by Gaila Oliver | Jul 17, 2017 | Bird Watching, Dogs, Hunting, Lyme Disease, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, Wild Turkey Hunting, wildlife
It was summertime, and I was driving through town with my truck window down, when a lady from church hailed me. I pulled over, and she sashayed up to the truck. “You know, you’re always writing about Lyme Disease? Well, I’ve found out how to keep the ticks off. You need to tell all the hunters about this!”
I’m always ready to admit my ignorance and acquire new knowledge, so I pulled out my pen and a notebook. “Shoot!” I said.
“My husband and I were over at the lake this weekend cleaning up the yard, and when he showered that night, he hollered for me to come in there. He was covered up with ticks! We picked over a hundred off of him, then I took my shower and we checked me for ticks, but there were only a few on me. Know what the difference was?” she demanded.
Now, I have noticed lots of differences between men and women, which don’t even include showers. Mental pictures were bouncing around in my head, but I suppressed them and replied innocently, “No, Ma’am. Why?”
She hiked her skirt a few inches. “Panty hose!” she crowed triumphantly. “I had on panty hose, and he didn’t. Obviously, ticks can’t get a grip on them and sure can’t get up under them. You tell those hunters to wear panty hose, at least until it frosts!”
Now, I generally try to stay away from empirical statements like that, but she said to tell the rest of y’all. No, I ain’t tried it myownself. It’s a little late for me to prevent Lyme.
Over 30 years ago, I apparently got bitten by a tick, or maybe cleaned a game animal that was infected with Lyme Disease, and got it into my blood that way. At any rate, I contracted Lyme Disease, and it went after me arthritically, if that’s a word.
Whatever, I got it, and it went to the bone — and joints! With at least 24 broken bones and a dozen other joint injuries, I was an ideal host for Lyme arthritis. Since it was normal for me to hurt, especially in the wintertime, no one thought anything about it getting worse. I didn’t even go to see the doctor, not for the arthritis, anyway. When I did mention it, while in the office for something else, his reply was to be expected — indeed, my own mother had said the same thing: “Son, you just played too much football; you’ve got terminal arthritis: it ain’t gonna kill you, but you’re gonna die with it!” By the tenth year, I was taking a couple dozen painkillers — aspirin, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, BC Powder, whatever — a day during the wintertime, when cold weather made the pain and stiffness worse.
Then I was assigned an article on Lyme Disease by a national magazine, which I turned down, initially. I told the editor, “I don’t do that kind of writing; you call Neill, you get humor!”
“Fine,” he agreed. “Write us a humorous article on Lyme Disease, and we’ll pay you a thousand bucks for it.”
“I can do that!” I exclaimed, and went to researching.
It was like one of the old cartoons, where someone snaps on a light bulb. After two days of research, I suddenly realized, “Dad blame! I’ve got all these symptoms!” I got out of the computer as quickly as possible, jumped in the truck, and headed for the hospital. Bear in mind that this was in 1989. I walked up to a nurse and demanded, “Take some blood from me and test it for Lyme Disease!”
“What’s that?” was the response.
No one had really heard of it down here. It was supposed to be a Northeastern thing. The sickness was first misdiagnosed as an outbreak of juvenile arthritis in and around the city of Old Lyme, Connecticut, back in the early to mid seventies. Further testing revealed that the disease was being caused by a spirochete bacteria, which actually invades the human cell, making it extremely hard to knock out. While one of the main vectors for Lyme is the deer tick, the bacteria has been found in all types of ticks, and most blood-sucking insects, like mosquitoes, horseflies, fleas, and lice. These other hosts, however, can only transmit the organism by going almost directly from one victim to another host, whereas ticks can keep it in their systems for weeks. An outbreak of Lyme in Philadelphia was traced back to fleas from the highly Lyme-infected rat population in that city. Killing the rats cured the Lyme epidemic.
One can also contract Lyme from the blood of an infected animal, and research has shown that an animal is six times more likely to have Lyme than a human. The symptoms are the same: fatigue, depression, arthritis. Interestingly enough for a dog man, it’s hard to tell when a cat has Lyme, because “cats are so lethargic anyway,” as one vet put it.
I spent six weeks gathering information on Lyme Disease, but was unable to find a doctor who professed to know enough about it to treat it. In desperation, I finally called the Lyme Borreliosis Foundation in Connecticut and asked for the closest doctor to Brownspur that they knew would recognize, diagnose, and treat Lyme Disease. There was a Dr. George McCullars in Mobile, and I said, “Fine, that’s close enough,” and headed South. Indeed, I did have Lyme, one of the highest positives he’d ever seen, and he started me on long-term antibiotics. I took 200 mg a day of Doxycycline beginning in late June, and didn’t come completely off of it until April, but it knocked it out, though the organism will always be in my blood (and I’m not supposed to give blood any more). Almost a year later, he told me in wonder, “You’re the only tertiary Lyme patient I know who has apparently been cured.” I will always have the sleep disorder, and short-term memory loss (which they now believe is connected), but I haven’t had an aspirin for arthritis pain in years! Oh, I still have places that hurt, especially where the pins are, but not all over, all the time, like before!
