by Gaila Oliver | Jul 12, 2017 | Cooking, Hunting, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
This is not a religious article.
On the other hand, I was raised to use the Bible and religion as a part of life, in growing up, and ain’t got over that. While cruising down the Interstate recently (on my way to prison, actually, for a Christian Prison Ministry Reunion), I noticed a sign from a distance (I can see great at a distance, but my arms get short holding the hymnbook) that proclaimed “Jesus” on the front end. What a great way to witness, I thought. Sort of like those signs which have been appearing “from God” on roadsides, as in “Be still and know that I am God.” Or, “Come on over to my house before the ball game, and bring the kids.”
Then I got a little closer. That sign said, “Jesus was a vegetarian.”
“Jesus who?” I asked Betsy, pointing it out. Whoever put that sign up obviously did not have in mind the Son of God, who ate lamb and fish, for sure, though I’ll grant that the Bible is kind of weak on mentioning Christ eating marinated venison loin and shish-ka-bob mallard. That could be because I am not old enough to be specifically included in that book, but if there’s an update in the works, I KNOW the Heavenly-inspired writer will have to make reference to my rabbit shish-ka-bob, my char-broiled bass, and Betsy’s duck gumbo, as well as my sassafras-smoked turkey and Adam’s crawfish etouffe.
Turned out, as we got close enough to read the fine print, that the sign was put up by one of those groups who espouse never hurting anything but other folks’ feelings, so they probably were thinking of Jesus Carrouthers, whom I believe flunked out of Ole Miss when we were sophomores. I had never thought about it before, but that Jesus could have been a vegetarian, sho’nuff. I never saw him eat anything atall, for that matter; he seemed to get all the nourishment he needed out of liquids which came in cans, mostly. Seems like he was a member of the Knights of Alcohol fraternity, though I could be wrong.
Myself, I always figured that the Miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 was when the Lord inspired flat sardines. The kid who had the “two fishes” probably really had the boat lunch for he and his dad on their fishing trip, and they stopped to hear the Lord’s message, after which the boy wanted to share his sardines and crackers with Christ. If they had been the kind that are packed in mustard sauce (which is also Biblical), there wouldn’t have been all those leftover baskets, I guarantee! I’ve seen a dozen guys at turkey camp make a lunch off of a couple cans of flat sardines, so it’s not hard to believe 5,000 folks feasted on the same amount, what with Jesus (Christ, not Carrouthers) to supervise the sharing.
Some kid came down from college with my daughter once, and expressed disfavor on the eating of meat which had been killed. That was before Betsy started stirring around the kitchen with Venison Stroganoff, which is so good that Jesus (Christ, not Carrouthers) would have ordered it for the Last Supper, assuming He approved of substituting Venison for the Lamb. If not, Betsy could have simply made Lamb Stroganoff for Him.
After we had insisted on helping the college kid keep to his standards by serving him squash & onion casserole while we ate the Stroganoff made with dead deer meat, we pointed out that he had on leather shoes, leather belt, and a leather billfold, all of which was (hopefully) processed after the steer was deceased. Oh, he didn’t mind that, nor chicken sandwiches and hamburgers. Pointing out that the contributing hens and cows had not died of old age before being pressed into service at fast food joints helped. After considerable discussion, he ended up eating two helpings of Venison Stroganoff, rather than give up all the accouterments of modern life made from dead animals.
How do these people miss all the obvious references in the Bible to eating meat? Since God (the Father of Jesus Christ, not Carrouthers) early on considered the odor of barbecue to be worthy of a sacrifice in Old Testament times (which caused the first murder, when Cain – who may have been an ill-tempered vegetarian — wasn’t as good a cook as Abel), man has been cooking meat and sharing it with even the angels. Would you want to worship a God who wanted burnt onions as a sacrifice back then?
Of course, if they’re referring to Jesus Carrouthers, I could care less. But for all the drivers who see that billboard and know anything atall about the real Jesus, I guess it is a constant source of humor, as well as a monument to ignorance.
Hey, the real Jesus ate meat, folks; but He loves even the ones who don’t know it.
