The Incredible Shrinking Woman's Hunt

[Killdeer]

There they were, breaking up in the walnut tree and heading further from the path. I followed because I am stupid. It took about thirty feet, then I realized that they had seen me coming and that’s why they had broken up and split. I poked a big white mushroom half-heartedly and headed back to the trail. Somebody had ridden a small horse down it in the last couple of days. Cute li’l shoes…The path bent around a fallen tree, got smaller, there were more bright red berries, all shiny, from the jack-in-the-pulpits of spring. The spiders had been busy, as they always seem to step up production at the end of the season. I was ducking, bobbing and weaving, but still went through enough of them (sorry, Spider) that I felt a little cocooned when I came to a pretty place to sit. Beech trees, walnuts, hickories…all I had to do was sit still and wait, right?

The stone wall that ran along the creek took a 90-degree turn and stopped. I sat, drinking in the distance of time between me and when the wall was put up. This had been a mountain orchard at one time, and there were walls all through the property. Since I first came to it in 1985 or shortly before, I had seen the orchards waste away and get buried by the hardwood forest. There were also plantings done by the game commission, but all in all, this was mostly oaks and ash, beech and cherry, walnuts and hickory, maples and …now where were those pawpaws? They ought to be about ripe by now. The log got hard; I started thinking about pawpaws and started down the path again.

It followed the creek until it came to a ford, and what looked like an old two-track went up the hill to the right. I pictured an old wooden-spoked farm truck grinding its way upward, and followed its exhausting path. It eventually petered out (they all seem to do that here!)  and I sat for a bit. I heard hooves on rocks.  Slow hooves, but a soft clacking nonetheless. The woods were thick, there was a huge blowdown, and I could see nothing. I sat. All became quiet.  There was a squirrel. Thirty yards out, it was a skulking shadow that slid out of sight. I brought up the binoculars and scanned. I saw an ear. It was moving rhythmically, as the jaws worked and the nut’s husk dropped. The eye appeared, and the jaws stopped. These guys are wise. I knew better, and stayed still.  The eye disappeared, as did the ear. Three minutes and fifty yards later, there it was, headed thataway. I ate my first slice of pumpkin bread, took a sip of water, and made some smoke for the spirits. I wistfully thought about my Red Rifle, a magnificently stocked Remington 552 from the fifties that was locked in my truck. Then again, I am not particularly fond of cleaning squirrels. I would much rather do a deer than a rat any day. The day was still young, and I was in no hurry to hang carcasses from my belt as the sun warmed.  I gathered my stuff and leaving a piece of the crust, (with all the nut-bits on it!) on the rock with some tobacco, I looked for my next opportunity.

Killdeer  

[Dr. Ed Ashby]

Truly beautiful photographs melded with magnificent prose! It awakens the inner spirits. An absolutely great read.

Ed
TGMM Family of the Bow

[Killdeer]

   

[adkmountainken]

just settled down with a hot piece of Zuc bread to read this thread again, what a treat, both bread and thread!  

[Roughcountry]

Kathy
See, I ain't the only one who thinks you otta write more    

I'll bet you got enough pictures for ten books    

I'll shut up now, don't want to break your thought process.
Please carry on  

[Killdeer]

Shucks, Robin, what makes you think I'm thinking?    
I have a little bit here and then I will be out for a day. Going to Al Edge's for some good eats and muzzleloader shooting, and to see his new shop. If I can do it (Jimmy the Geek talks a lot when he drives) I will work with paper and pencil, and transfer it to computerese after I get back that evening or Sunday.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I hadn't gone twenty steps when there was a commotion on the other side of the blowdown. Rocks grudgingly moved under the weight of hooves, brush crackled and a Carolina wren fussed. I heard lumbering footsteps, and a huge deer materialized from the end of the blowdown.

It trotted heavily, sleepily, very much surprised and a little curious. I glanced, saw no headgear, but this was a BIG deer and all alone. It was just out of my bow range, which is mighty short, but my scattered perceptions do not give me any detail except it looked every bit as big as a buck I killed one year that was 154#  field dressed. My eye instinctively goes to the kill zone, not the rack, so there may or may not have been some small growth. I doubt that I would have missed a big rack at that short range! Once safely out of sight, the deer slowed and stopped, no doubt to see if an old lady would give chase. No, I peered as far as I could (not far, in this disheveled tangle of woods) and then made my way up the hill and to the other side of the downed tree. I picked and speculated and figure that he got up when I arrived, stood like a statue while I ate, then spooked out when I started to move again. This is a heavily hunted area in gun season, and the deer here know all the moves.

Restless, I returned back to the two-track and the creek. Squirrels were fussing.

