Cozy Mysteries discussion

As a writer I can make a lot of stuff up, but some things deserve a little hands on research. For the new book, part of it happens at a turkey ranch and since we have one nearby I thought I would pay a visit. They raise both the usual domestic and heirloom birds there-- all organic, free-range. What surprised me was how friendly the turkeys are. And BIG. But mostly friendly.... and now I'm not sure I want one for Thanksgiving :-/. Not sure I can eat food that I've met and pet.

Maybe it will help you to know they are also very stupid birds. I do understand what you mean though. We had a solitary male turn up on our property two years ago. He announced himself by walking down our driveway making loud noises, and when he had our full attention, fanning his feathers in a grand display. He was around for almost a month -- we know because he spent most dawns and dusks loudly announcing where he was not only to us but also to all the local diurnal hunters like cougars and coyotes who would be sure to hear him, too.

I don't know what finally happened to him, but he impressed me so much he is now immortalized in passing in my book, "Backyard Bones."

LOL-- we have wild turkey on our hill, but I guess they've learned to keep quiet because we also have a coyote. I only ever see them when I am at the grocery store across the street.... What we do have-- and this is way cooler-- are a pair of ravens who often visit our back deck around sundown. I don't know why they visit, except maybe to try out the furniture. They leave the pumpkins alone (have to grow them on deck or the deer get them).... BTW, I will look for Backyard Bones.

"Backyard Bones" has been our for about a year. My latest is "Buying Murder"...no turkeys in it.

I'm researching reticulated pythons. They're big and mostly friendly too. But "mostly friendly" implies a lot about a fifteen-foot reptile that maybe you don't want to think about when you're in squeezing range of one.

Tina wrote: "I'm researching reticulated pythons. They're big and mostly friendly too. But "mostly friendly" implies a lot about a fifteen-foot reptile that maybe you don't want to think about when you're in s..."

I find it impossible to think of ANY snake as friendly! One creature I could definitely do without!

Melodie wrote: "I find it impossible to think of ANY snake as friendly! One creature I could definitely do without!"

Yes, "mostly friendly" in the reptile world translates into "finds you an excellent heat source and isn't hungry enough to eat you."

My brother had snakes. Mom was terrified but generous enough to allow him his hobby. The snakes always seemed pretty content once they were wrapped around a warm arm... thse were small snakes though. Not sure I have enough trust to go near a 15 footer.... More research related to the holidays. People slurp 21 million gallons of gravy, 5 million pound of fruitcake and 25 million pounds of chocolate. I just want to know where the heck my share was but because I am pretty sure I was short-changed.

The fruitcake, of course, isn't really consumed -- the same 5 million pounds of it are just passed around from household to household with new ribbons attached.

We have wild turkeys that roam my neighborhood, due to the proximity of the UW Arboretum. I posted pics of them to my blog on Wednesday. They can be quite territorial during mating season, and another neighborhood in town had trouble a year or two ago with the toms chasing mail carriers who were on foot.

Melanie wrote: "My brother had snakes. Mom was terrified but generous enough to allow him his hobby. The snakes always seemed pretty content once they were wrapped around a warm arm... thse were small snakes thoug..."

The fruitcake statistic must be suspect. I've NEVER seen anyone actually eating the stuff!

The circus vans are gorgeous! And the turkeys are pretty neat too. Poor mail carriers though. Does pepper spray work on turkeys?

I actually likd my grandma's fruitcake. It was more like a harvest cake with dried fruit instead of those weird jellied things. But the average sore bought fruitcake-- at least around here-- is something to fear :-).

Thanks, Melanie! I have no idea how turkeys react to pepper spray, but I figure if it works on bears...LOL.

Melodie wrote: The fruitcake statistic must be suspect. I've NEVER seen anyone actually eating the stuff!

LOL! I'm lukewarm on fruitcake, but my husband loves it, so every year I get him a brandy-laced fruitcake made by monks in Kentucky. Since he's so hard to buy for, it's good to have a least one item I'm sure he'll enjoy.

Oh-- would you like to start a list of online shopping sites for the difficult (though loved) people in our lives? I am always on the lookout for something unusual-- especially for the teen boys and my father....

I was thinking of a research project that went awry for a friend. She does thrillers and wanted to see if her heroine could really douse a pillowcase in vodka and set it on fire (as a makeshift torch). It worked, but the old pillowcase was some kind of synthetic and it more melted than burned and she got blogs of plastic stuff on her linoleum. Hmph. I always knew it was better to use pure cotton :-).

My first contribution to the Christmas gift list-- The Jane Austen Cookbook. I have a friend who writes historicals but also loves cooking.

Melanie wrote: "It worked, but the old pillowcase was some kind of synthetic and it more melted than burned and she got blogs of plastic stuff on her linoleum."

I'm thinking that would have been an experiment best tried outside, LOL. Glad the linoleum was the only casualty here!

It could have been a lot worse :-/. This same friend wanted to try escaping from the trunk of a car. Fortunately she had a buddy standing by to rescue her when it didn't work....