Let me insert right here, that if you are placed on long-term antibiotics, you will probably experience intestinal difficulties. See, the antibiotics kill all the bacteria in your system, and there’s some good-guy bacteria in your intestines that belongs to stay there. If you will drink buttermilk or eat active-culture yogurt, it will reculture those good-guy bacteria, and you’ll be a lot more comfortable. Another tip, for victims with the sleep disorder: I take a couple of benedryl when I go to bed at night. Knocks the edge off just enough for me to get some decent rest. The memory loss can be helped, too. Once after an article on Lyme, I received calls from three ladies, one in Michigan, one in Oklahoma, and one in Florida. All three recommended something called Lecethin for the memory loss I had mentioned. The very next day I was walking into a store in Greenville, and a lady stopped me. “Aren’t you that Neill boy, that writes?” she asked. I admitted that. “Well, I read that article on Lyme Disease, and if you’ll take Lecethin, it’ll help that memory problem.” I told her she was the fourth lady in a week to tell me that, but I didn’t know how to even spell it. She got out a pencil and paper, then said, “Wait. I’ve enjoyed your books and articles for years. If you’ll let me, I’ll go back in here with you, and buy you your first bottle!” She did, and I highly recommend it, after fifteen years on it.
I wrote a syndicated weekly column for 25 years, and since 1990 worked in at least a couple of columns a year on Lyme Disease in papers, plus numerous magazine articles. I’ve gotten calls from as far away as Michigan and New York about Lyme. Several years ago, a pharmaceutical company offered to underwrite a book on Lyme, and I got about a third of the way through with it, when the company had some financial difficulties and dropped the project. I’ve given seminars to doctors in hospitals on Lyme, for as much as $1500. When I was president of the Southern outdoor writers, I arranged the testing of our members and wives by the Centers for Disease Control, as a control group of Southern outdoors men and women. They predicted we’d be only 5 to 7% positive, “and those will be the guys who have hunted and fished in the northeast,” but we were 28% positive by one test, and nearly 42% by another! Seven of the past eight presidents tested positive and were symptomatic for Lyme Disease! That’s really the first time they began to consider that Lyme was not just a yankee ailment.
Out here at Brownspur, where there are only five families, we’ve had five diagnosed and treated cases of Lyme. Two were caught early, and treated correctly with heavy antibiotics, and they got completely over it. The other three of us have lingering problems, mine being the least damaging. Only one of those cases apparently came from a Brownspur tick. Three of the victims knew they were bitten by ticks from other regions, like east Mississippi, north Arkansas, and north Tennessee.
In other words, I know what I’m talking about on the subject, though I’m not a doctor.
It is my considered opinion that some insurance companies, HMOs, and medical organizations have decided to cure modern Lyme Disease by changing the parameters. In their defense, it is hard to diagnose, even harder to cure, and requires long-term expensive treatment. Its symptoms mimic fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, even the early symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Medical experts warn against using long-term antibiotics, which are essential to successful treatment, because that may build up resistant strains of bacteria. I understand that.
But I also understand the disease. I know many victims who have gotten frustrated trying to get help for Lyme, and have just picked up and gone to Connecticut for treatment and advice, where the modern version of the disease was first diagnosed. And if the victim is a youngster, I have gotten to the point of recommending that myself. If caught early (when the tell-tale “bullseye” rash has shown up) it can usually be cured by a month’s worth of antibiotics, but if the patient has had it for several months, or even years, then it’s going to take months of antibiotic treatment to get remission. So what if that builds up resistant strains of bacteria? If the victim is in constant pain and cannot live a normal life, then should not one cure the pain, even at the risk of creating another possible problem?
Again, I am not a doctor! But I’m an educated victim, because I had to be to get mine under control. In one recent year, no fewer than six doctors from three states have called me for Lyme facts (two for their own symptoms, and one for his grandson’s!), and several have sent patients to me for the purpose of rash identification.
Obviously, the best advice is to take precautions against contracting Lyme. Avoid areas of tick infestations. Spray a good repellent on your britches legs and socks, around your belt, on your collar, and on your wrists and sleeves. Wear rubber gloves when cleaning game. Watch your pets for signs of lethargy or arthritis. Check for ticks when you come in from the fields, and be sure your family does the same. Notice any unexplained rashes, especially rashes that appear to red and circular in nature. Only about a third of Lyme victims apparently have the telltale “bullseye” rash, but if antibiotic treatment is administered immediately after that rash is noticed, then complete recovery is very likely. Be alert for cold and flu symptoms that hang on longer than they ought to, for stiff neck (the unBiblical kind), arthritis, chronic headaches, extreme fatigue, blurred vision, memory loss, and sleeplessness.
And I highly recommend husband and wife showering together. Look closely for obvious ticks, but also for the smaller variety, described as “freckles that move.” Take your time. One can’t be too careful for Lyme Disease!
by Gaila Oliver | Jul 8, 2017 | Bird Watching, Dogs, Hunting, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, Wild Turkey Hunting, wildlife
Newcomers to the eastern side of the Mighty Muddy may be surprised to learn that we didn’t have armadillos here originally. They migrated in less than thirty years ago. Rumors that the “armored possums” were stocked in the Delta by Federal Fish & Game biologists in order to take some of the Road Kill pressure off of native possums may or may not be true. I never personally saw a uniformed biologist turn loose an armadillo.
