Turkeys are the animal of the day, but I often think of turtles at Thanksgiving time. About fifteen years ago, I was fortunate enough to find myself on the Yucatan peninsula for the final days of November. It was late for sea turtle nesting season, but on the evening of my own birthday, on the 28th, a testudinal brood hatched just after sundown, and scores of tiny turtles emerged from their sandy sanctuary. The proprietress of our palapas saw the animals mistaking the street lights for the moon and asked us to pluck as many as we could from the sand and place them in a cardboard box, where they climbed all over each other like windup toys until we set them free by the surf, away from the road, and in view of the moon.

Turtles began swimming the seas over a hundred million years ago, when flowering plants and early birds first appeared on earth, and they use a magnetic map, sensing both latitude and longitude, to navigate their long migrations. Just one in a thousand sea turtle hatchlings reaches adulthood, but if they make it through the tender, treacherous times, they usually live for 30 to 50 years, and can grow much older. In 2006, scientists found an ocean quahog turtle from the species Arctica islandica on a seabed near Iceland that was 507 years old.

This Sunday, I’ll be fifty years old, and while I pass the day with friends and family, and with so much to be thankful for, I’ll also be thinking of the turtles I helped to redirect, hoping that one is still out there, guided by magnetic compass, enjoying the vast waters of the world.

Oakland Yard will be OPEN TODAY from 10am to 2pm for all of your last minute Thanksgiving needs; we’ve got cheese, crackers, meats, nuts, beer, sherry, port - we’ve even got citrus garlands from Flower and Forage - and, oh yeah, lots and lots of WINE !!! We’ll be open normal hours - 12 to 9 - both tomorrow and Saturday, with PINOT NOIR TASTING FLIGHTS this SATURDAY from 2 to 6pm, and wines by the glass until 9, and we’ll be CLOSING EARLY this SUNDAY at 6pm.

With gratitude,

Max