Killdeer in the Wood

[JEFF B]

wow!!!killie that sure looks cold out there. mind you better you than me getting cold i hate cold. did i say i hate cold you better belive it.              

[Killdeer]

Wow, Bernie!How did that picture change? All I did was put on my glasses and...

I gotta go to work. No more mushroom soup for me!
Killdeer

(Thanks, though, Chuck.    )
 

[Dano]

HUMMMMM!! Bernie, you and I aren't the only ones getting old around here.  

[Doc Nock]

Oh, I see how this works...I tell her that her li'l delivery rig is cute and catch all kinds of scat...but you guys tell her she's blind stoned and senile and nuttin...  She even called me a conjugated liar or sumpmin like dat!
  :rolleyes:      :eek:      

[Dano]

Dave, Killie knows gettin after us is pretty much like beatin a dead horse.  

[bentpole]

It's almost time for me to hit the hay. Killy is it story time yet?

[Killdeer]

OK, I have brought a little more of Christmas to my 500-plus customers, picked up a little food, taken the dog to the park, proofed my personal mail and taken a shower. I should be doing something about Christmas and thank-you cards, but I am just lazy that way. Heck with them, you need your stories...    

So, I was headed down the jeep trail toward camp. Almost there, too. You know that snowy pic with the spruces and the meadow with the crick running through it? I was there again. If I absently refer to the beaver ponds anywhere, that meadow is where I mean, because it was a series of three or so ponds until a couple of years ago.

See? (This is Columbus Day, 2005)

 

So, anyway, it was more like this, (this pic was taken later in the week by my buddy Duffy) and  something  about that spot is Karmic.

 

This has happened twice in that very spot:

It is snowy, and I am on my way back to camp. You can't see it in the pic, but there are two parallel trails there, one splits off just before the ponds, and runs about 50 yards below the trail that I am on, rejoining it up towards the junction of ridges just before the Knob. Hmm. That sounds complicated. You want me to rewrite it, or just nod, say 'm-hmm, and go on?

OK, I'll go on. There are berms thrown up on the path to keep most trucks off of the trail, which is closed to motorized traffic. Looking down from my trail to the lower trail, I see a hunter headed back from below the beaver ponds toward camp. Our paths will converge in 20 yards or so.
I step up to the top of the last berm, about to walk down it and continue the trail. The hunter below looks up over his left shoulder at me. I immediately lose traction and fall flat on my butt. I slide down the berm, all the while maintaining perfect control of my weapon. The slide seems to take forever, and really, it is fun. I am only concerned with weapons safety and minimizing the amount of snow being crammed up under my pants cuffs.

"HI!" I belt out, grinning broadly behind my "Mask of Death". He can't make out any identifying features, what with the mask, enough swaddling to make me appear much like Ralphie's little brother in "A Christmas Story", and my hair tucked down under my coat. He probably assumed me to be a middlin' size lad on his first hunt.

I wonder idly to myself how many more times I will repeat this awe-inspiring introduction to strangers on the trail. He is from the city about an hour and a half away, and he accepts my offer of coffee once we get to camp. I only brought one mug, he has none, but there is a slim chance that there is one under the passenger seat in my truck. He starts putting gear in his truck, and I head down the road to mine. I find the mug, call that info back his way and go heat water and get out the makings. He shows up a few minutes later, with a sawn-off soda can for a mug...he hadn't heard me over the sawing, I guess.

When somebody wants coffee bad enough to saw the top off of a soda can, I don't worry that he won't like what I brew up. And I will throw in a shot of whiskey for free.

Killdeer

[Dano]

I have never heard a complaint about coffee offered in camp, especialy if a shot is included.

[Killdeer]

Dead horses don't offer many complaints, period.
I gotta go deliver more parcels.  :rolleyes:  
Killdeer ~the mailma'am!

[olddogrib]

Dang, Killie, I wished you hadn't used that analogy. I hate to say it, but you really do look like Ralphie's little brother.  I will never be able to watch "A Christmas Story" again without snickering through the whole thing!

[LAR43]

A great read! You oughta look into getting that published. . .

Thanks for taking me along.

Larry

[Killdeer]

Publish what? I feel like Seinfeld...it's a hunting story with no shooting, no killing...it's about nothing!

Ol' Dog Rib, y'all just go on. If I can provide free snickers for ye, then I have done some good in this world...Mr. Booger.  :D      

Killdeer  

[Whip]

Nothing??  :confused:  What do you mean it's about nothing??   :confused:  

I thought it was about nature and weather and plants and animals and reading sign and weather and camping and how the woods changes over time and meomories and freinds and finding ones soul.  

Guess I must have been reading too much into it..  

[Billy]

does anybody else see something missing in that last "beaver pond" pic? unless you're Ferret, there may be several somethings missing..
Thank you KIlly for an inspiring look at why we love what we do.

