Lia with my neighbor, Jim Farrell, with the wild turkeys in our driveway

I wrote a blog post on November 3rd about a visit to my home of some local wild turkeys. My son, Billy, thought it was amusing enough to send it to the website reddit.com, so instead of the usual 100 readers to my website, I had 1000. That led to a call from the local Long Island newspaper, Newsday. A reporter there was writing a piece about the wild turkeys on Long Island and happened to read my blog. She asked if I could send her the photos I had taken of the turkey visit. I did and she used the photos for an article published yesterday in Newsday. That led to a call from the NYC TV station, WCBS, channel 2. The reporter there had read Newsday and wanted to come visit me to tape an interview. Unfortunately, being the good antiques dealer that I am, we were already on the road to Fairfield, ME, to attend the James D. Julia auction. Oh well, there goes my 15 minutes of fame. I did, however, email my photos to WCBS, and I suspect they’ll use one or two of them in their report.

The timing of the WCBS report coincides with the start of a wild turkey hunt on Long Island this Saturday. Wow, that sounds strange. We don’t have too many wild animals on Long Island and we don’t have much hunting. New York State reintroduced the turkey to Long Island several years ago, where the count is now approximately 3000. That is apparently a sufficient number to warrant a wild turkey hunt on Long Island.

It’s all quite amusing, for me, but not for the turkeys. Licensed hunters, with turkey permits, in Suffolk County only, will be allowed to bag one bird each. The hunters have from Saturday to Wednesday. I’m wondering what kind of a hunt it’s going to be. The turkeys are so tame they can be hand-fed. Are people going to choke them? Doesn’t seem too fair to me.

Please send me your suggestions or questions about art glass, lamps, Louis Icart, shows, auctions, etc. If it’s interesting, I’ll answer your question in a future blog entry.

Call or write and let me know what you would like to buy, sell, or trade. philchasen@gmail.com or 516-922-2090. And please visit my website. chasenantiques.com