Hunting on west-side Mississippi River islands, I grew up with the hard-shelled little hole-diggers, and have seen horses hurt legs by stepping in their burrows. There used to be several civic “Armadillo Festivals” featuring barbecued, fried, and fricasseed armadillo meat, until it was discovered that the little devils carried leprosy, at which time such festivals came to an abrupt halt. The meat tastes a lot like pork, barbecued.
The kids used to make a game of catching the surprisingly fast scuttlers on The Island, riding around in the Ghost (a 1948 Jeep) until they’d filled a couple of croker sacks. Then they’d take them out to the River in a boat to teach them to swim. I had repeated the old wives’ tale that they can’t swim, but hold their breath and cross rivers walking on the bottom. The kids proved that false, establishing that ‘dillos swim like pigs, with only their snouts above water (depending of course on how far they have to swim!).
Once they came up with some luminous spray paint just before Halloween, and scared several club members plumb sober when glowing spooks kept appearing in the headlights’ gleam. A few were so shook that I advised the kids not to mention that they were the culprits for a couple of years. Some folks have NO sense of humor!
Howsomever, the armored possums did manage, walking on the bottom or otherwise, to cross the Mighty Muddy, and become established on this side of the River. They regularly dig up flower bulbs, root under the pecan trees, and burrow into the yard. Here at Brownspur, they have been ruled fair game, and until the government places them on the Endangered List, we encourage their annihilation, at least around the houses and pasture. Yet it was by accident that I came up with the perfect Armadillo Trap.
Betsy and I had been cleaning out The Store, our old commissary-turned-guest- house, and saved a thick glass top from an otherwise-deceased cabinet. We toted it out of The Store, and lacking a better place, leaned it against the Tallow tree outside the kitchen window. The glass was about five feet long and two feet wide – or, high, when you lean it against a tree. There it still sits, until she decides where to put it permanently.
The other night I picked up the Slung Coffee pot, and stepped outside to toss the grounds. Without cutting the lights on, I walked out and let the screen door slam behind me as I flung the used coffee grounds out. I was startled by a commotion in the fern bed beneath the kitchen window. As I looked, an armadillo, disturbed from his digging up fern roots by the slamming door, darted out of the fern bed to escape me, his sworn enemy.
He had a clear path across the yard to the fig tree, as far as he could see.
Armadillos, as noted, are surprisingly fast, and their acceleration from a standing start, even when not scared by a slamming door, is even more amazing.
This ‘dillo emerged from that fern bed like the proverbial striped ape, or scalded dog, or streak of greased lightning, or even bat out of Hell. After all, he had to cross 50 feet of what appeared to be unobstructed yard.
I once walked slap into a patio door which Betsy had just cleaned, so I can somewhat appreciate the armadillo’s predicament. “WHOP!” he hit that sheet of glass!
To make matters worse, Betsy had recently trimmed some limbs from the Tallow tree, and had left the aluminum extension ladder propped up only a foot from the glass.
“CRASH!” the armadillo rebounded from the glass into the ladder. Dazed, he eyed again his seemingly clear escape route, and accelerated like a pro fullback.
“WHOP!” “CRASH!” “WHOP!” “CRASH!” resounded from the darkness as I widened my eyes to try to see as much of the action as possible. “WHOP!” “CRASH!”
Finally, the concussed armadillo staggered around the corner of the glass and headed across the yard. I was laughing too hard to pursue.
Adam found him the next day, dead as a doornail, just short of the fig tree.
We decided to leave the Armadillo Trap right where it is.
by Gaila Oliver | Jun 24, 2017 | Bird Watching, Dogs, Hunting, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, wildlife
My neighbor shot a coyote early one morning who had obviously spent the night in a large patch of foxtail cane in our front yard. Betsy decided to cut the cane patch back (which is why I’m nursing a couple of broken ribs) to discourage such varmint lodging in the future. She found several trails, nests, and bedding spots, so maybe the one Jim shot hadn’t been the only regular visitor. It does explain why we haven’t been able to keep housecats very long these past few years.
I used to hunt such predators on a regular basis, and got quite proficient with a crippled rabbit call. I skinned a couple of red foxes for bedside rugs, and there’s a bobcat in the freezer awaiting mounting right now. I quit predator hunting with a call one dusk when a great horned owl nearly scalped me, obviously mistaking the moonlit glint of my unlit headlight for the crippled rabbit he had been hearing crying. A sixth sense warned me to duck just in time, and when I clicked the light on and looked up, the owl was coming back for another try.
Few people know that owl is white meat, just like chicken and hawk.
At any rate, I have little personal experience in call hunting for coyotes, though Adam and the Jakes and my neighbor Jim and his boys do it a lot. From what they say, it doesn’t take the coyotes very long to get rabbit-call shy, once they get to associate that sound with the sound of gunshots.
Several nearby catfish farmers say that coyotes have learned to associate the sound of the pond paddlewheel agitators with suppertime. When the oxygen content of the pond gets low, the agitators start going, and often the fish will initially congregate close by the agitator float itself, to get some fresh air, as it were.
Ever quick to adapt, the coyotes have observed and taken advantage. I heard about that, so asked a catfish farming friend, who confirmed it.
