Killdeer in the Wood

[Doc Nock]

Getting good, Jeff?   :rolleyes:    :D  

This li'l gal got more spunk that 90% of the guys I try to hunt with...! They'd never do this, and they sure don't have the poet's soul and artists' eye that Killy does...

Thanks, Gal. This is a neat way to head into christmas...feel like every post from ya is another present under the tree to unwrap!

[Talondale]

Originally posted by Dano:
"farking" ??? couldn't find that one in the dictionary   :rolleyes:  

Perhaps she meant   farding ?  Maybe she was getting all gussied up for Clark's visit?  

[Dano]

I think your right Chuck  

[Doc Nock]

Oh, here we go...   :rolleyes:    :D    

[Dano]

How's it go Dave???


DUCK!!!!  

[bentpole]

Killy your bow would be 42#s for me. SWEET! Gotta get down to that Baltimore Shoot. Ok carry on....

[el cazador]

Wow!  I just caught up on this one, I was about 5 pages behind.  Great story telling Ma'am, I'm loving every bit of it.  You're analogy using the pic of Spirit to describe how you feel carrying your Dakota was great.  I can't wait for more (but I will ifn I hafta!).

[bowdude]

Hey Killy and others, especially and doctors.  Just read that part where you mentioned you were so cold when you started moving you got colder.  I was always taught that when you get to that point (you had a good shiver session for a while then unexpectedly warm up) you are stressing your body greatly.  Getting up and moving aggressively to try and warm up can finish you off.  Any docs here chime in and verify or old wives tale???

[Steve Crowl]

Pic's are awesome ... make some great backgrounds!!

Thanks

[Terry Green]

Thanks for sharing all the stories and great pics.  

[Killdeer]

It changed.
Teale's book on Fabre led me deep into the night, while the wind picked up its skirts and began its fierce charge on the highlands. It changed the rain to snow in the wee hours, and come morning it is still blowing with powerful gusts, and snowing lightly. It builds upon the fly and sloughs off with a sigh as the tent warms or gravity takes its natural tithe.

I am not hunting in it. Three trucks arrive at roughly 9:30, which proves me to be a sloth. Meanwhile, after trading liquids and munching some supremely junky food, I dry the mattress and continue my book. I wish the book went on forever. Yes, miniscule mores and habits of European insects are the focus. Interspersed, however, are glimpses of rustic life in a time gone by (Fabre was born in 1823 and died in 1915), philosophical observations that are timeless, details that are uncanny in their depth, and new words and Latin phrases to learn the meanings of.

Another truck at 9:55. It's Duffy.

More water on top of the tent. I reassess. I believe it is on top of the fly, in the triangular space between the three main frame poles. I pushed it off. Duffy is perusing likely spots to park his tin can.

He sets up his metal door wedge (he has an Aliner) and I wander up. Hey! Techno-Man!

 

We went for a walk around the beaver ponds, lovely in the snow. That's where the pic of me and the Dakota in front of the snowy meadow was taken. It started snowing pretty good while we were out.
Here is Duffy behind the ponds.

 

When we got back, Bart had arrived and set his tent up. We sat up and talked for a bit, but the two travellers had had a busy day, Duffy's trip was about four hours, and Bart's was twice that. We turned in and slept like rocks.

Killdeer

[Killdeer]

Killdeer

[allanburden]

This is absolutely great.  Thank you again killdeer for sharing with all of us.  I wish some of that white stuff would find it's way down south once in a while...

[Doc Nock]

I've not had this much fun nor remained this warm winter campin in my whole life! All the good, noneoftha bad! Whooie!

[Killdeer]

Careful, Doc, or I will drag you out of that overinsulated office by your ears! You prolly got nice nails, dry socks, time for lunch and  everything !

Bart got out early to hunt. He is losing his voice, which reminds me that last year he managed to gift me with his son's cold. I carefully check myself for changes in snot production over the course of the next week and a half. I went up to my Ray Charles trail, as it seemed the place to go. The snow had finally stopped, and a set of tracks had recently gone through the site, about 30 yards uphill. I decided to take down the flagging I had used. Gun season was coming, and there was no good to be had in leaving it up.

More tracks, lots of them underneath the flagging tape. Drat. I never saw a deer, but in the back of my head I was concocting a cockamamie plan for "baiting" a site with yards of fluorescent orangey-pink tape. It got dark and I came in. Bart had made a backstrap stew, and we toasted a hearty bread to go with it, using the pregnant lady. We ate like kings.

Killdeer

[Dano]

Life is good, when she's pickin on you Doc.  

[Killdeer]

The best thing to happen, besides Bart using his considerable skill in the kitchen, was the lifting of the burn ban. West Virginia had lifted theirs about a week ago, but not Virginia. I could walk up the road a hundred yards and legally roast my boots, but not here.

Saturday rolled around, the gun season started, and Clark came up for the weekend. He said the burn ban was lifted. He even brought a newspaper article as proof! At last, we were free to have a fire, and so on Sunday morning we did.

 

Mockingbird lit it off with the rising of the sun, melting away the snow that had shrouded the rock ring. Our camp now had a fiery heart at its center, and spirits rose with the fragrant smoke. Bart and Duffy rode off to call their wives and wash up. They returned a few hours later, wet behind the ears and bearing more firewood. I allowed as how they could stay 'till the wood ran low again.

 

Killdeer  

[Dano]

It just ain't campin' if ya can't have a toastie campfire, BTW it looks like your left foot is on fire  :rolleyes:

[Rod Jenkins]

Killy, thanks for taking the time to post! I have throughly enjoyed reading and seeing pics of you adventure.

[Killdeer]

There's only a little bit more...you know, once the gun season opened, I stopped writing in my journal. Duffy and Bart left that Tuesday (or did Duffy leave Monday?) and the camp was mine again. Clark stayed home that week to be near his mom. She is in a nursing home, waiting for God. I busied myself packing up what I could pack up, and taking my rifle out for a walk occasionally. I need meat.
I read a book that Duffy lent me, and wondered about all the people who didn't show up this year. The old codgers from Ohio, one of whom owns the Imperial Sizing Die Wax Company, Quigley, who helped me drag my first deer, Shawn, who along with Pete helped me drag my first muzzleloader buck, Mac, for whom I call a ridge, and a myriad of others, whose steps echo faintly along with those of Gertie Gum, who would walk with her sister ten miles to come up here berrying ("Those berries were mighty precious by the time we got home!"), the CCC, the longhunters, the Shawnee, Cherokee, Seneca, and a hundred other forgotten peoples' along the trails.

I burned wood and smoked my clothing, that I might smell it months later and enter this world again. I left bits of burning tobacco, morning and night, for those who were not visible, but might like to smoke. I shot my longbow at the target, then wiped it down and packed it away. The various MTM dryboxes, the Bow kit, the Muzzleloading kit, the Rifle kit, the What Is It kit (Box of Audubon and Peterson's guide books, film cans for samples, and portable miroscope)all got organized and put in the truck. The tent, cluttered with odds and ends, opened up, revealing condensation on the walls behind where the piles were, where the air could not circulate.

How in the world could there be so much stuff in a simple camp? Ain't nothin' simple, Sir. I continued packing my hunt away,packing my time away, bundling it up to throw over my shoulder as I prepared to leave this sacred place, as so many had done before me. And many will do after I am gone.

Killdeer
My, it's late. I just couldn't resist the fire.