Sitting in a Tree Stand, Listening to Night Sounds (Blog 156)

With the goal of not spooking any deer, I arrived at my Roanoke County, Virginia tree stand during the state's urban archery season extra early this morning.  A heavy fog caused me to drive slowly to the property, but I still managed to arrive about an hour before sunrise.  Not long after arriving, I sat through a performance of a variety of creatures.

Just minutes after I had settled into the stand, I heard a rustling of leaves and feared that a whitetail had already shown up.  But the source was a squirrel that had decided to begin its nut cracking extra early.  Next was a barred owl which began to belt out "who cooks for you, waaaaah" for my pleasure.

I then expected to hear a great-horned owl or perhaps a screech owl to lend their voices, but that did not happen.  Instead a killdeer made its trademark sound, giving this avian the title of the second species to greet the morn.

As daybreak grew closer, more birds began to join in: pileated woodpeckers, blue jays, white-breasted nuthatches, and, of course, crows and ravens.  Later, Carolina chickadees, Carolina wrens, red-bellied woodpeckers, and downy woodpeckers announced that they too were awake.

Interestingly, I did hear a screech owl but it was not until 9:00 A.M. And I did not see but one deer all morning and that one at 9:18 and some 100 yards away.  The deer hunting was poor, but the birding, as it is most days, was interesting.

The Boss Crows (Blog 155)

Bruce Springsteen may be called "The Boss," but in our backyard, he who goes by that name is our  5 1/2-month-old cockerel, Boss.  And at no time since our five heritage Rhode Island Reds (Boss, Johnny, Sweetie Pie, Baby, and Tootsie) arrived last May was this so apparent as it was Wednesday morning when Boss crowed for the first time.

As is his wont, Boss was the first one out of the henhouse, and as I was watching, I noted that he seemed more virile, I guess is the word.  He shook himself, stretched his neck, then emitted a screechy, quarter formed crow with no ending whatsoever.

"Elaine, Elaine," I yelled, and she quickly came running from the house.
"Boss just crowed for the first time, did you hear?"
"No," said Elaine.
But as if on cue, Boss sent forth three more crows, all as weak, poorly formed, and truncated as the first one.
But crows they were as our young cockerel is on his way to being a rooster.  I am so proud of my boy.

First Deer of the Season (Blog 154)

Today is the first day of Virginia's Urban Archery Season, so I went hunting in Roanoke County on a parcel where I have permission.  I have hunted this property a number of times before, and the landowner has asked me to park in one of two places, either by a fence line or next to the barn.

So with high hopes of bringing home a doe, I arrived at the property well before sunrise.  I drove up the lane, unhooked the gate, drove through re-hooked it, and headed toward the barn where I prefer to park.  The barn is only 200 hundred yards from the gate and a "straight shoot." 

Yet somehow I became confused in the dark, bumbled off the track, and couldn't find the barn.  Finally, I re-found the lane, located the barn, and scrambled out of my vehicle with the landscape beginning to lighten.

I then scooted toward the woodlot, some 300 yards distant, found my tree stand, climbed the steps, secured my safety harness, and hand-lined up my bow.  Breathing hard, I noted that dawn had arrived.

Five minutes later at the early stages of shooting light, a doe appeared, and I arrowed her at 6:48.  And after arriving home, Elaine and I spent much of the next three hours, with help from our son-in-law David, butchering the first deer of the season.  I was angry with myself for my nocturnal confusion, but as the proverb states..."sometimes it is better to be lucky than good." I did not do a good job as a deer hunter today, but I was very fortunate to tag a doe.

Scouting for Deer (Blog 153)

Today, I spent much of the mid-afternoon period rambling over two Roanoke County farms as part of my preparation for the county's urban archery season.  Visits to both farms, as well as my earlier pre-season jaunts around Elaine's and my Botetourt County parcel, indicate that acorns are going to be scarce this autumn.

I only found about a half dozen white oak and scarlet oak acorns and they were not overly big for the species.  Although of course, conditions can change, my pre-season hunch is that Southwest Virginia's whitetails will need to be visiting fields and agricultural areas if the animals want nourishment.

Again, though, autumn has not even officially arrived and much can change between now and early October. But I would still doubt that hard mast will be abundant come autumn.

What about soft mast?  Friday, I did locate some persimmons on a tree in our yard and have made note of some grapes.  I would be interested in hearing from other bowhunters.

