wind storm kicked up (40-60 mph winds – so say my neighbors, unconfirmed but I believe it) and the congestion returned thanks to the dust that infiltrated my house before I could run around closing all the windows.   There was thunder but not enough rain to wash away all of the dust.  A rough night’s sleep at best.

In spite of the dust and tossing and turning, I woke up this morning feeling great.  So great in fact, that I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood and see if there was any storm damage before the kids had to wake up for school.

With the exception of a whole heck of a lot of pine needles, twigs and leaves not much was disturbed until I neared Manito Park, about three-quarters of a mile away from my house.  As I walked down Manito Blvd, where there is a high concentration of trees, I spotted what turned out to be the biggest damage in my two-mile walk.

What the photo doesn’t show is that if the tree fell less than eight feet to the left, instead of falling to the right, the tree would have smashed into the house.  Yikes!

Big broken branches were strewn up and down the green belt en route to the park.  

A huge branch blocked the path on busy Grand Avenue too.

A lot of action within a two-mile radius of my front door.  Just when I thought I had seen quite a bit, I was reminded that I’m new in town and there is always something incredible waiting for you just around the corner in Spokane. 

Turkeys cruising through the neighborhood.  There were at least 15 turkeys, almost a whole rafter!  Go ahead and think I’m smart, I googled it…a group of turkeys is called a rafter.  A single rafter consists of approximately 20 turkeys. Now we’re all in the know.  Admittedly, I was kinda scared.  I was outnumbered.  The turkeys were not shy either, they did not race away as I continued on my path.  Vince said I should have tried to grab one.  I said I was scared, not stupid.

My neighbors have chickens, so I thought that because they weren’t afraid of me, perhaps the turkeys were someone’s farm animal.  My neighbor informed me that they are wild turkeys.  Wild animals have been known to invade our neighborhood.  Where do they possibly come from?  Two or three miles southwest of our house is a bluff or ridge.  The animals come up over the ridge and end up in our neighborhood.  I am still confused about the two to three miles that they roamed in the middle.  My neighbor said an adolescent bull moose once found its way to our street! 

WHAT?!?  Hold the phone.  I live three miles to the heart of downtown Spokane, in a very residential neighborhood, and there is potential to have a MOOSE in my yard?  Maybe I should start baking…in case I need to give a moose a muffin.

Books and baking are always the answer.