Of Blogging, Turkeys and Power Outages

Ouch! Martin pointed out I haven't posted for, well a few days....at least I was missed!

Actually, a couple of things kept me from blogging the last week or so. After my "blogosversary" post, I headed to Nashville for the National Wild Turkey Federation national convention. No, I'm not a turkey hunter (at least not yet - several guys at the convention are working on me, however!). I've been researching the "extinction" of the wild California turkey, Meleagris californica, as a combined project with the US Forest Service and the NWTF. Everyone assumes the wild turkey went extinct in California at the end of the Pleistocene and that its reintroduction here in California (beginning in the 1870s) actually constitutes introduction of a non-native, or pest species. Turns out the data don't show that. I was asked to give a presentation to the Technical Committee for the NWTF and spent most of the week in Nashville talking to biologist, turkey hunters and getting introduced to Wild Turkey Honey Bourbon (I'm a tequila drinker myself, but this bourbon was pretty damn smooth!). I was planning to post during the convention, but, well, the night events were even better than the day long seminars, so I kind of got a bit behind. I'll make it up by posting on the turkey research shortly.

I can tell you, however, that everything said about Southern hospitality is absolutely true! I consider myself a fairly friendly guy, but was feeling like an axe murderer compared to the friendliness of our southern brethren!

On top of that, I got home just under a severe Sierran storm that cut power to our town for more than 20 hours starting Monday night...I've only now been able to get back online! It's amazing the "techno withdrawals" one goes through without access to a computer and the internet.

More shortly....