A slice of wildlife

In one of my AP gigs I was given a half-day a week  of "enterprise" time to produce a Midwest outdoor column. Of the hundred or so that hit the wire, I remember only a few in detail. One of them is a longish piece on how to find and kill a wild turkey.  It was well-received, though I suspect it discouraged many would-be hunters with its  long exposition of the expensive gear and Leatherstocking wilderness skills necessary to take a gobbler.

I'm glad I wrote that in pre-internet days. I would be embarrassed if it were commonly available today.

That point occurred to me a few minutes ago when my peripheral vision caught a movement just outside the big south window. A grand-daddy strolled by, glanced at me, strutted around the house to the mulch pile, and, careless of all concern, rooted around in the decaying leaves for whatever turkey goodies might be squiggling there.  It's getting so common that I didn't even reach for the camera. More tellingly, New Dog Libby didn't bother to bark.

A similar column today would be short; "Get a sling shot. Sit quietly on your deck. Pretty soon one will walk by. Shoot it."

What gun for bison?

They're on the loose a half-hour west of me. .30-06?

(Because, dammit, I don't own a .50-70, that's why.)


One of the hunting chiefs:

Lieutenant Seth Hofman of the Osceola County Sheriff's Office says the buffalo are "really, really fast." 


I dunno, Loot. Anything the Indians could catch on a little Appy can't be too swift. But they are big, and you might advise your warriors that while a Glock   -- with several charged magazines at the ready -- might eventually put one down,  they would be pretty well advised to have a Plan B.  Forty-caliber oozing sores get Tatonka heap pissed.






Makes me hungry for some hump meat and boudins.

...bob-bob-bobbin' along

I've been needing that 2x6 for weeks, Just didn't have the heart.

Peril from the skies

My proletarian birds, mostly blackies and robins, have fled in panic.  Perched in a high burr oak branch hanging over the guest cabin, watchful as a sober Secret Service agent, the predator lurks -- or did until I scared him off trying for a photo.

It's a sparrow hawk. They're not uncommon in the woods and fields around here, but this is the first time I've spotted one hunting the Camp J grounds.

I hope he hangs around. This is one of the years when I need to trim up the no-mow zone, and he'd be handy for helping control the creepie-crawlies displaced by the tidying --  the field mice, the occasional garter snake, and maybe even the  village zoning czar whom I believe lurks there, fiddling hopefully with his video camera.

A new use for Labrador retrievers: Catching exotic pythons in the Everglades. Very cool.

The dogs can detect pythons from a distance and when they spot one they stop in their tracks and crouch. The pythons’ reaction is strangely poignant. Rather than striking when discovered, they curl up and hide.

But there are labs and then there are labs. The foundling under foot here, New Dog Libby, might be poignanter than the snakes. I can easily imagine her  stumbling over one, curling up and hiding.

(I tried to squeeze a pun in here but couldn't think one up.)

Friday morning roundup

--The calendar notwithstanding, stalwarts of the northern plains are looking at the first day of winter, ankle-deep snow, cold enough to make  you think about the cost of fuel, and a wind very clever at finding those little  cracks and gaps you forgot to recaulk last fall.

--The four inches of  fresh snow shocked New Dog Libby this morning. She assumed her normal position for answering nature's call, instantly resumed a full upright pose, thought it over, and in due course achieved relief with a much shallower squat.

-- The electric teevee can be almost as entertaining on a gloomy morning as a young lab.  Joe Scarborough built a long segment around Colbert whose run for the presidency is a  funny concept, though wearing thin. Still, Colbert redeemed himself by endorsing -- fairly seriously as far as I could tell -- Ron Paul.

--The debate last night was insufferably banal, although I had to grin at John  King's discomfort when Newt went into his self-righteous junkyard dog mode. 









 

Or maybe you're just a bad shot

Love to own a nice mouflon but too chicken to go to Iraq and and get one?

A fellow with a Rocking H brand down in Texas is the man to see.

For a little more money you can have your own  kudu to pet without having to brave African savannas.

Even if your local zoning thugs won't let you keep a back yard mouflon -- or if you can't afford a kudu (which you can't) -- it's an interesting site. Everything from exotics on the hoof to home decor items fashioned  from  deceased examples.

(FTC: Screw off. Don't even know the man. Wish I did.)
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Dear Diary

While trying to decide if I have enough ambition to whip a Big Post into shape, let me share some domestic matters.

1. The cleaning tizzy went well, and I able to receive the unexpected visitors with minimal shame. (No fresh shelf paper was installed in the canned goods locker, of course. That was a joke. I can recall no instance in a long life of having actually laid shelf paper. I think most males could say the same. Women, on the other hand, are generally incapable of survival in house whose cupboards lack the amenity. I suggest this data could underpin an important MA thesis.)

2. Marking an important passage: This morning, New Dog Libby discovered she could reach food  placed well back on the counter. I entered the kitchen just a few seconds too late and observed an unusual thing. I hope all of you may one day encounter a brown lab who can manage a look which is simultaneously guilty and smug.