“Right at dusk, the coyotes come out of the nearby fields and go right to the paddlewheel, where usually the fish are swimming bunched up, on top of the water. It’s hard to believe, but those dog-gone coyotes will hit the water just like a pure-bred Labrador! They’ll swim out and grab a fish, swim back, lay it on the bank, shake like a dog, then pick up their fish and trot back to the fields. If it wasn’t for the fact that they’re taking MY fish, it would be fascinating to watch! You want to shoot a few this evening?”
A veteran predator hunter told me of a method he adapted for his own hunting. A friend had a herd of goats outside of town, and testified that every evening several coyotes would come to the pen and cruise the outside of the fence, just in case they might find a goat that had strayed outside the pen. George drove down there to watch one evening himself, then went to work on an extra predator call. Soon he had perfected a goat call.
The next evening, he parked under a tree on a ditchbank not far from the goat pen. He set up his chair and spotlight, loaded his rifle, and got out his trusty goat call. It only took a few toots on the goat call before four coyotes trotted right up for supper, almost tame, it seemed, until he plated one. He took care of several more the next few nights, until the coyotes adapted to associate the sound of gunshots with the sound of goats.
Having had the experience we have had with the coyotes eating our cats, I’d be willing to bet that if a fellow worked on his goat call to get it to sound like a meow, he’d be sure death on coyotes, until they figured out they were hearing armed cats.
Adam and the Jakes took some kittens out one night to the woods, and got shots at several coyotes, just by picking up the kittens and encouraging them to mew loudly. The same thing will work with small puppies, when they are taken away from their mamas for a couple of hours in a dark, strange place, and begin to whine and howl. I’ve done that, and it brings coyotes up even in the daylight.
Betsy and I were turkey hunting one day, backed up against a tree shoulder to shoulder, she with the gun. In the dry leaves I heard something coming to my call – a turkey, I of course assumed. It came up behind us, and when it sounded too close, I turned my head just as a female coyote, in the puppy-nursing stage, trotted around the tree. She was so close, I could even tell she had bad breath! She probably didn’t stalk turkey hen calling for a few days after that, either.
One last tip for coyote hunting: when your lady Labrador comes into heat, try taking her out and sitting at the edge of the woods for a couple hours. But be ready to shoot quick! Coyotes in love are faster than hungry coyotes!
by Gaila Oliver | Jun 12, 2017 | Bird Watching, Cooking, Dogs, Hunting, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, Wild Turkey Hunting, wildlife
TOO WET TO FISH!
During our annual Brownspur spring Swimming Hole cleaning project, one of our usual co-workers opted out for the day, saying that he was going fishing with a friend. Since he is an accomplished fisherman, in addition to being a college engine-ear, we excused him enthusiastically, envisioning a fish-fry when we finished work that evening, knowing that Namby would return with full stringers and feed us bountifully.
Our efforts were interrupted after lunch by several hard showers. One might not think a shower would bother anyone in a Swimming Hole, but the cleaning-out stage involves pumping out the winter accumulation of water, minnows, tadpoles, crawdads, a snake or two, a few legless salamanders, couple of snapping turtles, and assorted other critters and trash you don’t care to swim with. When it showered, the pump would quit. Of course, the uninitiated might say, “Well, hold a tarp over the motor,” but standing beside a pond next to an 80-foot-tall cypress tree while lightning strikes around you is not recommended by the best authorities. Perhaps our absent engine-ear could have figured out a way to put up lightning rods, but the rest of us just retreated until it quit raining and waited until the motor dried out to try again.
When the mosquitoes came out in force at dusk, we went inside, leaving the Swimming Hole mostly pumped out, and chlorining the water left in the bottom to eliminate what critters that still survived. We could almost taste the fresh bass Namby would have for our supper, some char-broiled, some beer-battered and fried.
Sardines were as close as we came to a bass supper that night. Our engine-ear had returned bass-less and clean. “It was too wet to fish,” he explained, plugging in a movie.
Too wet to fish?
Lordee, some of the best luck I’ve ever had fishing was just before, during, and just after a shower! Dude and I tore up the bass on the Alligator Hole one evening toward the end of a six-inch rain. Filled up both stringers, and didn’t string a fish less than three pounds. Gary Dye and I got next to nekkid one morning on Christmas Tree Lake when it was raining hard, but the bass were on a feeding frenzy. We had so many big fish that he introduced me to “bass eyes” that night for supper, also known as “Arkansas lobster.” Using a sharp knife, he cut out a double-thumb-size piece of meat from right underneath the fish’s eye; I guess maybe “bass cheeks” would be a better description. He had a deep pot of lightly salted water boiling, and would stir those pieces into the pot, more or less poaching them. Drained and dipped in melted butter, they tasted better than lobster!
I’ve got an eight-pound plus bass on the wall that brother Beau netted for me one rainy morning, just as the Who Dat lure pulled out. Wind was blowing so hard the lake was white-capping, and raindrops stung like hailstones. Cal Ibele and I stayed out in the rain one morning on Chandelier Island and loaded the boat with speckled trout, when all the other skiffs had run for the cover of Uncle Tullier’s (“Too-yay”) boat, the “Captain Pete.” Now, I will admit to sitting with Dude on the porch of Guy Sharp’s cabin at Honey Island when it was raining so hard that our “Big O” lures floated well before they ever got down to the surface of the lake. In addition, the lightning was truly spectacular, which discouraged us from sitting on an open lake in a metal john boat. However, in our defense, we were able to troll from the truck, as the road went under water almost before we could pack up and get out of there. Didn’t catch anything, though.
