Seriously. I want to talk turkey here. Real turkey, with a dialect and everything. Specifically, a New England dialect with a dollop of western New Hampshire woods and a smattering of fright from the axe of a Pilgrim.
Each version of my wife is lovable and anyone who is in a relationship will tell you that all of us humans contain different versions at different stages of life…or….sometimes even the day. With her permission, I would like to share with you a version of my wife that has just emerged this week: The Turkey Whisperer.
You may recall an old blog about duck eggs, or me rambling on about Vanessa’s obsession with all things garden, mushrooming and/or genealogy. She’s always got some side project going on to keep her from stabbing me to death, as I am A LOT. I know this and since I don’t really want to be killed, I also enjoy all of the things that tear her thoughts and intentions away from a murder one charge that will cause the outside world to wonder if we were ever normal in the first place. Spoiler alert: No one is normal. It only looks that way from across the street.
As I type this, it is school vacation week and we are spending time at the lake. We have an owl living on the property, and we have seen a bunch of deer, squirrels, chipmunks and birds all over the place as spring in New Hampshire takes hold.
We also have turkeys. Flocks and gaggles and groups and families of wild turkeys are in the woods, near the roadside, in fields and in meadows. More than once this week we have had to stop the car to let the turkeys cross safely. Sometimes there are 2, sometimes there are 10. Almost always, they are noisy.
A quick inter webs search learns us that New Hampshire’s wild turkey population is healthy and stable, estimated at approximately 45,000 to 50,000 birds statewide as of 2025–2026. After being extirpated in the 1800s, they were successfully reintroduced in 1975 and are now present in every county, with population numbers at or near capacity for available habitat.
It seems that in the 1970’s, twenty seven birds from New York (it’s their fault for everything here in NH) were brought in to ‘re-populate’ the species. Believe me, they have. These turkeys are breeding like rabbits. Settle down Gerry, I didn’t say that the turkeys were breeding WITH the rabbits, I said ‘like rabbits’.
Anyway, where was I?
Right, well if you want to know the whole turkey story, take a look at THIS. Or don’t. It’s not that exciting. And yes, my lovers of the Second Amendment, there is a turkey hunting season here but the birds are tough and gamey without the added additives that farmers put in the microplastic diets of the birds that are consumed at our Thanksgiving tables….but again I digress.
You have read this far, so here is the good part:
A few days ago, I’m in our dining room doing some game with the kids when we hear some turkey jive outside the window. Vanessa opens a window down the hall in the bedroom and we hear some sort of noise that I can only describe as someone with a cleft palate trying to play a broken kazoo. It was harsh, loud, and terrifying. The kids went running into the bedroom to find mom, with her head hanging out the window trying to call to the turkeys with something in her mouth that looked like a thin cardboard disk.
She explained to us, through laughter, that she bought a ‘turkey diaphragm call’ to see what would happen if she learned how to use it and call to the turkeys. Yes, it’s a real thing.
The group of turkeys did nothing. They didn’t even look our way. Total rejection like my high school dating record. We all laughed. My wife then found video tutorials on how to use the thing.
She has been working on it all week. The turkeys do not seem enthusiastic about the project. They actually don’t seem to notice anything at all. I am happy that she bought the $8 turkey diaphragm call on Amazon, since you can spend much more.
I look forward to communicating and commiserating with the turkeys here now, and in the future. Vanessa’s calls have been improving, but not so much that I cannot tell if the sound is her OR a turkey (I’m not even going to insert a cheap joke here.) That’s the goal. I want to go outside and believe with all my heart that there are turkeys roaming the back lawn, but, upon bursting out of the house to shoo them away, I simply find my wife with her turkey call sitting in the shade of a red oak tree looking smug.
On a final note, the turkey diaphragm call that Vanessa purchased is called THE GOBFATHER.
Because, of course it is.
Stay safe, stay awesome, and stay tuned.
Moeschen! 