I live on a perfectly normal suburban street, two lanes. Right now it is way narrower than normal because they didn’t plow its full width after Tuesday’s storm. Normally they do the minimum during storms, then come back as it winds down, and push the sides out to where they belong. This time they never did the widening – I guess they figure Mother Nature will melt it away for them soon enough.
Hah. After a couple feet of snow it changed to fairly heavy rain. Which slumped the snow down by six inches or so. but then the temperature dropped to near zero and the street and sidewalks and driveways are now lined with walls plowed up at least three feet hight built of solid ice.
Think the Great Westeros Ice Wall… well, a tad shorter. 
On top of that, one of our diagonal neighbors, the first house on the street on the other side, is having construction work done. Yes, horrible timing for them, I guess they thought mid-March would be a safe time to schedule it to begin, but no such thing as ‘safe weather’ in New England. As a result, one lane of our already reduced road is completely filled for the length of three houses with the trucks and trailers that haul in the heavy diggers and cranes plus the personal trucks the workmen arrive in plus others coming and going to drop off loads of whatever supplies.
In sum, during work hours ours is now a narrow one lane street where cars have to coordinate movement – including frequent backing up and ducking into various driveways to get by each others – in order to get in and out of the neighborhood. This street, unfortunately, being the sole access road.
Keep this picture in mind, it’ll become relevant.
This winter a flock of eight wild turkeys have become regular mooches at our bird feeding area. We thought the deeper snow might keep them away, but no problem from their POV. The ice crust is thick enough that even birds as heavy as they are can simply stroll over it. So yesterday I looked out, and saw them chowing down, and out of habit counted: yep, all eight accounted for.
But then I saw other movement, and MORE turkeys were strolling down from the hill! A smaller group than the “home” flock, just a male and three females. We wondered if we’d see a turf battle, but they seemed civilized about it. The newcomers wandered around under the cedar tree, mingling with the home team, pecking away at the bread and seeds and nuts we had put out today and then four turkeys, presumably the new guys, strolled off down the path we’d cleared that lead around the house from our back porch to the driveway.
Knowing what waited there, I moved around to the dining room window and watched as the male led the way down our driveway. At the bottom he seemed to note the workmen walking in the street, talking and drinking coffee (this was around 7:30 a.m. and town laws say they can’t start actual work until 8:00 a.m.) as well as a near-constant flow of cars as commuters headed out for work. Complicated even more by the stationary cars where parents waited with their kids for the school bus to arrive. Plus a group of more children waiting under the watching eyes of the parents who had walked them to the pick up point at the end of the street. (This still strikes me as so weird. It never occurred to OUR parents that we couldn’t walk a few hundred yards along a quiet dead-end suburban street and wait for the bus by ourselves.)
Anyway. The lead turkey surveyed all this, then turned left and proceeded along the sidewalk away from all the goings on. Wise.
Except that by the time he reached our next door neighbor’s driveway a cluster of three more kids and two parents were walking down the sidewalk towards them. Pointing and talking excitedly at the sight of the turkeys.
So the turkeys turned away down the driveway and proceeded into the street! Bringing everything to an immediate halt. The four turkeys stood there, blocking the single usable lane, while cars began to back up. The first group of kids and parents walked on past them down the sidewalk, but another cluster of kids and parents were already coming along the sidewalk, blocking the sidewalk both ways for the turkeys.
And so things sat for a minute or so. And then the blocked cars started honking.
The turkeys stared calmly about, evidently not worried.
So there they were, a line of cars and trucks to one side, a wall of ice and passing people on the other. A growing line of cars behind them, a bunch of workers and a constant stream of cars passing on the highway to the front of them.
We had an impasse.
The driver of the first car got out of his car. He yelled at them and waved his arms… but the turkeys were not impressed. They stood their ground and calmly looked around. So he picked up some small ice clumps from the side of the road and chucked them at the turkeys, I guess hoping to drive them back onto the driveway they’d emerged from. Instead they decided to stroll slowly up the road towards the highway.
At a very calm and dignified pace.
Leading a slow parade of cars hoping to get out and on their way with their lives.
But a house later they came to a halt again. My guess because now the stream of cars on the highway were too close not to be taken note of. More staring about by the turkeys. More impatient honking beginning and being ignored. The lead driver got out again and tossed some more chunks of snow at them.
So they finally started moving again. Up the driveway of the house where the construction was going on!
Yup, must have been almost a dozen workmen standing around in the driveway observing all this happen, with several pieces of heavy equipment with their motors idling as they waited for ‘go’ hour. And the turkeys simply wended their way along the driveway, calmly weaving their way through.
And then the school bus arrived and the children piled on. And the commuter cars began to escape from the neighborhood.
At the top of the driveway the Master of the Universe and his harem proceeded calmly and majestically into their backyard. Hopping over an open construction ditch they headed onward across the undisturbed sheet of frozen snow as they headed to next house’s backyard and thence on with his royal progression.
Humans? Why should they be bothered about insignificant humans?