Melanie wrote: "It could have been a lot worse :-/. This same friend wanted to try escaping from the trunk of a car. Fortunately she had a buddy standing by to rescue her when it didn't work...."

You have strange friends, Melanie! LOL

I'm not THAT curious on how to escape. lol

What came to my mind first was Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series.

But since I see all these interesting messages above, I have a tail or two (yes I mean tail) to tell. One involves a squirrel monkey my brother had for a pet when we were in our teens. He had it out for exercise in the house, it took off into the rafters and every nook & cranny and I finally caught it... I still bear the scar of the bite I received (also the tetanus shot). The second story revolves around a phone call I got at work from one of my daughters (in her 20s) asking me how to get an alligator out of a bathtub! Who knew? This was before Google, or I might have come up with something more helpful. As it was, I could only suggest putting a plank on a slope in the bathtub and let it climb out... I mean, HOW ON EARTH did it get in the bathtub in the first place would be my first question!! Happily it did get all and was back in whatever they kept him in in no time. No, she didn't own the alligator, she was baby-sitting it.

At least she knew there was an alligator. I hate to think of the shock if it was a surprise guest.... I had a bat fly into my bath water once. I'm still baffled about that one. Poor thing was just a baby, I scooped it up in washcloth. Have to admit for a brief moment of shock and terror.

Betty: My mom used to tell the story about the time her brothers decided to buy a baby alligator as a pet, and their mom found out about it when she came home from work to find it in the bathtub. Needless to say, she made them get rid of it.

Melanie: Okay, bats in my bath water would seriously freak me out. *Shudder*

So, for the same mystery series (Chloe Boston) that made me go to the turkey ranch I had to do some research into giant pumpkins (the kind grown for competition). I quickly decided that the Pumpkin Thief wasn't going to be stealing any of these suckers. They can grow to over a thousand pounds. You could have an agricultural fatality if you tried to move one and it fell on you! And how embarrassing an obituary would that be?

Imagine all the hernia and back surgeries that would come. Yikes!!!

Melanie wrote: "Oh-- would you like to start a list of online shopping sites for the difficult (though loved) people in our lives? I am always on the lookout for something unusual-- especially for the teen boys an..."
Not exactly weird but certainly unpredictable: I asked my two yr old grandson if he would like to try a piece of my dish of calamari, thinking this would be one thing he wouldn't want with all those little tentacles sticking out, but he loved it! I tried him again last week now that he's 7 and he still loves it!

Heather L wrote: "Betty: My mom used to tell the story about the time her brothers decided to buy a baby alligator as a pet, and their mom found out about it when she came home from work to find it in the bathtub. N..."
Heather and Melanie: Here's another one. My then boyfriend (I did marry him) his brothers & I went smelt fishing and came back with a bucket of smelts. They dumped the whole works in the bathtub just in time for his mother to come home. And speaking of fish in the tub (and his family), we had all our nieces & nephews plus our kids staying overnight one time, they had come out to go together to see "Poltergeist". My husband & my brother got up earlier & went fishing for sturgeon, brought two home and walked around holding them above all the kids and woke them up this way, then plopped them in the bathtub only to have them start swimming again! They were about 3 1/2 ft. long each.

There are some mean people out there :-).

So, in the book I was researching turkeys for I had a turkey truck overturn and turkeys escaping into town. In a case of life imitating art, we actually had turkey truck overturn last month! It cost the town $3000 in labor to clean up 'turkeys and turkey parts'.... In my story no turkeys got hurt :-/.

Alligator and turkey stories!

My older brother had a pet alligator and kept it in his room. One day my mother discovered that his room had a particularly pungent odor. Upon investigation she found that Alley had died and brother, not wanting to part with him, had placed him carefully in a bureau drawer!

Native American friends of ours were raising a Tom for Thanksgiving and he had free range of the property. We stopped to see them one day and Tom, as tall as my waist, refused to allow me out of the car. The family wasn't home so we left. They laughed and said he was a big baby and would have run if I'd just stood tall and shooed him away--I think not!

There is a plantation in St Francisville with a smaller Tom, named Gus, who greets all visitors and follows them around and tries to get into the visitor center. He struts and displays in an effort to gain your admiration and admission. He will follow into the rest rooms if you aren't fast enough to close the door behind you. They have posted signs assuring visitors of his benign disposition. LOL

My husband's aunt & uncle used to keep a few turkeys. The toms would always try to act like bad-asses, but they were all really afraid of their own shadow!

In my town, the wild turkeys take over during the winter. They have become a huge problem(imagine 30-50 wild birds everywhere) and they even have DOW roundups of the birds.

LOL-- turkeys are huge, but I can just imagine trying to explain to someone from out of town about being terrorized by a turkey.... Sure wouldn't want to share a restroom with one.

Lisa wrote: "In my town, the wild turkeys take over during the winter. They have become a huge problem(imagine 30-50 wild birds everywhere) and they even have DOW roundups of the birds."

We have wild turkeys on our land but not huge flocks--the cat thought she might like to tangle with the female pheasant in the garden the other morning--bird almost as big as miss anorexia and much faster!