Elaine and the Corn Snake (Blog 152)

Thursday morning before school, I was working on a magazine article upstairs in my office.  Suddenly, I heard a scream then "Come down here right now!"

Elaine was babysitting our grandson Sam, and I was afraid that something had happened to him.  Bounding down the stairs, I was greeted with another shriek.

"There's a snake under the table!" Elaine yelled.

She then picked Sam up off the floor and plopped him into his crib, which caused the youngster to start crying.  Sam knows when his naptime is and this for sure was not it, and his cries were a protest against this injustice.

"Get that thing out of here, right now," demanded Elaine.

"First, let me see if it is poisonous before I start messing with it," I replied.  "Get me the flashlight so I can see it better under the table."

Elaine retrieved the flashlight and shining the light under the table, I saw a six-inch snake with round eyes, meaning it was not venomous.  Upon further examining its markings, I identified the reptile as a corn snake - a harmless little creature that mostly eats insects at this stage of life.

While I was going into a detailed explanation to my wife on the virtues of corn snakes, she interrupted me.

"Get him out of here, right now."

Using a dust pan, I flipped the snake into the device then released him outside.

Order restored, Sam was removed from his crib, Elaine looked relieved, and I headed for school.

Deer Season Fast Approaching (Blog 151)

Mid August may not be considered "deer season" but for those of us who pursue whitetails, the season is truly fast approaching, and there is much to do.  I have been practicing with my compound bow for well over a month now, and today I want to sight in my Parker Thunderhawk crossbow.  I have ordered a muzzleloader and that as well as my 30.06 rifle will have to be sighted in, too.

Habitat improvement projects have long since started.  Today, my son Mark and I plan to finish mowing the seeded logging road that crisscrosses our Botetourt, Virginia 38-acre spread.  Earlier this week, I limed and reseeded the food plot behind the house.

This week I also obtained a new ladder stand, and that needs to be put up in that same food plot.

Also earlier this week, the deer stripped all the apples from the Rome apple tree in our backyard, which reminded me that I had put off too long the necessity of putting a wire enclosure around the tree.  That, too, will be accomplished today.

The Dolgo crabapple tree is bearing heavily, and it too will have a new enclosure constructed around its perimeter.  Elaine is studying recipes for crabapple tree.  I don't mind the deer eating some of the crabapples, but I do want some of them.

And when the chores are finished, it will be time for me to visit some farmers in Botetourt and Roanoke counties.  I have plenty of farms to hunt in the area, but it never hurts to have a few more.

Highlights of the Summer (Blog 150)

Soon it will be time for me to return to teaching high school English and my summer will be over.  I really cannot complain about my summer, because it has been wonderful.  There have been many highlights. Earlier this week, my son Mark and I floated the James, as he too is about to return to teaching school. 

In June, guide Britt Stoudenmire of the New River Outdoor Company and I fished the New River at night for a magazine article and had a stupendous fishing trip - certainly my favorite one of the summer and also the one where I learned the most.  I also made trips to the Greenbrier River and Second Creek in West Virginia for stories.

Elaine and I picked 10 gallons of wild wineberries and blackberries and she made jam from both (see below) as well as we froze a number of  quart bags for wintertime pies and cobblers.

Our heritage Rhode Island Red chicks that we ordered are now much larger, and we hope to have roosters crowing and hens laying sometime in September.  I worked on the food plot behind the house and hope to have the plot reseeded by the end of August.

All in all, life is good.

Of Grandsons and Chickens (Blog 149)

One of the joys of my life has been Elaine and I spending time with our nearly 14-month-old grandson Sam.  Recently, I decided to teach Sam how to feed bread to our three mature hens: Ruby, Spotty, and Tallulah.

So Sam and I sat down on the front stoop of our house and gave the "lookie, lookie," call which is the cue for the hens to come running.  I gave Sam a piece of bread and announced.

"Sam, feed the chickens!"

Sam's response was to eat the bread.

"No, Sam, feed the chickens," I said as I handed him another piece of bread.

Sam again ate the bread.

Meanwhile, the chicken trio, beside themselves with bread lust, were crowded around Sam.

"Feed the chickens, Sam," I instructed again.

This time, Sam dropped the bread on the stoop and he and Tallulah both tried to grab a piece...which both of them accomplished.  This seemed to make Ruby and Spotty more agitated as they had consumed nothing.

