Turkey...The Final Frontier

Well, last weekend in Canada couldn't have been a better one. Got down to my stepsister Karen's house and hung out with the family. As usual it was a whizz bang affair with more people than you can shake a stick at, throw a cat around, or ...mix a metaphor with. There are some pictures on my flickr spot at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_n_gen/

Two days of work left. I can't believe it, but it feels like it'll be two years. Then 2 days until I leave. 4 days. AAAAAhhhhh!!!

I guess if I've gained anything from this whole sordid affair it's been a better appreciation for some of the smaller more "mundane" things in life. I've been flabbergasted by nature on several occasions since I've been out here. Us city folk forget there's actually a thing out there called nature. We know there's an "environment" to be concerned about but I don't care how many parks you visit you'll never see a half kilometre line of geese floating slowly past your window on a calm Lake Ontario morning as the water gently pats the shore. Amazing!

I also saw about 20,000 (no exaggeration) sparrows flying about every day on the way to work. I assume they were gathering to get ready to head south. The leaves are turning and producing some of the most spectacular colours you can imagine. There's just a huge sense that the cycle of nature is quickly moving towards winter. Animals on the move, trees dying, squirrels running crazily about, wind kicking up, fields lying bare and brown...it's a different feeling than in the city where I stepped out of my climate controlled buildings every day and said "sure is getting colder!" then stepped back in. I've also had numerous conversations about cows! To wit:

I think more than half the people I work with live on farms. Some get up at 5:00 am and do chores there then come to work. One girl said she can't eat meat because whenever she'd eat meat at home on her farm as a kid it would be "Earl" or "Bessie" or whatever cow they'd killed. I mentioned that I'd heard you're not supposed to name them and she said she knew that but she got attached to them as a kid. There was one cow that had twins and, it turns out, when cows have twins the offspring are sterile (who knew!). So they kept the female one for three years and wouldn't let the father kill it. One day she and her Mom went away and the Father killed it! So this is why she can't eat meat. I looked at her and said, "Y'know, you just don't have these kinds of conversations in Toronto."

Also I saw the biggest orange moon I'd ever seen in my life. It was the harvest moon, so I'm told, and as it came over the horizon it was as big as the sun. I couldn't believe it. Blew my mind. There was a massive planet hanging there in the sky.

Anyway, mundane or not, these things have kept surprising me during my time here and at least I had that.

Oh...the other lesson I learned was to be organized. No bureaucracy shall defeat me again!