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 5, 2017 | Robert Hitt Neill, Uncategorized
Prior to the June 2nd Grand Opening of the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum, President Billy Johnson, Sec/Treas Bob Neill, and Director Gaila Oliver were sort-of-frantically trying to get the correct names of the hundreds of antique fishing lures which had been collected to go in the special display case that used to be the old hardware store’s nut and bolt bin. Billy had the idea of cleaning out that pigeon-holed bin, painting it a light color, and using the holes for display of the lures.
The process was working thisaway: Gaila was writing Billy’s (the Fishing Expert) dictation of names and makers of the lures, then sending those in two pages to the next-door Museum Office where Uncle Bob was typing the labels and sending them back to be stuck under the correct holes to identify the artifacts. The Runner betwixt and between was Unc’s 8-year-old GrandBoy, Leiton Irwin.
Understand this was going on late Wednesday afternoon before the Grand Opening Friday morning. We’d all been working 15-hour days for a couple of weeks. Hard to concentrate, short tempers, senior moments — all were the Order of the Day.
When Expert Billy couldn’t come up with the names of a couple of lures, it delayed Gaila’s listing, and Leiton was right there ready to run that list to his Grunk (Granddaddy Uncle Bob, shortened), the boy waited while The Expert fussed about he couldn’t “remember nothing no more!” Then the youngster held out his hand and asked, “Can I see those?”
“Yeah, sure, Kid! Take the dang things!” Billy handed them over, hooks and all.
And the 8-year-old declared, ” This one’s a Crazy Crawler, by Heddon, and this one… is a Jitterbug, by Arbogast.” He handed the lures back to the nearly speechless Fishing Lure Expert.
Billy blinked and stuttered, “How did YOU know that, Boy??!!”
And Leiton pointed out innocently: “The name is stamped on the bottom of all these lures.”
Ahhh, Youth! We finished the rest of the exhibit in jig time! (Excuse the pun!)
by Gaila Oliver | May 16, 2017 | Hunting, Robert Hitt Neill, Shooting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, Wild Turkey Hunting, wildlife
It was a lovely clear early summer Friday afternoon, just right for an outdoor oriented family to visit their cabin on one of the River islands, catch a few white perch or bream, or maybe a bass or two. They had brought steaks to grill, as well as hot dogs and marshmallows for the kids around the campfire that night. No one else was on the 10,000 acre island, so they’d have it to themselves – perhaps even a little skinny-dipping expedition to the north rim while the two kids went for a bike ride on the woods roads, pedaling quietly to catch deer or wild turkeys off guard.
But first they drove the jeep up to the cabin to unload their gear for the weekend, arriving just in time to see the only other camp resident in sight disappear under their house – a skunk! The tin skirting around the dwelling had been pulled loose at one back corner for some needed plumbing repair during turkey season, and someone had neglected to nail it back securely.
The mother refused to enter the cabin knowing that a skunk was underneath it, and directed that the father rid her abode of such a mal-olfactoried occupant, as soon as possible if not sooner. The suggestion that they go fishing first was summarily dismissed, for “How will we know if he has left or not?”
The father put his thinking cap on. Hanging on one outside wall was his “doodle-socking” pole, a long stiff cane pole with about a foot of heavy line on the smaller end, to which an oversize Lucky 13 lure was attached. Inspiration hit!
Kneeling at the open corner where the tin skirting was askew, father and son were able with a flashlight to see the skunk grubbing about unconcernedly under the cabin. The father engaged the cooperation of his twelve-year-old boy in the venture, which would soon turn into an adventure. “I’m gonna back the Jeep up to this corner, while you take this pole and real easy maneuver the Lucky 13 to just the other side of the skunk. Then when I give the signal, you jerk the hooks into the skunk’s hide, and run hard as you can with that pole to the back of the Jeep and jump in. If you don’t ever give him any slack line, he won’t be able to spray, and we’ll just drag him out of camp aways to turn him aloose.”
Such an opportunity is seldom presented to an outdoorsy boy, so the kid was suitably enthusiastic, and began to slowly slide the Lucky 13 around behind the skunk, as his daddy backed the Jeep to the appointed spot, shifted it from reverse to first, revved the motor once, and nodded “Go!” to his son.
