A letter to Dean T. (Rodent at work)
by Tim Ott
Dean, I know of your love for the long tailed rodent that plays in the big top. I to enjoy there company, but it wasn’t until this past fall that I finally understood something that I’d always wondered about. How do they find all those nuts they bury? I know that one of their responsibilities is to replant the forest, and that other rodents benefit from any lost cache, but man they bury a lot of nuts! Well I’ve found one of the answers.
This past fall I managed to take some time off and spend it in the right place for a change. I logged 67hrs in the tree tops, over an 8 day period. (I know you’re jealous). In that time spent I was able to become accepted by the local doe groups to the point of them knowing I was there, but not caring. I was becoming bored with seeing them; imagine that! My sights were set on a particular deer so I let them all walk and set back and studied. One evening a little spike buck “whom I dubbed #2 lead pencil” was feeding around my perch when an old grizzled fox squirrel arrived on the scene. I’d seen him before, numerous times and never paid him much mind. But this night was different; it was if something made me draw my attention to him and his actions. You know that feeling .Anyway as I watched him I began to realize how they find their stash. He would go to one tree and look around it in a circle, checking first here then there. He would then go 2 or 3 ft to a rock and check around it in 4 or 5 places and so forth and so on. It was then that I understood what I had witnessed a thousand times and never realized ,HE HAD A TREASURE MAP or maybe some kind of built in gps I don’t know, what ever he had ,it worked. Sometimes he’d pull one from the ground and check it for ripeness only to put it back and pack it down, then do that cute little covering act that they do. I was amazed. For here I sat, a grown man who has logged many hrs in the woods, and just now understands something that I should’ve understood along time ago. It was like a big secret that I couldn’t wait to tell. But this is the only time that I’ve told it, you see most people around here think that I spend entirely too much time in the woods. They wouldn’t understand. I knew you would, that’s why I’m writing it down and sharing it with you.
I watched that old veteran go though his nut search 2 more evenings, every time it was the same route, he even had a little trail. I started to pull a dirty trick on him, but then I thought about all the hard work he had done, and the benefit that he gave me of being my teacher, and I just couldn’t do it. I never loosed an arrow that week, I never saw the deer that I wanted, I never even came close. But I did learn something knew. I think that when it comes right down to it, that’s all one, can ask for. I had the time of my life. Imagine that, over watching a rodent at work.
Tim Ott 02
Topic: A letter to Dean T. - by Tim Ott (Read 2030 times)