Monkeys of the Corn

The apes and other hairy primates are not all in New Hampshire today. They're here. They threaten.

Some are full-fledged war monkeys,  obstructing justice, interfering with official acts, and assaulting our police officers.  (A common-sense monkey-control law is needed: One stuffed monk a month;  full background check; strict may-issue permit system to carry.)

Others are bigger but more benign and show human-like abilities to communicate via simple symbols and engage in rudimentary thought processes. There are nine of the them, but we can't afford that many bananas so we're looking for a good home for the two orangutans. We'll keep the bonabos.

Up until yesterday we thought there were ten in all, but close scientific examination revealed that one one had just become confused and wandered in. Researchers hosed him down, handed him a plantain, and took him  back to his seat in the legislature.

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Iowa  official brains freeze in February and melt in July. It isn't enough to  aspire to make Iowa the world center for the study of equatorial apes. We actually begged and received gazillions in federal money to create a tropical rain forest down by one of the big Corp of Engineers lakes.  We gave most of it back after The Van Der Platts Peeps and other spiritual leaders learned that jungles harbor people who run around naked and don't tithe.

Holiday Visitation

Virtually the entire GOP field, the Class of '12 , visits Camp J on Iowa Caucus Day minus 33.  Only Dr. Ron Paul was absent.

Gruesome is in the eye of the beholder

I popped in on a couple of friends and found them cutting up one-half of one cow. Stop calling me  a bullshipper. This sort of thing happens in my circles,  and New Dog Libby, for one,  finds it  wholly acceptable. Fancy city pooches rarely get a chance to plow into the juicy remains of an entire cow leg.

The Tyranny of the Happy Camper

Well, of course I rate a place at the table. We're camping. You're cooking. You wanna hurry it up a little?

And you probably shouldn't even carry a weiner in your pocket in their territory

Somebody saw a cougar down in Iowa City, and one of our vigilant public servants was ready with wisdom -- things you and I would never think of. Misha Goodman, director of the Iowa City Animal Care and Adoption Center, reminds us to


...walk in pairs in the areas where the sightings occurred and to not let children walk alone in wooded areas, particularly at sunset. If a mountain lion is spotted, Goodman said to stay at a distance and to never feed it.

We should all tattoo that on the backs of our hands.

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Our crack DNR isn't quite ready to admit citizens actually saw a cougar this time. They are  "investigating."

In the past few years the DNR has finally conceded that a few cougars may have taken up residence in our fair state. Before that they usually said people were mistaking deer for the big cats.  The argument eventually colllapsed when DNR learned that even us civilians know that hardly any deer have five-foot tails.

GOOD Dog!

Among her other talents, Libby has just proven adept at scaring Hell out of the deer who chomp my little trees. That doe cleared a three-foot fence with at least three feet to spare, and I bet she's still running.

Fresh rawhide chewy for you, Little Miss.

Pretty Horses

... but they don't come with the property.

The post is motivated mostly by Stranded who has recently found his land, an idyllic spot with timber, a stocked pond. and room to shoot.

I'm still looking for a detached annex to Camp J.  I already have fish and timber, but the neighbors would probably bitch if I set up a shooting range or if I decided to take my morning coffee on the deck in my delicate things.

This one is nice, but the odds of actual purchase are about 69-1 against.  It's 100 miles too far away, near the land of my extreme youth.  If it were closer, I would be in city clothes right now,  negotiating with the real-estate doowops.

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The horses remind me of some survivalism matters. I've previously unloaded my opinion that the best bugout bag is one you can live in and roam on. But if some  extended social upheaval required me to take to the hills,  I'd want a sturdy gelding  and a pack mule far more than I'd want a Land Rover. For one thing, they're more fun to talk to. For another, they don't strand you with an empty tank . For still another,  they rarely fail from a blown digital whazis.

New dog Libby and Cousin Buda from Minnesota  on their very first play date.

Libby, not fully confident of The Master's wing-shooting, practices survival skill known as the manless rundown.

Speaking of politicians

A sunrise visitor to Camp J this morning.

Serene Sunday Morning

I was Binging all over the place -- trying to make sense of statistics on Mexican gun imports -- when New Dog Libby started fussing. Since I was dressed only from the ankles up, I settled for through-the-window surveillance of whatever threat alerted her.

--One lonesome hen turkey, pecking around the mulch pile,

--A mallard swimming in the canal.

--Three or four very hyper fox squirrels prospecting for buried acorns in the newly thawed earth.

Spring is nice. Screw Mexico.
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Dognitive dissonance

New Dog Libby realizes her crucial role as watchpup, alert for zoning administrators and similar vermin.

She is less adept at understanding scrap lumber as kindling rather than chew toys.

Head 'em up nd move 'em out

Westward, ho. This  weekend's entertainment occurs in the prairie oasis of Sioux Falls. It a biggie, several hundred tables of delectable old stuff. Shake out your loopholes, buckaroos.



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It will be interesting to see how new dog Libby gets along with the house sitter .

As in "Libbytarian." Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it?

:)