“Jerk!” and the little animal was snagged by the oversize hooks just behind the ears. As instructed, the boy jumped to his feet and ran for the back of the Jeep, keeping a tight line on the pole. The vehicle scratched off as the kid grabbed the bumper, and away they flew. As prophesied, the skunk wasn’t able to spray the camp, and was 100 yards down the road before he could even assess his situation.
Which he then did, and was infuriated. He knew exactly who was causing his pain and indignation, and intended to remedy the situation. When the father turned around to tell his son to pull the pole in and cut the line, he was amazed to see that the boy was frantically playing the skunk almost like he would a big bass, except trying to keep the skunk away from the bumper. The stout pole was BENT, and the little animal was angrily galloping behind the Jeep with the obvious intent of boarding the vehicle and exacting his revenge upon the occupants at close range! There was twelve feet of pole and another foot of line, but the skunk wearing the Lucky 13 was less than six feet from the bumper, and gaining!
The father put the pedal to the metal, but it was still another quarter mile before the skunk tired of the chase and dropped back a little. In the excitement, the son had dropped the pocketknife with which to cut the line, so Dad yelled to just chunk the entire rig overboard, and they sped away, the mad skunk still in pursuit.
So, if you see a skunk wearing an oversize Lucky 13… now you know!
by Gaila Oliver | Apr 27, 2017 | Bird Watching, Hunting, Shooting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, Wild Turkey Hunting
HOW DO YOU STOP A TURKEY FROM CHARGING?
As the old joke goes, you take away his credit card, of course.
That never worked for me, I was thinking as turkey season rolls around again. One of the reasons I have to take a box of shotgun shells with me on a weekend turkey hunt, is for self defense. Many times, wild turkeys get so close to me that a hand grenade would be a better weapon.
Why not shoot them when they’re farther away? Good question.
I’m not the type turkey hunter who holds with rifles, which are illegal in many states now anyway, praise the Lord. Therefore, a gobbler has got to be within shotgun range before I take a whack at him, or inside forty yards. That’s a long shot, and not advisable, for ethical reasons, so thirty yards is what I consider optimum. Then, you remember what President Andy Jackson said at the Battle of New Orleans: “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!” Of course, he was shooting Brits, not turkeys, but the principle is the same: Closer is better, at least until they get within bayonet range.
With the Brits, Andy had his troops hidden behind cotton bales, or some such battlements, and they had their guns to their shoulders, ready to fire. With wild turkeys, hunters seldom keep their guns shouldered for the whole morning, unless they hear an approaching bird gobble. Being mostly deaf, I hardly ever hear it thunder, much less hear a turkey gobble. Therefore, of probably 400 turkeys I have fired at, probably 350 of them never made a sound, at least as far as I knew of. They just appeared, sticking their old red head out from behind a tree trunk 25 yards away, and me with my gun across my lap, or lying on the ground by my left hand, since I shoot from the left shoulder.
The guy who thinks he can draw on a turkey (as in “fast draw,” or “even break,” gunfighter style) is a guy who buys his turkey dinners at the grocery store. Your option, when a gobbler appears like this at 25 yards, is to wait until his head goes behind a tree in his approach, then swing your gun into action before he steps out.
Most of the time, remember, the hunter has been sitting there, camouflaged, patiently calling like a hen who would like for a big strong gobbler to come make love to her. That’s why the gobbler’s head turns red, much like a human man in the same circumstances has a blood rush. He expects to see a hen as he approaches, ready for some action, all worked up, and then – bingo! He sees movement!
And he charges, one thought in mind! LOVE!!!!
Please don’t misunderstand me: I have never had a gobbler make love to me. That is a great reason to carry a shotgun to the woods, actually, to keep that from happening.
What I’m trying to explain is the reason turkeys frequently charge me, and I firmly believe that my deafness is a major factor in my hunting experience. Other hunters don’t seem to have the problem, or maybe just don’t admit it.
My favorite shotgun, French Gun, had the stock broken when I swung it at a charging turkey I had already fired one shot at before he got within bayonet range – too close for a second shot! That was not the first turkey I had clubbed with that gun, nor was it the last for its successor, SouthPow, the left-handed 870 Remington. I actually had one gobbler run inside the little screen of branches I had stuck into the ground around me to camouflage my movements. As far as I know, he is still going, somewhere. It’s somewhat embarrassing to have a turkey close enough to touch and come away empty-handed.