Killdeer

[horatio1226]

Thanks for teaching me what hunting is truly about. Yours is the attitude that I will always go into the woods with and try to have when I come out. Thanks for taking us along with you.
We will take you along with us at Ken's in the Adirondacks.
Sincerely
Brian
 

[Killdeer]

A great spangled fritillary escorted me down to the creekside. I left it basking in a sun-dapple strategically focused on an aster, and found a log from which to listen. Two squirrels were playing chasetail and grabnapple in a nearby walnut, across the shallow stream. They descended the trunk, and so I arose and crossed the stony bed to the other side. A high bank gave me the advantage of being hidden while being able to peer over the edge and into the woods beyond. Hugging a fallen tree, I watched for movement. The cool air, the gurgle of water and the promise of game made it pleasant to stand there and wait. It didn’t take very long, five or ten minutes, and I heard the sound of scampering feet approaching. They became silent. Suddenly, at about ten yards, the squirrel appeared. Ah! A broiler squirrel, not too big, not too small.. Silently, haltingly, it came along a downed limb toward me. A tree would mask my movements soon, and I tightened my fingers on the string.

Killdeer~gotta go put on my shoes. Leaving in fifteen minutes.  :D

[Teacher_of_the_Arcane]

Oh Great Gurus.....

Pokeberry....pokeweed....same as elderberry??  I have these growing beside my house, and do enjoy a sip of elderberry wine with dinner occasionally.

[Killdeer]

Not the same!
Make wine out of these and you will never need to buy laxative again! They are lots of fun for putting fuchsia spots on your neighbors' white critters, though.  :D  
Google up both species and you will see the many differences between the two.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The squirrel continued on its log, and the conspiring tulip poplar concealed me as I drew the string back. When the squirrel appeared on the other side, it halted in an "Uh-oh" moment. Perfect...I felt the fletch at the corner of my mouth, and a hex head sped to the kill zone. The squirrel was bowled off of the fallen limb and down the small bank, rolling.

I started clambering over three feet of fallen trunk to get to it as it started to regain itself. A couple of jumps for the squirrel and the arrow dropped free, the squirrel whirling toward the poplar that had been my ally. The turncoat tree now hid my would-be dinner from sight. Dismounting the tree trunk, I followed my nocked arrow back around the poplar. I looked up the trunk, down at the ground, up the trunk, round and round.

^#^&$

Killdeer  :mad:

[adkmountainken]

didn't think ya had to tenderize veal before ya cook it????  

[Killdeer]

Standing back. I surveyed the ground. There lay my arrow. There was where the shot was taken, there was my arrow (again…) and there was where the squirrel was when it disappeared behind the tree. It was headed toward the trunk, but may have;  

a)   Ducked under something
b)   Climbed the trunk
c)   Fled directly away from the trunk

I gazed up the trunk, prizing apart foliage and branches with my eyes. It being a middling-young tulip poplar, there wasn’t much there, but there was enough to hide a squirrel. Meanwhile, I had to be sure that it hadn’t um…squirreled itself away in a crevice down here. I lifted all the logs I could, and dug under those I couldn’t, looking for burrows. I prized apart rotted logs inspecting the cavities therein. I ruffled all the fallen leaves piled in nooks around trees and rocks. I scanned the uneven ground looking for clues. The arrow was a little greasy at the tip, and had one hair on it. Finding a spot some distance from the poplar, I leaned back and watched the treetop.

Some fifteen minutes later, I heard a high-pitched call from just downstream.  I went to investigate.

Killdeer  

[Killdeer]

The call was strident, and repeated in an unbirdlike way, so I was hopeful that I would find a miserable squirrel that I would kindly collect and bag. Never having heard a real distressed squirrel call, I was about to learn something here! I meandered around, trying to pinpoint the source. Hmm. It was UP. But where? This bank or the other? I gazed up, like a springtime warbler-watcher.

The sycamore on the other bank has a mess of holes in it, three that I can see from here. One is an established pileated woodpecker’s hole, the scarring showing that it has been used for several years. As if on cue, the woodpecker arrived. He inspected his digs, and bobbed his gaze from side to side. He then went to pick bugs off of a nearby limb. I heard the call again and looked above me. Young titmice were up there, two of them, looking a little frowzled like young’ns can, and calling to be fed. Old enough to feed themselves, they still begged their parents in an annoying high-pitched wheedle. Oh. Dummy. Then came the tinkling bell-like titterings that evidently endear them to one another. I went back up the bank to the scene of the crime, and resumed watching the poplar. The high-pitched calls continued from downstream.

Killdeer  :(

[Killdeer]

I picked a good log to sit, and sat.  I am good at that. A half hour later, I had seen nothing, and become dissatisfied with my diagnosis of the calls from downstream. Those birds should have moved on by now, but the calls continued. I got up to see about it. I hadn’t moved ten steps when I saw someone else investigating the noise.

Quartering toward me at a steady dogtrot came a red fox, russet and fluffy. This being a horsey county, he was off limits. I could count coup, though! So I watched him approach, and planned my timing. Yup, behind a tree, draw bow, out from behind it…coup! He was 20 feet away, in the open, and clearly mine. I chalked one up, mentally, and two steps later he passed into my scent stream. With no outward sign shown, he turned right around and trotted back the way he had come, not missing a beat. They are so cool!

Turning back to the dilemma at hand, I figured that if the fox had been coming in to the calls I had heard, I had better reinvestigate. Back downstream I went, and planted myself across the creek from the sycamore. Under overhanging branches, I was shielded, yet could scan that and other nearby trees with the binoculars. I ate my last piece of pumpkin bread and drank some water, settling in to wait.

