Kismet
UPH Guru
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT...for the farmers and one old hunter.
My area of Wisconsin is reckoned to be about eight or nine inches shy of "normal" rainfall for the years. Crop insurance had to be called in for the high ground at harvest, and yield for the low ground was good, but much less than it could have been.
This morning dawned with heavy snow falling; a wet, dense snowfall, the first ground covering snow, and the edge of a front from the Northwest with temperatures that dropped just below freezing, so the snow was melting almost as it came down. Good moisture for the farmers, and beautiful to those of us who were warm and sitting with strong coffee in their homes.
In addition to the comfort, the Bears and Vikings were to play this afternoon, and the Packers had the Sunday evening game...all-in-all, a lazy man's dream day.
I put Mick out on the leash (the goof would rather hang out in the yard than stay in the house even in harsh weather,) and walked around the yard looking down at the rural scenery of the neighbors' farms.
As I was walking back into the house I thought I heard something. Wandering over to that side of the house, I heard it again: the cackle of a rooster pheasant, where none had been heard all year long. Hmmmm...probably a wandering young rooster complaining about his first snow.
I went back in the house. Then I went back outside, just to, you know, check the weather and the footing, and to see if the neighbor's heifers were in the pasture below the house and whether the bull was in with them. There were a couple of inches of snow accumulated. No cattle in sight...hmmm. When's the game start?
Well, hell...got the rubber boots out, the blaze orange jacket (4 day doe season in progress,) and the 12 ga AYA/Sears sxs I'd picked up from GunBroker earlier this year. It has been honed to imp cyl/mod from its original mod/full. I haven't carried it much and had not yet gotten a bird with it.
Put on a waterproof hat and headed out with the game bag and shotgun. Mick started bouncing when he saw the gun. For a dog that has selective deafness, he sure can pick up on clues when he wants to.
Slid under one barbed wire/hot wire fence, then gingerly picked my way down the slope of the pasture adjoining my house. No cows, no cover, just walking over to the minimal cover that the neighbor has left as he tries to grow something everydamnedwhere. Mick settled down, and more or less walked at heel as we approached cover. The ground was muddy-soft under the snow, but stable enough as we moved over to some brush in the lee of rock outcroppings. We worked that area, then took the long walk along a drainage culvert over to the crik. I was carrying a fair amount of the field along with us on my boots. I wear out a lot quicker these days than in former years. I blame global warming, or the fiscal cliff.
Directed Mick along the crik, with the brush on either side serving as decent cover in previous years for the few birds that show up around here. In spite of the temps, Mick happily swam the crik back and forth, investigating the ever-more-sparse un-tilled land. We walked about a half mile or so, heading roughly back to the road below the house.
I admired the snow-covered ground and the silence of the morning. In a few months, my admiration will be substantially faded, but at the moment the first snow is lovely.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some slight movement. I focused on it, and darned if it wasn't a rooster pheasant, across the entire field, walking the fence line, with casual deliberation towards some higher weeds and brush. I watched as the bird disappeared into the brush that grows along the road up the hill to my house. THEN, the pheasant hopped up on the stacks of corn husks that the neighbor puts there for subsequent stall lining for his milk cows.
I called Mick to heel and headed in that direction. The pheasant watched us and then flew off, up on my hillside, into some damnable wild cherry trees--a nuisance growth which is the bane of land-owners here. The trees grow like bamboo, tight and thorny, and need sawing, not cutting, to eliminate them.
The pheasant might as well have gone into his own secure fortress.
Mick and I walked over to the stacks and over the fence (I went over, he went under.) I got him over the fence on the other side of the road and indicated that he should go up the hillside, into the dense junk trees. He went up a bit, then down into the brush along the road. I figured that the pheasant left no scent in his high flight to the hillside. I kept on sending Mick back up, and he'd look and then come on back to where game usually would be.
With entirely appropriate adjectival descriptions of the dog, the fence, the snow, the thorn-laden trees, and the stubborn determination of your average dumb guy, I went over the fence and up into the dense wood. I thought that a grouse would have a hard time flying through this junk, the pheasant would surely just run until it saw daylight and then take off, cackling in disdain.
Still...Mick came up to me and I sent him ahead, higher up on the hillside. He got interested, then disappeared from view. OK, he's got the scent. I waited to hear the wings flapping and noise of the departing rooster, somewhere far out of sight.
Damn. Somehow, the dance between dog and bird brought it up into one of the few openings in the tree branches that was within my view, and more importantly, my range.
I didn't think, I just brought the gun up and shot. The bird was just reaching a height higher than the tree-tops, and fell at my shot. Mick reappeared and grabbed it.
I just gaped. Who wudda thunk it? No birds around to speak of, early morning in my (basically) backyard, and the bird flushed in MY direction. A gift.
It is better to be lucky than good.
Mick and I once again had our intermittent argument about what comprised a retrieval.
The snow let me see the bird, gave the earth some much-needed moisture, and made for what I am choosing to call an early Christmas gift.