Adam and Zac Whaley once had a turkey gobbler nicknamed Fast Eddie that close. Fast Eddie had a technique of slipping up behind a hunter, then sprinting around the tree they were blinded against, circling their blind within bad-breath-detecting range, and exiting around the other side of the tree before a shot had been fired. It brings to mind the custom some Indian tribes had of “coup-counting.” A warrior was had up for exceptional bravery when he rode into battle armed with, instead of a bow and arrow, a piece of 2X4, and could ride up close enough to a foe to touch him with the board, and still get away. I have always wondered if turkeys have the same sort of honor society. If so, there’s a whole room full of trophies devoted to those toms who have counted Neill coups!
I don’t mind. I’ve gotten my share, if I never get another one. And I’ve developed my own defense: I charge them right back! At the shot, I’m jumping to my feet and going after the gobbler, four more shells in the gun, and a bayonet when I run out of shells!
So if you ever read the headline, “Man Killed by Turkey,” well, now you know!
by Gaila Oliver | Mar 27, 2017 | Uncategorized
Some of us were cussing and discussing the recent weather last month. One guy was a duck hunter who depended on the rain for water holes to hunt on, and on prolonged freezing weather up Nawth to send ducks down here to light on the potholes so he could shoot at them. He wasn’t happy: “We ain’t had a duck season in four or five years!” he grouched. I thought it had been longer than that.
The next guy was a fisherman almost exclusively, but he declared that the fish weren’t biting even though the weather at the time was in the sixties and the water levels were about right in the oxbow lakes he frequented. “It ain’t hardly worth going these days,” though everyone knew he’d be fishing that next weekend.
Another guy was a deer hunter, and complained of mosquitoes driving him out of the woods the day before. “Heck, if I’da killed a deer yesterday, it’d have spoilt before I got it back to camp!” he observed.
This is an aside, but in spite of what some clubs require, I’ve always field dressed (“gutted”) my deer as soon as they hit the ground, and I’ve always had great tasting venison. Some folks will shoot a deer at 8:00 o’clock, drag it out to the road, wave down a jeep coming in for lunch, load the deer up and take it to camp, hang it on the skinning rack, eat lunch, take a nap, then field dress the deer in mid-afternoon. Then they say, “I give all my deer meat away, ‘cause it tastes gamey!” Lordee, the finest corn-fed steer in the world would taste gamey if you left the innards in it for six hours after you killed it!
Then the deer hunter stated, “I’m tempted to quit hunting deer and go to scouting for wild turkeys now, although I know it’s ‘way too early for the turkeys to be gobbling and working to a call.”
Not necessarily. Late one deer season it had turned cold again and I was on one of the River islands at daylight one morning, shivering up against a sweetgum tree on the side of a brushy draw. Somewhere south of me a hound bayed, and moments later, I saw the gleam of antlers coming up the draw. A buck broke clear of the brush and stopped as he topped the far ridge, about 50 yards away. He was east of me, and the sun was just rising beyond him. He posed, looking first over his shoulder, then toward me, then across the ridge he’d stopped on. He made a beautiful picture, his breath rising in frosty mist that shone like diamonds as the sun’s rays gleamed on his wide 8-point antlers. I had a mental picture that I’ll never forget as I pulled the trigger.
The 30/06 boomed, the buck collapsed neck-shot, and a wild turkey double-gobbled! Just like that: one, two, three!
My ears always ring after I fire a rifle, so I thought maybe they were playing tricks on me. “Was that a turkey?” I wondered, as I stooped to pick up my seat cushion and coffee thermos. Just to check, I called back: “Yawk, yawk, yawk!”
I started across the draw to field dress my trophy, and halfway across, durned if the gobbler didn’t answer me, with another double gobble. He was also east of me, toward the sun, so I slowed and peeked over the ridge before I topped it. Once more I yelped – I call with my mouth – and once more the turkey gobbled back. I chuckled, set my cushion and Thermos down, leaned my rifle against a persimmon sapling, took my coat off, and pulled out my scabbard knife. It only took a minute to perform the first couple of you-can’t-write-it-in-the-paper rituals involved in gutting a deer, then I rolled the buck over to slit him open from stem to stern. Steam rose from the cut as I knelt astraddle the deer to cut around the diaphragm, then I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.
