Roadkill & Country Living

I didn't grow up in a rural area. It was pure suburbs in Liverpool ... a tract development with all the homes looking roughly the same by the same builder, middle class wealth, etc. Everything you can think of a 1980's built, middle class American suburbs is what we had. After that, I lived in Chicago, very urban and then in the suburbs of Cleveland, a 1960's built suburb, with a little more affluence than what I had as a kid. My mailing address is now Black River, NY. I don't actually live in the village of BR but on a 55 mph road outside of the village. My road is very busy as it leads up to Ft. Drum Army base. The village of BR is very small, probably not a couple thousand people. It is just outside of Watertown, which is city of about 28k. It's over 200 years old, located in northern NY State, about 25 minutes to the north from the Thousand Islands Bridge leading into Canada and 15 minutes to the west from Lake Ontario. All around Watertown is rural and woodlands. Most of it was settled during colonial times. In Christian circles it is most known as the area where Charles Grandison Finney was converted and his revival preaching began. My home is surround on two sides by corn fields. I now live a kind of rural life. I get my water from a well and have a septic tank, which I had pumped this week. I drive a John Deere. I burn my garbage in my backyard, and sometimes we just have a fire to sit around with friends. I get my drinking water once a week from a spring. But today is a new bench mark for me in rural living. I'm not sure if it's a high or low mark in rural living, but certainly a landmark day in my life. I'm going to eat road kill. My neighbors are some of the most wonderful people on the globe. They are like family — don't even have to knock when they come in. They surprised me and came to church tonight. John told me he and his kids had a busy afternoon with my kids. His boys found fresh turkey roadkill, which they promptly brought home, like they do with lots of dead things. They performed an autopsy, dissecting it's head and stomach. FYI: turkeys eat berries, grasshoppers and dandy-longleg spiders. Turkey eyes are about the size of quarters and about a quarter of an inch thick. They couldn't find the brain — too much head trauma. And so, they salvaged the turkey breasts and our wives are now cooking them on the Foreman grill. I'll report later on how it tastes . . . . . 10:25 pm It was good. A little tough but with a little salt it tasted like grilled turkey. John's boys ate it like candy. They also found a pheasant recently, which they ate the meat and kept carcassrcas in the freezer. They are going to boil it to keep the skeleton. Ahhh country living.