Coop's Corner: Wildlife Day

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Wildlife Day

Just as the sunlight was fading yesterday, we were treated to an amazing light show. It was raining lightly, the low clouds looked as though they were going over at 100 mph; some of them very dark and some almost white, all highlighted by a setting sun that was doing odd things to the landscape.

Late to the show, I only headed outside after some of the best of it had passed, in my shorts and quickly grabbing my camera. Making a circle around our buildings (with my bright orange hoodie), maybe 100 yards at most from the house, I saw no hunters but annoyed almost 20 deer as I walked around the perimeter of our settlement. White tails were flashing all around me, a snort or two up in the woods was all that I could hear over the wind and raindrops.

Never able to keep track of our deer seasons or bothering to, dusk yesterday must have been the end of our first season. We typically have the 2nd week of November with orange suits in the woods, then a week off, and finally a full week again through the Thanksgiving week. No hunters in the early light this morning and as is my habit, I was up early today and saw plenty of moving shadows against the woods and backdrop of standing cornstalks.

This afternoon, there was a turkey invasion; they came.......

They dined.....

and they left......

They don't appear to be very patient creatures. You see them, watch a few seconds, possibly look away and when you once again look for them, they are either going or easily gone.

On the other hand, this young buck was much more deliberate and cautious, moving less and thinking more as he walked down along our line fence. After multiple attempts to find a spot where he could fit his rack through the 7 wires that once (mostly) contained bison, he found a spot that he was able to wedge himself through. The young does simply pop right over the top if pushed in the least......this regal guy wasn't going to expend the effort for any jumping, choosing instead a less strenuous path.

Peg had just closed a door in the house and that seemed to get his immediate attention.

It is surprising that our farmer is able to harvest anything with all of this going on.

10 comments:

RichardMNovember 17, 2013 at 11:09 PM
Nice photo of the young buck...
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TrobairitzNovember 18, 2013 at 8:19 AM
I think they are all out there fertilizing the fields. Good picture of the buck.

Nice that you have the wildlife so close. We had a doe behind our back fence last week. We hadn't seen her in a while. We think her mate was hit up on the road a few weeks ago.
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UnknownNovember 18, 2013 at 6:09 PM
Coop:

You place must be the safest for deer during deer season

bob
Riding the Wet Coast

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VStar LadyNovember 19, 2013 at 9:39 PM
Isn't it great to be able to walk outside and say hello to nature. We've lots of wild turkeys around here - a few deer as well, all of them keep the coyotes well fed!
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DebNovember 19, 2013 at 10:53 PM
Ah, nice post. A world outside your door that used to be mine as well. Oh how I miss it. Soon...
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)