That crazy gobbler strutted up to me out of the sun, as the steam from the opened-up buck mingled with the frost of my own breath. Had the gun been closer, I might have taken home double trophies. I stayed still and yelped softly at him, provoking another double-gobble in a full strut. He came within ten yards, then the hound bayed again back down in the draw and spooked the turkey.
It was a great morning – don’t ever try to predict what a wild turkey will do!
by Gaila Oliver | Mar 3, 2017 | Bird Watching, Hunting, sportsmen, Uncategorized, wildlife
I told you about Stoney, the half-grown barred owl Joe and I rescued from an automobile accident (actually, he flew into the side of Joe’s pickup) with the help of Dr. Richard Griffin, the late vet who was allergic to feathers. After almost a month of recuperation, helped along by antibiotics for the first week or so, Stoney faked me out during a morning feeding session, and proved that he was healthy enough to be released into the wild again.
For the next week or so, he hung around the house, probably hoping for more feeding or scratching sessions. He’d gotten addicted to having the back of his head scratched, during which he’d keep bending his head backwards into the scratching fingers until he was facing plumb the opposite way – from over the top! I knew an owl could turn his head slap around sideways, but had never known (or read either!) that he could turn it backwards from straight up. He loved being scratched!
He apparently formed another habit: late in the afternoon I’d carry him in his large milk-crate cage to the Swimming Hole with me. I kept a metal stool out there that I’d submerge in the shallow end, then place Stoney’s cage on it. He had a brick in there to stand on, and I’d ease the cage into the water to where just the top of the brick was out. Stoney would drink his fill, and snatch at dragonfly nymphs that came out right at dusk. It was a regular ritual for the two of us.
The first few times he came back, I saw him perched above the patio, where we usually fed him venison or dove gizzards (it being dove season when we hosted him). Then I heard him on several nights, hooting his low “Who-who-who cooks for you” calls from the pecan tree outside our bedroom window, or from the dead locust tree in the persimmon grove. One night he was being regularly answered by another owl from the ditchbank at the back of the yard, and so I knew Stoney must be reaching puberty.
With all our young wild pets over the years – a dozen possums, half-dozen coons, four screech owls, etc – we’ve had a hard and fast rule: we’d turn them loose when they reached puberty. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a coon, possum, screech owl, or teenaged boy – when they fall in love, you can’t tell them another doggone thing, so you might as well turn them aloose!
Obviously, we had turned Stoney loose in the nick of time, and I figured we’d never see him again, at least, to know it was our Stoney we were looking at.
Then our neighbor came over one day, a full month after the owl’s release. “I just saw Stoney!” he cried.
“How’d you know it was him?” we asked Jim, hoping it was so, but doubting proof.
“Well, I drove up to my pond, and there was something over at the shallow end, just standing there. So I eased up closer to see what the heck it was – a new type heron, or something, I figured – and durned if it wasn’t an almost-grown barred owl, sitting there in water up over his legs just as calm as you please! Where else except Brownspur would you expect to find an owl wading around in the pond?”
Had to have been Stoney, we reckoned. He’s obviously adapted to a new method of feeding, and my bet is that the dragonfly population will decline drastically here at Brownspur for the next few years. What will his kids end up doing – living on tadpoles and minnows?
Oh, No!! What about our neighbors to the south, who have catfish ponds? They’re having enough trouble now with cormorants – what if they find out I’ve adapted the owl population to wading in ponds and eating the inhabitants thereof?
Will the Brownspur owls then begin to grow longer legs, like flamingos or whooping cranes, to further adapt to their feeding places? Will their beaks get longer? Where are the evolution theorists when we really need them?! Will their majestic hoots become just loud gargles? We need help out here, you biologists!
So, if in the near future you spot a barred owl wading in your fishpond – well, offer to scratch behind his head. If he likes that, it’s got to be Stoney, or one of his progeny!
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 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.