"Sam, feed the chickens!" I tried one last time.

This time, Ruby grabbed the bread from Sam's hand, and she and Spotty took off  with the latter trying to steal the bread from Ruby while Tallulah was off eating her chunk.

I don't think Sam has mastered the whole feeding the chickens thing.

Virginia River Smallmouth Bass Fishing: Rain and More Rain (Blog 148)

For over 10 years year, fellow school teachers Doak Harbison, Tim Wimer, and I have gone on an annual summertime river smallmouth float on a waterway in Virginia or West Virginia.  This year we tried to go on the Rappahannock River, but high water and rain constantly thwarted our plans for the Rap.

Finally, we decided to go close to home on the James in Botetourt County.  The weather looked perfect: only a 20% chance of rain on Friday afternoon and a rainless Saturday morning, but an afternoon replete with thunderstorms.  That forecast was acceptable because we planned to complete our trip before noon. Friday's fishing was fine (and the weather was beautiful as the picture below of Doak and Tim shows).

And we even experienced a pleasant evening around a campfire.

But such was not the case on Saturday morning.  As a light sleeper, I was awoken early by the patter of rain.  And soon afterwards the rain began to fall heavier and we had to end our outing.  There is nothing like breaking camp and becoming miserably wet - the mosquitoes seem to flourish around wet humans.  But such is life sometimes, it has been a summer of tomatoes afflicted with fungus and river fishing trips that never were or ended prematurely.

Making Wild Berry Jam (Blog 147)

Bruce has been picking berries every day….. starting with raspberries, a rare and precious fruit, then wineberries, and now on to blackberries.  I rarely pick, leaving the plowing through brush and brambles to him, but once the berries come inside the house I am on deck.

This week I made a batch of blackberry jam.  Boiling the jars to sterilize them, boiling the mashed berries with sugar and pectin to make the jam, boiling the water in the canner to process the jars……at times I was boiling as well. 

Canning brings to mind the memory of my mother working in the relative cool of the basement over an old gas stove, the best spot to do a hot job in the days before air conditioning.  Like she did, I wear an apron to protect my clothes and keep a tea towel to wipe the sweat from my face .

 But the final result is worth the effort.  Little jars of summer, jewel-colored, giving a happy “pop” as they cool from the water bath.  Little jars of joy

Of an Imperfect Daisy, Rabbits, and Coyotes (Blog 146)

I have been working on a magazine article on coyotes, which will be out sometime next year.  As part of the assignment, I have been trying to take pictures of some of the creatures that coyotes consume, which includes rabbits.  After all, what prey animal that exists doesn't eat Eastern cottontails.

Every morning I walk three miles after breakfast and often see bunnies along the rural road near our Botetourt County, Virginia home.  Finally, the thought dawned on me that I ought to take  my camera with a telephoto lens along on my morning jaunts.  Many, many mornings, the rabbits allow me to come quite close to them.

Predictably on the first morning that I toted my Nikon camera, all rabbits seen were at least 20 yards away and all bolted when I tried to move closer.  It was as if the D5100 pointed at them were some kind of doomsday weapon.

After several failed stalks, I gave up on the idea of capturing a cottontail on film - at least for that morning - and decided to see what else was about.  At last, I came across a common daisy, growing out of a thin layer of dirt intermixed with roadside gravel.

The daisy was rather shriveled in appearance, maybe because of its hardscrabble circumstances and its form was not typical as its petals were droopy.  But in this common plant's ability to eke out a precarious existence there on the roadside made it a noble photo opportunity.  There is often beauty in the smallest things.

A Memorable July 4th at Home (Blog 145)

Yesterday, Elaine and I awoke to find that our basement had flooded and that our chicken run was on the verge of collapse - the torrential rains from the past few days playing a part.  Elaine spent much of the day vacuuming water from the downstairs while I had a friend come over to study about what to do with the run.

After I worked on two magazine articles, I went gathering wineberries for two hours and ended up picking a quart, which we froze for the winter.  If I can average gathering a quart of wineberries a day for the next fortnight, then do the same with blackberries for the following two weeks, we should have enough in the freezer for future pies and cobblers.  Of course, some of the berries will be made into jam.

