My wife stood in the front yard and took aim as the killdeer flew over.
“Pow! Pow! Pow!” and a look of satisfaction washed over her face. Of course, she was only pointing her index fingers at the incessantly squeaking bird – she’d sooner surrender me to Somali pirates than harm the beautiful animal – but her sentiment was genuine. The damn birds keep us up at night.
The killdeer babies, which are almost full grown and should have summer jobs, seem to love the security of our high-voltage pastures and the bugs that inhabit them. We love fresh air and keep our bedroom window open most of the year. Killdeer and open windows are an oil-and-water combination that robs us of sleep and fosters fantasies of avicide (who knew there really is a word that means “killing of birds” – must have been coined by someone with killdeer in their front yard).
We didn’t think it could get worse, until … the frogs came. Spring showers turned the thin strip of trees along the road into an endless cacophony of amphibian virility. Picture the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in your front yard, two-thirds of whom gently blow police whistles of varying pitch to some obscure and unpredictable rhythm. The other third of the choir is gargling with Listerine.
And just when you’ve managed to doze off, they stop all at once, and you’re suddenly awake thanks to the startling and deafening silence. Your mind races and you imagine some massive predator cruising your front yard. Your heart pounds until the frogs eventually resume their chorus, slowly building to a crescendo that has you slamming the window down on a beautiful, star-lit night.
There’s nothing quiet about the country.
Last year I bragged about going on a seven-tick hike. What hubris. Coming in with seven ticks is nothing. This year, I spent several hours relocating the goat fence and came in with 52 ticks on my body and clothing. That’s right, 52. Even the locals I’ve told say it’s a record.
The little hitchhikers are looking for a blood meal someplace dark, moist and warm. In the words of a good friend, they are “ball bag bound.” If the image of 52 ticks affixed to you-know-where doesn’t motivate you to strip and pluck with the utmost expediency, nothing will.
Leslie helped of course, which turned a potentially Machiavellian incident into a bit of (mostly imagined) adult entertainment. Hey, when you’re covered with parasites, you get your jollies any way you can.
We had a headless rooster fall from the sky the other day. I’m guessing most people live their entire lives without saying that. Behind our house and shielded from the road by several pastures of high voltage fencing, we found a fresh, headless, one-winged rooster. The closest poultry are a mile down the road and no predator would drag a rooster through half a mile of forest to drop it in the open next to our fence.
Locals have seen hawks carry away roosters and chickens, so we’re guessing some butter-taloned bird of prey chewed off a rooster’s head and wing, then flew over our property on his way to put the rest of the carcass in the freezer. Oops!
Leslie will tell you that I momentarily mistook the headless carcass for small turkey. Balderdash. Don’t believe it. Yes, I was looking at the enormous spurs on the rooster’s feet and may have “accidentally” referred to them as turkey spurs, but anyone can tell a headless, one-winged rooster from a baby turkey. Geez.
Impressive Rooster Spurs
Impressed with the lethality of these two-inch spurs, I cut off both legs and put them in a bag in our freezer. And Leslie didn’t object. After all, we have a goat fetus in a glass jar in the mud room, which was enough to make a visiting extension agent look at me with a combination of pity and fear.
Anyway, after chopping off the feet, I tossed the turkey, er, I mean rooster carcass in the back yard. It was gone the next morning, no doubt carried off by the fox I’ve been shooting at the last few months. I can only imagine the fox’s thoughts as he carried off the rooster, “First, he shoots at me, now he’s feeding me. This guy’s nuts!”
Early this spring, our neighbor across the road came over to tell Leslie he saw a young black bear in his front yard. A few weeks ago, another neighbor saw a black bear crossing the road only a half mile away. Great.
My wife isn’t afraid of spiders or lizards, and she’ll grab a snake faster than a Black Friday bargain, but she has this unrelenting fear of bears. So, for the last three years, I wake every workday at 0430 to watch my wife climb into her car and go to work. I told her I probably couldn’t get to her in time to fight off an attacking bear, and she surely can’t outrun one, but she just smiles and says all she has to do is outrun me. Ain’t love grand?
So, I’m destined to forever be my soul mate’s bear bait. It would be worth it, if only the bears ate killdeer and frogs.
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Posted by A. Keck 