My area of Wisconsin is reckoned to be about eight or nine inches shy of "normal" rainfall for the years. Crop insurance had to be called in for the high ground at harvest, and yield for the low ground was good, but much less than it could have been.
This morning dawned with heavy snow falling; a wet, dense snowfall, the first ground covering snow, and the edge of a front from the Northwest with temperatures that dropped just below freezing, so the snow was melting almost as it came down. Good moisture for the farmers, and beautiful to those of us who were warm and sitting with strong coffee in their homes.
In addition to the comfort, the Bears and Vikings were to play this afternoon, and the Packers had the Sunday evening game...all-in-all, a lazy man's dream day.
I put Mick out on the leash (the goof would rather hang out in the yard than stay in the house even in harsh weather,) and walked around the yard looking down at the rural scenery of the neighbors' farms.
As I was walking back into the house I thought I heard something. Wandering over to that side of the house, I heard it again: the cackle of a rooster pheasant, where none had been heard all year long. Hmmmm...probably a wandering young rooster complaining about his first snow.
I went back in the house. Then I went back outside, just to, you know, check the weather and the footing, and to see if the neighbor's heifers were in the pasture below the house and whether the bull was in with them. There were a couple of inches of snow accumulated. No cattle in sight...hmmm. When's the game start?
Well, hell...got the rubber boots out, the blaze orange jacket (4 day doe season in progress,) and the 12 ga AYA/Sears sxs I'd picked up from GunBroker earlier this year. It has been honed to imp cyl/mod from its original mod/full. I haven't carried it much and had not yet gotten a bird with it.
Put on a waterproof hat and headed out with the game bag and shotgun. Mick started bouncing when he saw the gun. For a dog that has selective deafness, he sure can pick up on clues when he wants to.
Slid under one barbed wire/hot wire fence, then gingerly picked my way down the slope of the pasture adjoining my house. No cows, no cover, just walking over to the minimal cover that the neighbor has left as he tries to grow something everydamnedwhere. Mick settled down, and more or less walked at heel as we approached cover. The ground was muddy-soft under the snow, but stable enough as we moved over to some brush in the lee of rock outcroppings. We worked that area, then took the long walk along a drainage culvert over to the crik. I was carrying a fair amount of the field along with us on my boots. I wear out a lot quicker these days than in former years. I blame global warming, or the fiscal cliff.
Directed Mick along the crik, with the brush on either side serving as decent cover in previous years for the few birds that show up around here. In spite of the temps, Mick happily swam the crik back and forth, investigating the ever-more-sparse un-tilled land. We walked about a half mile or so, heading roughly back to the road below the house.
I admired the snow-covered ground and the silence of the morning. In a few months, my admiration will be substantially faded, but at the moment the first snow is lovely.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some slight movement. I focused on it, and darned if it wasn't a rooster pheasant, across the entire field, walking the fence line, with casual deliberation towards some higher weeds and brush. I watched as the bird disappeared into the brush that grows along the road up the hill to my house. THEN, the pheasant hopped up on the stacks of corn husks that the neighbor puts there for subsequent stall lining for his milk cows.
I called Mick to heel and headed in that direction. The pheasant watched us and then flew off, up on my hillside, into some damnable wild cherry trees--a nuisance growth which is the bane of land-owners here. The trees grow like bamboo, tight and thorny, and need sawing, not cutting, to eliminate them.
The pheasant might as well have gone into his own secure fortress.
Mick and I walked over to the stacks and over the fence (I went over, he went under.) I got him over the fence on the other side of the road and indicated that he should go up the hillside, into the dense junk trees. He went up a bit, then down into the brush along the road. I figured that the pheasant left no scent in his high flight to the hillside. I kept on sending Mick back up, and he'd look and then come on back to where game usually would be.
With entirely appropriate adjectival descriptions of the dog, the fence, the snow, the thorn-laden trees, and the stubborn determination of your average dumb guy, I went over the fence and up into the dense wood. I thought that a grouse would have a hard time flying through this junk, the pheasant would surely just run until it saw daylight and then take off, cackling in disdain.
Still...Mick came up to me and I sent him ahead, higher up on the hillside. He got interested, then disappeared from view. OK, he's got the scent. I waited to hear the wings flapping and noise of the departing rooster, somewhere far out of sight.
Damn. Somehow, the dance between dog and bird brought it up into one of the few openings in the tree branches that was within my view, and more importantly, my range.
I didn't think, I just brought the gun up and shot. The bird was just reaching a height higher than the tree-tops, and fell at my shot. Mick reappeared and grabbed it.
I just gaped. Who wudda thunk it? No birds around to speak of, early morning in my (basically) backyard, and the bird flushed in MY direction. A gift.
It is better to be lucky than good.
Mick and I once again had our intermittent argument about what comprised a retrieval.
The snow let me see the bird, gave the earth some much-needed moisture, and made for what I am choosing to call an early Christmas gift.