[Killdeer]

Whip: Oh, THAT!    :rolleyes:            


The young man had not hunted this spot for five years. He had heard about my killing a deer with a stone head. We talked muzzleloaders and archery, CWD and EHD, coyotes and Alberta. He was all excited, because he was going to Alberta next Thursday. We talked boots and monster bucks, taxidermy and hand warmers. His buddy came up into camp and talked with us a bit, then the two of them wandered off into their afternoon hunt. Never  did  exchange names, but he seemed a good-hearted fella.

That afternoon I stillhunted the Locust Spring run trail.Two sets of canine tracks ran alongside the trail. They didn't run hounds last night. Down near the intersection of Mac's Ridge and Turkey Ridge, something small and dark darted across the trail. Under the thick red pines, it managed to touch ground in the snowless patches, and left no tracks. I went a little way up the Shelter Ridge Seep, and there were still no signs of bucks. Last year it looked like a war zone, with torn up spruce saplings, uprooted laurel and scrapes steamy-wet.

Clark got in late that night. Sunday the skies cleared, it warmed a bit and the trees shed their snow. We had steak and corn on the cob, a real treat in camp. I hunted with the muzzleloader the next day, so I won't tell you anything about that. I came back to camp around noon, and ate ravioli out of a can, heated on the stove. I ate ravioli out of a can because I had no fresh deer liver to fry up with thick-sliced onions, kissed with a sacrificial offering of Port from the drinking stock once the onions had caramelized. I didn't have any fresh tenderloins, either, nor backstraps nor heart meat.

Ravioli out of a can tastes like dog food.

Clark came rolling down the road, he had gone to town and bought propane, local papers, and some food. The dog had the trots. I will not feed her that canned prescription stuff we get from the vet ever again. Happens every time. Lucky us, we were in camp, instead of up in the third floor apartment with the highway and leash laws playing a prominent role. Her internals calmed down, eventually, and all was well.

Clark and Spirit left in time to get home at around dark, and I trundled his clutter out of the way. Rolled up the dog's bed, packed her peripherals into her bag, and camp was once again mine all mine. Then I went out for a stillhunt, though it was a bit late.  I ended up sitting on the edge of the bowl of the Shelter Ridge, looking for the Doe Police. They were at a convention somewhere else. I sat at the base of a red oak and waited for dusk, and there I saw an old friend. What unexpected joy!

Killdeer

[Bonebuster]

I hope nobody put the wrong label on your Ravioli, and you actually got dog food, and in turn that the missing dog food label, didn`t get
put on what was supposed to be your Ravioli. Cause
if thats what happened, thats why your dog got sick.

Or not.

[Dano]

Nothing worse than the trots      :D  I feel for Spirit.

[JDinPA]

Originally posted by Killdeer:
[QB] Never hunted in Pennsylvania, well, not since that first ever hunt. Actually, it was just more of an opportunity than a hunt. I was six or seven, and lived in Levittown. I had found a railroad spike in our yard. A cottontail appeared in my vicinity. I heard this rhyme in my head:

"Bye Baby Bunting
Daddy's gone a-hunting
To fetch a little rabbit skin
To wrap Bye Baby Bunting in."

I heaved the spike at the bunny. In the back of my mind was the knowledge that I would be in a world of hurt if I actually connected and slew the rabbit. My mom was real handy with a hairbrush.

I deliberately missed. I didn't know how to turn a skin into furs anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Levittown is a lot different now  :(


My first hunting experience went like this:
My mom and I were walking around the side of the house, hand in hand. I was probably 7 or so.
As we turned the side of the house, my Mom says "Look at the lovely little robin" with her heavy Irish brogue. I remember the exact words distinctly to this day. You see, I had a matchbox car in my right hand. As she was saying this I was in the process of hurling my matchbox projectile at the bird. The matchbox found it's mark, nearly capitating the lovely robin. Well, I'll never forget the look on my Mom's face as she watched the hunt unfold and to see what lurked in her little boys soul.

My Dad proceeded to call me "A murderer" when he got home from work. I'll never forget that either,   but I think he was a little proud but still had to tease a little.

I got my Dad back a few years ago at camp. I had taken his truck to do a little grouse hunting with the bow on a little ridge I like. I left to the phrase, "You're out of your mind taking a bow". Well, I walk in the door a few hours later with a grouse. He's saying, "I've never heard of anyone taking a bird with a bow". I replied, if I can take a robin with a matchbox...
After I ate my grouse breast sandwich, I let him know that the grouse fell to the Ford grill not the bow.

[ber643]

I know I'm a little late, Killie (and Dano) - but I just figured you looked at the picture of Dano and me, with your good eye closed, and your other eye squinting through the fuzzy keyhole of another jolt of Irish coffee -    :D  


(She really isn't getting any younger, or less trail-worn, is she , Dano? Ahhhh , but we still love her anyway. Even if she did call our friend Doc a "constipated liar"       Or was that a "reincarnated Friar"?)

[Killdeer]

Did somebody say COFFEE????