Killdeer  

[Chris Surtees]

Great story Kille    keep it coming      

[Killdeer]

I looked up and there was a squirrel on the sycamore. It went down the trunk and entered a small hole. A face appeared in the hole. I waited. I heard the call. Darn. The same thing happened again. And again.  It went into the pileated’s hole. It came out, it went in. Sixty-some feet up the tree, it looked so small. I waited.

Looking up, I saw a squirrel in the crotch of the tree, its back toward me.  I could hit that, right? Knock him down and that would end it. I crept forward. A squirrel came out of the pileated’s hole and started climbing the trunk. What the…? The new squirrel fumbled, and fell as I watched. Mentally, I teetered between pity and relief that the squirrel had finally succumbed. It caught in a shrub six feet from the ground. It hung limply from a hind leg. Arrow ready, I walked toward it. It was getting smaller and smaller as I approached. If I came right up, I thought, it might disappear altogether! Three feet away from it, it gave a mighty heave and dropped to the stones of the creek bed. I restrained it with the tip of my bow across its neck. A strange muttering issued from it. Not wanting to just grab it, I released the bow from it, and it started crawling. It was tiny! An incredible shrinking squirrel!

What now?
Killdeer  :confused:

[Killdeer]

I lowered my hand and mentally cringed as the squirrel approached it. It gave a sniff, put out a paw, and climbed aboard. Well…I stroked it, and it emitted squirrelly purrs. O mighty hunter… I carefully placed my bow on the ground, and used both hands to cradle the baby.

I took it to the tree that it had just vacated. Placing it on the trunk, it weebled. It turned around and went back onto my hand. Rehab? I thought of my dog and my cat, both of whom would be delighted to have this new companion. I thought of all the work and care, and all my other worries. I thought of the apartment, and the squirrel took an exploratory nibble. “You fur durn sure ain’t coming home with me!”

I put it on the trunk, got my bow, and started across the creek. On the far bank, I looked back. Here came the squirrel. Onto my shoe, up the leg onto my shoulder and just far enough back that I would have to really grab it to move it. This was a real head-shaking, eye-rolling conundrum. I went back to the sycamore. I took out my cell phone, Clark would have some ideas. No coverage.

Who would believe this? I thought wistfully about my brain-dead camera. Well, maybe, just maybe…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evidently a rest and higher temps allowed me to squeeze these six shots out of the camera. It quit on the seventh, another hold-your-camera-out-and-take-a picture–of–yourself-with-a-squirrel-on-your-shoulder-while-rolling-your-eyes-shot that everybody takes, so no great loss here. If it were something original I would have been upset.


Killdeer  :rolleyes:

[b.glass]

Now THAT is very cool Killdeer! I am thoroughly enjoying your writing!

[Shaun]

Who's got who (or is it whom?) you are cracking me up as usual Killy. Happy trails getting out of this one!

[Killdeer]

So, now that my grand hunt had shrunk down to a Disney DVD, and I had run out of popcorn, so to speak, what to do with this delectable bonbon? I did not want the responsibility of its upbringing, and my neighborhood does NOT need another squirrel. The end result would be a tamed, destructive rodent attaching itself to my environs and me. It was not the one I had shot, and I was not responsible for its plight.

My nurturing side wanted to shelter and protect the little rat. My practical side knows full well how Nature works. Both sides remembered the fox, in all its radiant, predatory glory. I had to leave, lest this turn into a bonding session for the both of us, so I picked the middle road. I stretched to the full magnificence of my height and placed it on the trunk. It looked back. I slapped both hands on the trunk and exhorted it to climb, climb like the Devil was behind it, and beat my little feet across the creek and away. I left it no worse than I had found it. I looked back once and saw nothing. I looked forward and hoped for the best.
 
This chapter behind me, and yet with me, I wandered away. I questioned the wisdom of hunting squirrels so early in the season. What if I had shot the mother?  I didn’t think the one I shot was old enough to be a mom yet, but what if a rifle hunter had gotten her, and that was why the two were up there unattended? I don’t like the bio-logic of that scenario. As an archer, I don’t have the ability to scope out the items necessary for the certainty of shooting a boar as a shot suddenly presents itself. Neither do most gun hunters. So, I don’t believe that I will be likely to hunt squirrels again so early in the season.

This I considered as I sat by the lake, making smoke and contemplating the gang of vandal carp roiling the mud as they tailed in the shallows. The Lord of the Minnows sat on his rock, sad that I was sitting over the only overhanging limb at the lakeside. It had been a very full day, and my feet were still soaked.

On the nearby tree, a small walkingstick made its way up the trunk, reminding me of many Octobers that I had spent there, watching hundreds of larger walkingsticks make more walkingsticks before the winter closed in and shut them down. The winter would come, the babies would grow or be killed, and the cycles would revolve as they always have. A kettle of vultures circled in the sky. A redtail screamed, and I picked up my pack and left.

 

Killdeer~looking for crummy old broadheads...