Too wet to fish? We gave our resident engine-ear so much grief that the movie was forgotten. How could it be too wet to fish, if it hadn’t gotten to the point where his lure floated on each cast before it could get to the lake surface?
Turned out that what Namby actually meant to say was, that the turnrow they had to drive down to put their boat in the lake was too muddy to drive on. We could appreciate that, because we’d all had experience with folks driving down our own turnrows and cutting them up when they were too wet. However, one would think that an engine-ear would be more specific, considering the profession. I mean, when he’s designing a future bridge, is he going to say, “pour a little concrete in that hole, chunk some metal and wire in it while it’s wet, and prop some big long timbers on it when it’s dry.” Surely not!
However, seems like I recall that we crashed a billion-buck Mars spacecraft a couple of years ago because some of the engine-ears got confused between metric and American measurements, right? Maybe, in some circles, it was too wet to fish that day!
by Gaila Oliver | Mar 31, 2017 | Bird Watching, Dogs, Hunting, sportsmen, Wild Turkey Hunting, wildlife
A friend who ain’t from Down Heah told me he’d gone turkey hunting all by his lonesome recently, his first time to try wild turkeys. Where he’s from, they might have lots of turkeys, if turkeys ate rocks and sand, and roosted on cacti, but you know what Big Bumpy used to say about if: “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his behind.” Bill didn’t have any luck with turkeys, but he observed, “It was sure nice to be out there in the woods before daylight, to hear the birds wake up, owls hooting, and woodpeckers pecking. Good to be in God’s Great Outdoors!”
I have written often that the gun in hand is merely an excuse to be in the woods, for many hunters. Scotty Tabb was telling me about his last week’s hunt, when a baby bobcat stalked up on his turkey decoy, and Robert Dean once wrote about a hawk attacking his fake hen. Son Adam came in excited after one whole morning in a deer stand, and couldn’t wait to tell me: “I saw a flying squirrel!” The first panther I ever saw was before good daylight when I was headed toward a gobbling turkey on Montgomery Island, and another was on Woodstock Island as I sat in a deer stand in a snowstorm. On none of those occasions did the hunter score that day; nor did he care. But we’ll always remember those events.
The only big-time big-snake duel I ever witnessed was on a turkey hunt, when two large moccasins were, essentially, arm-wrestling for the favor of a lady cottonmouth awaiting the winner. Weird! The only reason I bring that up is that the last couple of stories on snakes generated a lot of feedback, and I need to say first that the Texas Rattler Round-up lasts more than one day, and second, that a young man sent me pictures of a north Mississippi Moccasin Round-up in which they killed 280 vipers over a weekend. That discourages new turkey hunters!
One morning I was sitting against one of those huge pecan trees behind Dub’s House on Woodstock, and heard something approaching in the dry leaves behind me. Thinking “Turkey Gobbler!” I eased my head around the tree, French Gun ready, to see a large copperhead snake coming through the woods lickety-split. Well, as lickety-split as a snake can go, anyway. He went right by my tree and down across the draw, leaving me wondering what the heck was chasing him. That thought ruined the rest of my weekend hunt!
Betsy had a red fox jump over a log almost into her lap once on a deer hunt, and another time watched a bobcat wash itself and curl up for a nap almost under her stand. I spent all one morning in a turkey blind watching a momma squirrel moving her brood of about five teentsie (what do you call a baby squirrel: a kit?) young’uns from a tree about ten yards to my right to a new den tree about thirty yards to my left. Her path took her less than ten feet from me, and if a turkey gobbler had strutted up, I would not have dared shoot, for fear of disturbing her.
Big Robert was about as serious a hunter as I’ve ever known, but one afternoon when I eased up to where he sat on a log ostensibly calling turkeys, he grinned at my low whistle and beckoned me to come in quietly, indicating he was watching game. When I crawled to his log, he pointed out two raccoons on a big sycamore limb. “They’ve been making love all afternoon,” he whispered. “I feel almost guilty for watching!” Had he seen a turkey, or even looked for one? No.
In almost that same spot a year or so later, I sat in the Hammer Stand and observed as fine a job of coaching as I’ll ever see: a momma bobcat positioned her half-grown kitten on a log ten yards behind me, then circled and bounced a big canecutter rabbit out of a brushtop. The rabbit went straight to the log, and the kitten jumped it gamely, getting a mouthful of rabbit head, but the bunny was bigger than the bobcat! It was a classic fight to the finish, but the little cat won!
Hunting deer one afternoon, I was privileged to watch a coyote hide in a clump of grass with just the end of his tail sticking out. A hawk had been circling the open field for some time, and the coyote began twitching the end of his tail as the big bird got closer. Sure enough, the hawk made a dive for what it must have assumed was a rat or rabbit, and the coyote just barely mistimed his own jump, missing a planned hawk supper, except for a few breast feathers that drifted down.
Yeah, Bill is right. It’s good to be out in God’s Great Outdoors. Don’t let the gun slow you down!
by Gaila Oliver | Feb 27, 2017 | Dogs, Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
Joe was somewhat wary when he called. He’d had a large bird fly into the side of his pickup on the way back from the airport Monday night, and had gone back the next afternoon to try to locate it. “It’s an owl, and he’s just sitting there on the side of the road. Do you think you could catch it? I hate for it to just die out there!”
