Ever try to catch a fifteen-pound turkey?

Living in a country that has no history of peace-making between pilgrims and Native Americans means that no one here gives a hoot about Thanksgiving day. In Germany we will all be toiling away as usual on the American holiday, and I will be taking a train to nearby Braunschweig to give a presentation on our zoo kindergarten at a conference. The chances of stumbling upon a turkey dinner in Braunschweig are pretty slim. I will miss the yams and apples--oh, and of course the company. This weekend I did enjoy a homecooked Malaysian meal prepared by our other English-speaking teacher, who actually comes from Malaysia. We ate the traditional meal of rice, spicy chicken, boiled eggs and vegetables the in the traditional Malaysian style as well, which means no utensils. It was fantastic.

With no holiday neatly nestled between Halloween and Christmas, the Germans start anticipating Santa and his reindeer before November hits double digits. Here in Magdeburg Winter came as suddenly as the Christmas season. The relatively mild temperature dropped to below freezing several days ago and has just begun to crawl back up. For two straight days snow fell in huge flakes without sticking and by the third day, perserverence prevailed; an inch of snow covered on the ground and still has not melted completely.

As my fellow zookeepers know, although the snow is beautiful and serene, it isn't exactly a keeper's best friend. Hose nozzles freeze, animals' water dishes freeze, and keeper's fingers freeze. This week I was involved in the task of moving some of the animals to their new, better insulated winter homes. Storks and turkeys were next on the list. How are storks and turkeys transported to their winter homes, you ask? Let me tell you...

Sometimes during the course of my days with keepers (thanks to my still somewhat lacking language skills), I have NO idea what is going on. Occasionally I jump on the back of the keeper cart with everyone else and think to myself, "Gee, I wonder where we're going? And what will we do when we get there?" In this case, the answers were that we were going to the exhibit with the storks and turkeys and once we got there, we were going to chase them into corners and grab them. Apparently this is how one moves storks and turkeys. After a lot of flapping and gobbling, I ended up hugging a rotund male turkey to my side, with his long tail feathers fanned out in my face. And he was heavy. We rode the keeper cart to the new enclosure, and any visitors who happened to catch a glimpse of the cart at that moment would have seen quite a sight--five zookeepers, each with huge birds tucked under their arms. Gert, who was carrying a stork, called over his should to me, "Now don't even think about eating him, American!" The thought had not crossed my mind.