Turkey time

There are turkeys on Pike Island, too. Yesterday, when I went looking for more wildlife photos, I found not a single deer, but found a large flock of wild turkeys. Since it's nearly Thanksgiving, they were pretty shy about letting a human get very close to them, but I can be stealthy ... and patient. I was able to get a few decent photos. Again, there was no gunfire and no blood spilled in this "turkey shoot."

While I walked down the hiking trail in the middle of Pike Island, I noticed that the tree trunks were all pretty much two tone, like a 1950's Buick. Pike Island is in the flood plain and it was under water for much of the spring and part of the summer. The color change on the trees seems to coincide with the crest of the flood water. The lower, brownish portions are likely colored by mud. I tried to get a photo of the phenomenon and was at least partly successful. Note the water line on the trees from spring floods.

I played some tennis this afternoon at Fort Snelling with the geezer guys. We managed a set and a half or so before we gave up the courts to some much younger players. There is a youth tennis program at Fort Snelling that brings in inner city kids from Minneapolis in the afternoon and they are coached by some Fort Snelling pros and several University age kids who seem to be aiding in the coaching. The place begins to get pretty noisy about three o'clock when the players begin to arrive.