I done my duty and informed him that, actually, the law is that we were supposed to leave it there to die. Matter of fact, we weren’t even supposed to put the poor thing out of its misery – legally, we were to let it die slowly and painfully.
Having done my duty, I then declared, “Heck, yeah! Let’s go get him!”
To cover ourselves, Joe called the late Dr. Richard Griffin, a nearby veterinarian, who had one of those Federal Animal Rehabilitation Licenses. “Bring him on,” he invited. “I’m the only vet around who will fool with these things – and I’m the only vet around who is allergic to feathers!” He agreed with me, however, that recovery was unlikely.
Cage and heavy gloves at hand, Joe drove us to a lonely stretch of woods and parked. “He’s somewhere close, if he’s still alive,” he declared. I quickly spied a half-grown barred owl sitting down in the ditch by a stand of ragweeds. He didn’t protest as I donned gloves and gently lifted him up and into the two-milk-crate cage we fashioned.
Dr. Griffin pronounced him apparently unbroken, as far as wings, legs, and keel were concerned. His left eye was cloudy, slightly bloody, and he seemed sore on his right wing and side, nipping at my hand as I stroked him on the right. The vet prescribed a week of antibiotics, and asked us to bring him some owl food. Chicken livers and gizzards to start with, then live mice or lizards later. “Set your traps now,” he advised.
A week later, Stoney was recovering enough to be released to our care here at Brownspur. Since we’ve raised or rehabbed (under Dr. Griffin’s supervision) two full-grown hawks, a great horned owl, and five screech owls, in addition to a dozen possums, half a dozen coons, shrews, snakes, and many other critters, we had experience. Son Adam and I made Stoney comfortable in a larger cage, and thawed venison to feed him. Then dove season opened, and we saved all the hearts and gizzards for him. He loved the gizzards!
Like all the other injured birds we’ve nursed, Stoney seemed to instinctively know that we weren’t going to hurt him. Though he’d pop his beak threateningly, we’ve raised enough owls to realize this was but a part of owl language. The only one to get hurt was me, naturally. When I transferred him to the smaller cage to go to the Swimming Hole with me one afternoon, one of his toes slid between my ring and finger, and I didn’t know it until I tried to put him down, and apparently bent his toe. An owl’s toe is actually a talon, and when he flexed it, it went all the way to the bone. My finger bone, we’re talking! I bled like a stuck hog, slid my ring off, and went for the iodine and a bandaid. Stoney seemed contrite when I returned and we went to swim.
This was his favorite time of day. I’d set his cage on a stool, so that just the top of the brick he stood on was out of the water. He’d drink his fill, and stare fixedly at the hummingbirds working the trumpet vine flowers at poolside. Right at dusk, the dragonfly nymphs would hover nearby, and I’d catch some to feed him. Joe would come visit, as would Jim and the neighbors, bringing dove gizzards.
Adam discovered his love for being stroked. We’d gently scratch him on the back of the neck, and he’d close his eyes and begin to tilt his head straight back, until he was actually looking the opposite way! We knew an owl could turn his head completely around from either side, but didn’t know they could do it going “over the top.” If he’d been a cat, he’d have purred when we did that for him.
We intended to release him that Sunday afternoon three weeks later, and had alerted Joe, Richard, and the neighbors, but Stoney had his own agenda. As I was feeding him that morning, he dropped a piece of venison, and when I reached down to the bottom of the cage to pick it up, he sprang past me to freedom. He flapped across the patio to light on the antlers hanging from the Store (our guesthouse) porch, swung there for a few minutes, then flew to the bay magnolia. From there he soared to the top of the cypress, and that’s where he was when I left for Sunday school, thankful to have hosted him.
by Gaila Oliver | Feb 21, 2017 | Dogs, Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
ELIJAH BUD
That was the name I knew him by. He was impressive, about six feet tall, when he wasn’t lying down, and built heavy, but certainly with no pot gut atall on him. He had a bit of an attitude when teased, but who doesn’t? He was extraordinarily thin-skinned when we first met, but got over it quickly when our friendship warmed up.
He wasn’t really black, but was pretty dark brown. His eyes had a faint yellowish cast to them, and he had a habit of sticking his tongue out at you when frustrated. He was fast, too, though he had a deceptive speed; just when you thought you were catching up, he’d suddenly spurt forward in a dash for the finish line.
We called him Elijah, because his Coming was prophesied by the Ex-Tex. We added Bud later, because of his drinking preference, though it made him ill-humored quickly. Elijah Bud couldn’t hold his liquor very well atall.
I’m not sure how long Elijah Bud had been hanging around our house before I came home unexpectedly and caught him sunning on the patio. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been drinking at the time, but he was almost comatose, nevertheless. Of course, I don’t know much about drinking, myself; you can pour it all back in the horse, far as I’m concerned.
At any rate, his condition led to his obviously being thin-skinned, as mentioned, so he didn’t get to stay inside at first. Later, we suspected that he had at times snuk in and enjoyed the warmth of our bathtub, but at the time, we had no way knowing that. We fixed him up a place to sleep it off on the guesthouse porch, and a neighbor who claimed to know something about needing a little “hair of the dog” brought him a friendly bedtime libation that first night. Actually, our own son seemed to know a great deal about that condition, too. As did the Ex-Tex, when I got around to mentioning a prophecy fulfilled.
