Barking insistently, the two dogs summoned me back yet again from deep in the mist of a mesmerizing project.

"If this is just another rambunctious squirrel or some passing cat cutting across… Whoa! That's a big bird!"

A Brobdingnagian turkey posed defiantly between the weeds and the rest of the thicket out back labeled on town maps as 'There Be Dragons." It tried to locate the howling hidden behind reflections on our sliding door. How much of it's posturing was bluff and feathers couldn't be judged, but the mutts were rarin' to find out. The presence of the unflappable gobbler indicated it was probably safe to hunt for a tennis ball the littler pup had been wanting to retrieve from the brush for some time without bumping into the grouchy bear settling down to hibernate, or the alligators thrashing amongst the blackberry canes, or the Tyrannosaurus Rex browsing for snacks that the younger pup insists she sees regularly lurking in the moonlight, especially right after Halloween.

Normally the older pup and I would exchange muffled guffaws behind her back and ignore her, but the mutts reliably heard that a neighbor on her daily predawn walk very close by recently got struck in the back of her head by a hawk. No stitches, though the whack out of the grey almost knocked her over and the small cuts needed some tending. A few days prior she felt something swoop by in the same vicinity, but it was too dark to see anything. Now the littler pup has donned her flakey white WWII Civil Defense helmet, taped raptor identification silhouettes to the windows and scans the sky grid all day with binoculars.

The dogs' excitation kicked up several notches at the loitering feast, however, because this year there'll be lots of us gathered for Thanksgiving and if the mongrels could supply the main course, they'd be in the dogbirds' seats. In addition to family, daughter-in-law and daughter's boyfriend, our friends from India will both be here for that holiday for the first time, maybe others will come as well. Capturing such an enormous "guest-of-honor" would be quite a feather in the pups' mouths, along with tidbits from a grateful household. But before they could get out the clever fowl vanished exactly like the original Start Trek crew does in their transporter - except without the swirling glittery bits.

The older mutt suggested the pair include their foolproof recipe for preparing the bird here anyway. "If Susan Stamberg can repeat her mother-in-law's cranberry recipe every year on NPR, we should be able to take a little ink to start our own tradition," she reasoned.

So for the not faint at heart here it is in its entirety - don't blink, you'll miss it: 'Take one turkey." That's it. No fretting over when to baste, how to brown without drying, actually no cooking or preparation whatsoever. It's the same basic recipe they revealed some time back for their Pekin Duck, except with a turkey.

"Is it dressing or stuffing?" I asked the drooling chefs.

"It's both," they assured. "First we'll all dress up and then we'll stuff ourselves, then go nudge that sleepy bear out back to move over a bit and make room for us."

A plethora of side dishes and plenty of pies will round out the meal and the diners.

It's been another year of wondering what is happening and what is going to happen. An opportunity to get together with many of those we care about to share time, food and best wishes is a welcome respite from the unknowns swooping out of nowhere or lying in wait in the tangles.

The transcriber has drifted around Mystic for some time, much of it with dogs. For more Bill Gill: www.zip06.com.