Saturday, October 07, 2006

turkey season begins

well, dove season is done with and turkey season has now started. last saturday afternoon (9/30/06) was spent w/ jerry, jacob, and the 3 little boys constructing a turkey blind on the carport in preparation for the new hunting season.

i wasn't involved in the turkey blind building (by my own choice), but when i went out to see how things were going . . . i noticed that the little boys had lots of tools out of the garage to play with while the men were building. at one point, jimmy walked by me and said "hold this for me" as he handed me a screwdriver so he could pick up and carry off a ball pean hammer. to me, any 3 year old in possession of a hammer is a concern as i can imagine all the things that 3 year old might find to pound on -- or at least what i would've pounded on.

after an afternoon of construction work, tools had been carried far and wide and a 3-sided turkey blind was completed. all 5 boys were proud of their accomplishments -- whatever those might have been for each individual!

sunday morning (10/01/06), jerry tried out the turkey blind on his first hunt of the season. he didn't have any luck on getting a turkey, but he had the most amazing experience watching a doe and her fawn. jerry first spotted them about 200 yards away, but gradually they came closer and closer.

the little fawn was old enough to be "feeling his oats" as he scampered to and fro, aways away and then back to the watchful mother. the doe kept looking at the turkey blind area, but she couldn't see anything to alarm her. jerry watched the pair for about 20 minutes and the fawn actually came as close as 10 feet of jerry before running back to run a couple circles around its mother. jerry tried taking a picture with his cell phone, but he couldn't get it to focus fast enough.

as the deer worked around toward the meadow (and the back side of the blind), the doe finally could "see" jerry on the exposed side of the 3-sided blind. she snorted and they both ran to the edge of the meadow, where the doe turned and make several snorting and stomping moves at jerry to signal that she wasn't going to let him harm her baby.

while jerry didn't have any luck on the turkey hunting (didn't even see a turkey), he did have quite a story and memory to tell about watching the doe and her fawn. jerry said it was probably the most amazing experience he had ever had watching wildlife. too bad he didn't have a good camera with him to really capture the moment.

an amazing coincidence, too, is that same day (which was the next day after the turkey blind building effort), 2 of the 4 cars in our driveway had flat tires. 3 days later when i parked in a different spot than normal, i went out to find that i had a flat tire. since i don't change tires -- my car is still sitting there with a flat tire! quite amazing that 3 vehicles would all have flat tires in such a short time span.

of course, i "accused" jerry and the boys of being responsible for those flat tires, as i'm sure "someone" left or carried some things out of the garage that might have caused them. jerry just as adamantly stands by his 'belief' that these flat tires were all coincidence. uh-huh, suuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrre.

do i really care what caused the flat tires or if "the boys" really did cause it? nope, i don't. even if they did drag things out of the garage and that's the reason for it -- it doesn't matter. they had a day of fun times and good play plus constructed a turkey blind to boot -- what's 3 flat tires compared to that? tires are replaceable and/or fixable -- some things are not.

in life, a person has to know the difference. that's a lesson i learned LONG ago, from a father who must have had the patience of Job.

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