The highlight of the day was going to our daughter Sarah's and her husband David's house for dinner. Our one-year-old grandson Sam is now walking.  It is fascinating to watch him follow our conversations now and to see him laugh when we laugh.  It is all part of learning how to be a social human.

Our chickens, despite their coup problems, even enjoyed the Independence Day celebration, as they were rewarded with a slab of watermelon.

Virginia's Wild Berry Season Begins (Blog 144)

For the past few days, I have been wandering our 38 acres in Botetourt County in search of the first wild berries of the season.  Elaine and I try to gather about 10 to 12 gallons of berries every year, and we are anxious to start our picking.

So far, only about three cups of raspberries have trickled in, but today I espied the first two ripe wineberries of the summer.  And I noted that the blackberries have started turning red from green.  Even a few dewberries have changed to red.

Picking wild berries is part of our quest to be as self-sufficient as possible.  Coupled with the deer and turkeys that I kill, what we grow in our garden, and the eggs our chickens produce, we do all right in this regard.

Right now, it is impossible to tell if we will be able to gather enough berries to supply all our jams, pies, and cobblers for the next year.  I also noted this morning that competition exists for our fruits. At one of my favorite wineberry patches, which lies adjacent to our food plot, a rather large creature had cut a huge swathe through the vines.  No doubt a black bear has found our patch.

Leader of the Flock...Boss or Johnny? (Blog 143)

Our heritage Rhode Island Reds are now 11 weeks old, and in not too many more weeks, our two cockerels, Boss and Johnny, will be crowing.  Elaine has made it abundantly clear that she does not care for Boss, who stands beak and head taller than Johnny and much more than that over the three hens.

Elaine calls Boss a "bully" for his constant badgering of Johnny and, frankly to a lesser extent, every other member of our flock of five.  I don't imagine that Boss will ever stop bullying Johnny, but I do believe he will become more solicitous of the hen trio, as they and he mature.

I am not sure at which age a cockerel will start sharing his food with the hens, as our late industrial R.I.R rooster Little Jerry was very attentive to the hens and as soon as he would come across any morsel would sound the food call.  But I can't remember at what age he began to do that.

The picture below shows Boss on the far left.  Johnny is completely out of the picture (the birds are in our chicken tractor) as he spends a great deal of his time avoiding Boss.  In any event, I want to keep both Boss and Johnny, but the time may come when Johnny is kept in a separate enclosure.

Elaine Names the New Chickens (Blog 142)

Well, Elaine has officially named the five heritage Rhode Island Red chicks that we ordered from California.  The two cockerels have been dubbed Boss (for obvious reasons) and Johnny (after the main male character in Dirty Dancing.  Boss is currently riding roughshod over Johnny and won't let the latter move about without giving him periodic angry stares and the random chest bump.

Two of the pullets have been named Sweetie Pie and Baby (as nobody puts Baby in the corner, again from Dirty Dancing). Sweetie Pie is the prettiest of the young females.  She has a white face, whereas everyone else features a brown one.  It will be interesting to see if her face remains that pale.

The fifth chicken Elaine has given the appellation Tootsie, from the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie.  Brice Yocum, whom we bought the chicks from, told us he was unsure of the sex of this bird (they were eight weeks old when shipped, now they are  10 weeks old).  Elaine's reasoning was that since Tootsie could be either male or female, Tootsie would be a nice safe name.

However, I am now about 80% sure that Tootsie is a female.  Boss has shown no interest in thrashing Tootsie, which is another clue that she might be a female.

Heritage Rhode Island Red Chicks Growing Restive (Blog 141)

We have now had our five heritage Rhode Island Red chicks (they were 8 1/2 weeks old when they arrived) for nine days and they are growing quite restless.  During the day, we keep them outside in our chicken tractor as much as is possible, but in the evening they come inside and spend the night in a fenced end enclosure in our basement.

Our three production Reds (Ruby, Little Spotty, and Tallulah) were not kind to the five birds when they arrived. Ruby, in fact, pulled a mass of feathers from the newcomer we have named Sweetie Pie.  We were fearful that Ruby would have killed the smaller members of the quintet if we had left the new flock in the chicken run.

Yet this morning it is obvious that the heritage flock cannot remain inside much longer.  When we came downstairs to check on them, four of the five were perched on their fence.  It seems it will be only a matter of time before they decide to "bust out" of their enclosure permanently and wander around the basement.

What to do, what to do.