That next morning, a raw egg was prescribed for our guest, and that did a lot to restore him to good humor, for a while. Adam really teased him a little more than was necessary later on. It probably didn’t help that the ladies around the house didn’t cotton to him atall, even after I made an attempt to get them closer together. Matter of fact, Betsy even threatened to take a stick to him if he showed up like that again. And Joanna simply withdrew frostily from his presence, which wasn’t entirely ladylike, I felt. Actually, the other guys who weren’t from Brownspur expressed their preference for keeping their distance, too. In retrospect, I guess Elijah Bud did have reason to be upset.
He stayed around a week or so, and actually got relatively clean and sober before he left. I meant to surprise the Ex-Tex by bringing Elijah Bud for a visit to the Sin Den, but I guess our example had spurred a true repentance in him. When I announced my intention to take him to see the Prophet who had foretold his coming, he mulled it over in silence, but took his departure sometime during the night. Adam and I hunted all over for him. Though all our vehicles were still in the driveway, we were certain he had not left on foot. However, he disappeared without a trace, not even a thank-you note.
Elijah Bud wasn’t like us, you see. He had a different raising. He was a different religion, that was obvious from the start. He was also a different skin color. While I claim to be fairly unprejudiced, and have tried to raise my kids to be thataway, I got the impression that Elijah Bud didn’t like our company, in spite of our efforts on his behalf. Was it our skin color? I like to think it was not.
He was pretty low-down, actually, when I stop to think about it. We tried to make friends, but in the long run, he took our food and hospitality, and left without even a word of thanks. But then, his type has always had that reputation, deservedly or not. Will his actions make us prejudiced against his kind from now on? I suspect we’ve all had a deep seated dislike for those with his type skin. Obviously, the ladies felt that way right from the start. At least, we menfolks tried to meet him halfway at first.
Well, as far as we know, he didn’t steal anything when he left Brownspur, if he left. He might be still hiding somewhere around, sneaking in for a quick lay in the bathtub again. I reckon we’ll have to start locking the doors at Brownspur. Betsy even declared that we should consider keeping a loaded gun close by, in case Elijah Bud shows back up.
But then, she’s always had a prejudice toward his kind, especially six-foot chicken snakes who are shedding their skin on her patio! Oh well, he seemed to like Jim’s beer!
by Gaila Oliver | Feb 10, 2017 | Cooking, Dogs, Hunting, sportsmen, wildlife
Our oldest daughter lived in Noo Yawk City for fifteen years, only coming back to Brownspur every couple of years for a visit. She called the Opening weekend of Dove Season (which we celebrate as New Year’s Day!) to say she was getting some vacation time, and would be home for a Thanksgiving visit. Betsy naturally asked what she might request to be on the menu while she was at home, figuring that she might be ready for some good ole homestyle grub.
Christie considered only briefly: “Oh, I’d really like to get Adam and Daddy to save me some dove breasts, and have some marinated, wrapped in bacon, and grilled. Then of course I’d like some of them broiled in your sherry sauce, served over rice, okay? Maybe with some boiled new squash and baby butterbeans? And the grilled doves, obviously Daddy will cook mixed sliced zucchini, peppers, and mushrooms on the grill too, with that balsamic vinegar and olive oil baste? And Barbequed Bananas for dessert.”
She continued, “I’d really like one meal of Adam’s fried venison steaks, rice and gravy, and blackeyed peas, if you’d make a pan of cornbread, too. Do y’all have any ‘sogum molasses’ so we could have hot buttered cornbread with ‘lasses for dessert?”
Betsy was nodding, writing all this down. Christie was just getting warmed up.
“What about one night a venison loin, marinated in soy sauce all day and lightly introduced to a hot fire? And of course, I’d want Daddy’s shish-ka-bob duck breasts, with that orange sauce baste he won the cooking contest with. Do y’all have any rabbits, since the last beagle died? I’d really like some rabbit shish-ka-bobs one night, with that mint sauce baste Daddy invented, and saute some mushrooms to go with the rest of the vegetables on the skewers. Maybe with some homemade wholewheat bread and dewberry jelly, unless you’ve made muscadine jelly this year, then I’d like that. Heck, maybe both!”
Now she was getting enthusiastic. “Duck gumbo! You’ve got to make some duck gumbo, with the deer sausage cut up in it, served over wild rice with some real New Orleans (she went to Tulane) French bread for sopping with! Oh, Mom! I can smell it when I walk in the house, after you’ve been cooking on it the whole day!” By this time Betsy had her over the speaker phone, and I was getting hungry myself.
“I know you’ll have on a crock-pot of venison chili when Daddy brings me home from the airport, that goes without saying. Could I maybe try some of those jalapeno goose breasts that Adam said were so good last year? I’ve never had those, but I’d love to try them. And surely you’ll be making a pot of squirrel and dumplings, like we always have around Thanskgiving? Speaking of Thanksgiving, is Daddy going to slow-smoke a wild turkey over sassafrass coals, like he usually does? Gosh, I can’t wait for that! Be sure you’ve got plenty of Jezebel Sauce made up to go with it, and a pan of cornbread dressing. Did you know that these yankees call it ‘stuffing’? I told them that’s what you do with a big buck when you hang the head on the wall!
