Milkweed for Dani
In November. The air is like taffy, pull off a piece, crisp, bright, sharp, twist it up and enjoy....pumpkin pie flavored maybe. Just breathing is an adventure in brisk.
If I am slow to post it is the absence of usual help and the addition of feeding (and trying to figure out WHEN the boss is going to feed-the man is allergic to routine, won't tell me when he's ready and gets mad as a hornet if I don't show up on time...ten in the morning, four in the afternoon...arrggghhhhh) to my daily chores. I don't mind feeding, but it would be nice to be able to plan.
Most of the leaves are down, but the oaks across the river sport bright gold, and green and russet, layered like an expensive hair cut and shining in the angled sun.
Birds are bright too, hi chickadee from the clothesline, creaky, beaky, blue jays teetering on the tube feeder. Crows on high, very high this fall for some reason, and just a smattering of passing geese. Word is they are off to the west of here, scrounging through the harvested corn fields, gleaning up gold for winter.
Here and there a late monarch. Sometimes a few caterpillars.
Coyotes on the lawn, spooking the horses.
Yowsa! What!
Broad daylight, high noon. No wonder the cows have been acting strange and Wally the blue heeler has been barking all day. I don't like this.We have kitties and hens and beloved dogs, all just menu items to the grey and brown haunts of the hedgerows. They are welcome to around 300 of our acres, but they need to leave the vicinity of the house and buildings.
All week, I have been reading the comments of comfortably-insulated, non animal owning, smug urban folks on a friend's blog on this topic and seething. They know just how we should deal with the proximity of creatures that plot to eat our livestock.And their plans do not include lead projectiles. We should just find a way to get along with the cute little critters kumbaya....
I am not going to link and get into it, but damn Disney anyhow. They have a lot to answer for in my opinion. Once animals started walking on their hind feet, dressing in suits and talking and singing it was all over for common sense wildlife management.
Why would we not want a large predator in our back yard? Hmmmmm.....just can't imagine.
They make a great furry cape for draping over the throne? Wrapping the babies in? Don't have to drag them so far once you shoot them? Easier to take pictures of as they prowl looking for something to cull...
ReplyDeleteSince they are coming closer, they are being crowded by other predators in the wild, towards the empty (of their kind).
The other night I heard coyotes howling and yipping and (I know they can throw their voices somehow, but) I swear they were not a hundred feet from the house.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with you. Disney holds much of the blame. Heard about a city girl who wanted to see her friends pigs. She walks in and begins talking to them over and over and begins to get fustrated. Finally asks why aren't the pigs talking back to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Bambi thing, a whole other rant.linda
.223 in a Savage way should do the trick. According to a friend--who's pretty proviceint in the application of said dosage--it works on distant ground hogs too.
ReplyDeleteWe've seen one on the hill in Glen a few times that came quite close. Makes me a little nervous when they don't seem to fear people.
ReplyDeleteIt's always easy to come up with answers, when it isn't you problem, isn't it? Animals are here for our benefit, not the other way around. That doesn't mean we are to abuse them, but in the end, we are the ones who have to decide how to deal with them and we are supposed to be smart enough to understand, they do not think like us!
ReplyDeleteYou know, some of us have a lot of say in an animals life because we deal with many types, every day. Damn Walt Disney and those who helped to screw the minds of so many up, over the years!
JB and Earl say it well. We have a motto here Shoot, Shovel and Shut-up (real heavy on the shot up part)........but we live far enough away from "those" people that it actually works.
ReplyDeleteA lot of city people know all about a life we've never lived.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Erma Bombeck's column on going camping. After watching Disney, they had expected the forest animals to pitch in and help.
The forest animals pitch in and help all right, they help themselves to whatever tasty morsel they fancy. They even come up on the front porch to eat the jack-o-lanterns, and peek in windows. Deer (both white-tails and muleys) are the cheekiest, but we have had coyotes ghosting around the yard edges in the moonlight here too. (Black Hills, SD.)
ReplyDeleteYes, how easy it is for others to judge when they have absolutely no reality about what they are judging.
ReplyDeleteSomeone was shocked at the thought that next year I'm thinking about purchasing meat chickens instead of only laying hens: "Would you seriously kill and eat a chicken?"
Duhh...the chickens in the plastic covered store packages are really tofu!
Earl, good points all. I think we do get more than our share because of heavy hunting pressure nearby.
ReplyDeleteJune, they have no fear these days.
Linda, that is so sad, but I believe it
Joated, that may be just what they need. We need to get some ammo!
Aka, I can't believe with all the hunting right around here that they are that tame!
JB, Hear, hear! I wasn't a farm kid, was raised on Disney and know just how easy it is to believe all that stuff. However, when we moved to the country when I was a kid and got chickens it didn't take long to learn otherwise.
LInda, SSS, time honored because it works! lol
Jan, I could understand the ignorance. After all, how could they be expected to know otherwise with all the tripe on TV and movies. It is the smug, self satisfied, holier than thou that gets me irritated.
Caroline, we live just a few yards from a town, yet coyotes have come right on our porch and deer eat the lettuce out of the planters at the edge of the porch. Of course, with the deer, in a few weeks we will be working at getting our lettuce back in the form of lovely venison steaks.
Carol, I try to remain calm as much as I can, but this is one issue that really sets me off. If you could have seen the old horse! I thought he was spooking at the cows, as they had come running down, but he is really pretty used to them. Instead it was the yotes about twenty yards from him.
I would love to let the pea fowl out to enjoy the lawn...free range beauty...but they wouldn't last an hour.
Wonderful imagery, throughout, TC . . but this made my skin crawl . .
ReplyDelete" . . the grey and brown haunts of the hedgerows.'
Can't imagine the concern . .
I like what Linda had to say...shoot, shovel and shut-up! And you have those HUGE coyotes, big as a calf!!!
ReplyDeleteUse the lead ....
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
About the the boss's alergy to routine feeding...
ReplyDeleteI'll bet the cows are not pleased with eating breakfast at 4pm.
About wildlife managment... I'll be moving to California one day soon, and they have MOUNTAIN LIONS. (No more wandering around by myself in natural areas with my camera.) I have no brilliant solutions for the meeting of man and wildlife, but I do think humans and their property need to be safe.