Heritage Rhode Island Red Chicks Arrive (Blog 140)

Yesterday began Elaine's and my foray into raising heritage Rhode Island Red chickens.  Brice Yocum, who operates Sunbird Farms in California, shipped us five eight-week-old birds which arrived in much confusion.  Brice shipped them overnight on Tuesday, but the quintet did not arrive on Wednesday or Thursday morning.

When we began to fear for the birds' survival, as they were traveling from California to Botetourt County, Virginia, Elaine received a call from the Troutville Post Office that they had arrived and needed to be picked up by noon.

Once here, though, the youngsters seemed none the worse for their cross country junket, and after I put them in the chicken tractor, the chicks began busily foraging. Our daughter Sarah and grandson Sam also came over to see the newcomers. The next problem was introducing them to our two-year-old chickens: Ruby, Little Spotty, Tallulah, and Dot.

Predictably, Ruby, our alpha female, erupted in loud squawking and bit a chunk of feathers out of one of the chicks.  Dot, who often pecks us, attacked one of the chicks and was about to do so to another one.  But Dot had picked on the largest of the chicks, which I already had identified as the alpha male of the two young roosters that arrived.

The cockerel stood his ground at Dot's advance, flared his wings to make himself look bigger, and, to my great interest, Dot quickly backed down.  This cockerel clearly has potential as a future flock leader.

First Strawberries of the Season (Blog 139)

This Saturday, Elaine and I spent the morning performing chores that I had neglected because of my turkey hunting trips in Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee.  We put new mats in the hen house, planted sweet potatoes and chives, and I swept out the wood chips and straw that had accumulated in the garage.

But the most pleasurable thing I did was gather the first strawberries of the season from our garden.  As always, I brought the berries to Elaine and told them they were all for her.  Typically, given how sweet she is, Elaine offered to let me have them all or at least to share them.  But the first strawberries of the season should always go to someone who is my best friend/girlfriend/helpmate/wife.

We have a lot of projects to accomplish this Memorial Day Weekend, as I don't return to teaching school until Tuesday.  We are going to gather up leaves from our woods and dump a huge pile in the chicken run.  I am betting the birds will be thrilled to explore this gift to them.

Then I have to do some wood cutting, as several more dead or dying trees on our 38 acres need to be cut, and they are just the right size for firewood.  But the most wonderful part of the holiday is spending lots of time with Elaine.

Eating Locally (Blog 138)

Yesterday for dinner, Elaine and I sat down for a meal where most of what we ate came from local food sources.  The entrée was venison burger, which came from a deer that I killed on a farm 4.1 miles from our house.  Topping our burgers were onions from our garden.

Our green vegetable was asparagus that I picked a few minutes before from our backyard garden.  Elaine sautéed the asparagus in olive oil.  Also from our garden were some chives that were harvested at the same time the onions and asparagus were.  The chives went on our baked potatoes.

Of course, it is too soon for potatoes from any garden in Southwest Virginia where we live, and our whole wheat bread didn't come from our land, either.  But all in all, I think the meal was a good example of leaving a small carbon footprint.  The only downside was that we were too full to have some blackberry jam (made from blackberries I picked behind our house last July) slathered on toast.

West Virginia Turkey Hunting in the Rain (Blog 137)

After finishing up my turkey hunting in Virginia last week, I turned to spring gobbler hunting in West Virginia this week, taking a half day off school as part of our personal leave program on Friday and spending all morning in the woods on Saturday.

Friday, I called two different gobblers in but did not see either one of them - not surprising given the mountainous terrain I was hunting in the Mountain State.  Saturday was a miserable one, spent on a cold, breezy, rainy mountaintop.

Around 8:30, I heard a hen yelp and several minutes later two hens meandered in.  Unfortunately, no gobbler was in tow, so the females left the way they came after taking a look around and not seeing the fellow hen (me) that had called to them.

I knew the conditions would be miserable, but I enjoy spring gobbler hunting so much that I went anyway.  Over the years, I have killed very few spring gobblers when precipitation was taking place, but the more I dogo in the rain, the more I am beginning to believe that precipitation is largely irrelevant to turkeys.

The exception would be when a heavy rain is falling.  I have never seen any gobblers when that was taking place, only a few bedraggled hens.

I will be able to take one more vacation day from school and one more Saturday is left in West Virginia's season if I want to punch a tag as the coming week is the last one in the season.