“And it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without your Oysters Johnny Reb casserole. Could we have spaghetti squash and some of those baked acorn squash with brown sugar and nutmeg for vegetables? Oh, and one night a big pan of your zucchini lasagna. For breakfast, I’d like your egg, cheese, & sausage casserole, that Tommy Paterson used to call ‘Miss Betsy’s Opening Day Slop,’ every morning, with the homemade wholewheat bread and your strawberry fig preserves!”
Then the crowning feast: “Then, for the last supper before I leave, of course we’ll have fried quail on toast with dewberry jelly, rice and gravy, and lemon meringue pie!”
Betsy was a little sarcastic when she paused. “Okay. Anything else?”
Christie was having no part of it. “Yes’um. Plenty of mint tea, and Daddy’s boiled coffee every morning when I wake up. Can he bring it to me in bed?”
What’s that old saying? “You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl!” This one had been Raised Right! Hardly anything she had named could be bought in a grocery store.
But I draw the line at taking her my Famous Boiled Coffee in bed. At least, not every morning!
by Gaila Oliver | Feb 6, 2017 | Dogs, Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
This is not a religious column.
At a Wednesday night prayer meeting devotion, our preacher was talking about how God knows each of His children so personally, and he likened it to a mother’s being able to tell her own child’s cry from amongst a dozen other kids playing together. “Scotti always knew if one of ours was squalling, even if they were a block away,” he declared.
I had never thought about it thataway before, but now that Jon had called it to my attention, I considered that he had made a rather sexist statement. After all, it takes a daddy and a momma to make kids, so why didn’t he just say that a parent knew the kid?
But he failed to correct himself, so in the car going home, I called it to Betsy’s attention. “Now, I’ve had Lyme Disease, so can’t remember, but I reckon when one of ours was crying amongst a bunch of others, I could tell it, couldn’t I?” I queried my bride.
She snorted, “You couldn’t hear ours cry when they were the only ones in the house and it was two in the morning!” Then she made a further point, sarcastically: “But when that pack of beagles was running a mile away, you could tell each one of their voices!”
Her sarcasm went right over my head. A man is supposed to know each of his dog’s voices, and if these genetic scientists would work on breeding better hunting bays into our kids, instead of trying to breed up left-handed pitchers or nuclear engineers, we’d be getting our money’s worth. Who cares if they can clone sheep? But if they could have cloned the Belle of Brownspur, it would have been a million-dollar deal.
Belle was the matron of our beagle pack, and had one of those classic bays that people write books about. She passed it down to only a couple of her pups, Sam and Miss Adventure, but I could tell the three apart when they ran together. Sam’s was a deeper bass, and Miss Adventure’s was a little more soprano than Belle’s contralto, and Sam drew his out a little longer, though not as long as Bellowin’ Buford’s bay. Buford was a Plott hound, not a beagle, a contemporary of the great Jupiter Pluvius, who had the finest bay a Black-and-Tan ever bayed. Trouble, a Redbone of their age, also had a wonderful bay.
The rest of Belle’s pups, when they ran together as a pack, were easy to tell apart. Eric the Red was coarse-mouthed, more a bawl than a bay. He was the pack’s strike dog. Little Seven had a chop-mouth, and her sibling Thirteen was, to put it frankly, squeaky. One of those pups was unlucky growing up, and the other was uncommonly lucky, but they were a wonderful duet when they ran together, sort of like pulling a harrow with two bad bearings on it. Beaudine, whose brown-spot hairline resembled my brother’s then, had a squally-mouth voice, and was the one who cold-trailed best. Sam was bad to over-run a bunny’s trail, but Beaudine could be depended on to work it out when Sam went astray.
Aunt Rose used to resent being awakened by that pack of beagles running a rabbit through her hedges early in the morning, but Uncle Sam took me aside after her lecture on keeping the little hounds penned up, to say that he enjoyed their concerts, and not to worry about Aunt Rose’s tirades. “Her bark’s worse than her bite,” he winked.
Trigger, the daddy of that pack, never got to run with them, joining in with his high-pitched “Ki-yi-yi!” He caught a truck not long after conception, and never saw his progeny. Angel, his sister, and the pup’s aunt, never saw them either, though Seven inherited her chop-mouth. She was struck by a huge stumptail moccasin, right in our front yard, and died in my arms. The fang marks were over an inch apart, above her eye. Why it didn’t break the little miniature beagle’s neck, I never figured. Never found the snake.
Miss Adventure was the last of that wonderful pack to depart this earth, living to a ripe old age, though only having one litter of her own. We thought she was barren, but late in life she managed to conceive, and bore five pups. They were only a few days old when I found the mother coon that had been run over, leaving two babies orphaned. I brought Smokey and Bandit home and introduced them to beagle mother’s milk, and, lo and behold, Miss Adventure adopted them willingly! The little coons grew up with the little beagles, and the dogs learned to climb trees (at least, as much as their basic equipment allowed), and the coons learned to run rabbits, though they never bayed atall.
Betsy and I talked all this out on the way home, and though I enjoyed the memories, I reckon she made her point, and in doing so, reinforced the preacher’s sermon. I gave up.
