Saturday, November 6, 2004

November tomatoes, crows' breakfast and a pheasant hunt The unusual weather of 2004 continues apace.  I don't know if today's high temperature was a record, but it was a beaut, hitting the low 60s by mid-afternoon.  Perfect weather to finish raking the leaves and pick a few ripe tomatoes.  We have not yet had a killing frost in our corner of Ozaukee County, although everyone with a more open exposure had their garden season end several weeks ago.  With the late, wet spring, we got our garden in later than usual, and my tomatoes are still bearing.  Heck, the other day we even picked some strawberries off the new plants we put in this spring.  Monday's forecast calls for a low in the 30s, so maybe that will put an end to the tomatoes, along with the dahlias and a few straggler green beans. At the Recycling Center, Eric Michaels was lamenting the warm weather and hoping for frost in the ground before gun deer season, which opens on the 20th.  No frost means tough going for hunters who walk through swamps to get to their deer hunting spots.  If it snows before the ground freezes, that means soft ground all winter long.  Tough getting in and tougher dragging a deer back out. Dove season ended on October 30, but I'm still seeing plenty of birds around.  These must be the residents who spend the winter.  A dozen of them were in our woods by the garden this morning, probably foraging for beechnuts.  I flushed them at about 9:30 and again around 11:00 when I put some mail in the box. Earlier this morning, and for the last several mornings, a flock of crows was down in the woods to the north.  They had disappeared for a couple weeks, after waking us up every morning at dawn, but now they're back and just as raucous as ever.  I assume they, too, were eating beechnuts because there's certainly not much else left there to eat.  When they all rose at once yesterday, Shivani asked, "What do 50 crows eat for breakfast?"  This time of year, she meant.  In spring, they eat frogs & worms.  In summer, they feast on grasshoppers.  And of course they raid bird nests, rabbit nests and just about anything else that's edible. I went pheasant hunting yesterday with Mary Williams and her sister, Kathy Stecker.  These two gals keep a fast pace in the field, and their dogs are just as energetic.  Mary's English pointer Rosie is a youngster and a wide-ranging dog.  Kathy's yellow Lab, Tasha, still hunts with a lot of zip, despite her 11 years.  We hunted a nearby public hunting ground that has been hit pretty hard for three weeks, yet we flushed four roosters in three hours of hunting.  Kathy made a good shot on a bird Tasha had trailed for 300 yards, from a willow thicket to an open hillside, where she finally flushed it.  Earlier, Tasha flushed a bird in a cornfield we couldn't get a shot at, so we went after it where Mary had marked it down.  Rosie went on point in the willows, then broke point and gave chase, as the bird was running.  We think that's the bird Tasha ended up flushing for Kathy. After a water break, we retraced our steps along the corn to hit a new field to the east.  Rosie got out ahead of us, but no one paid her any mind, since we had just walked through there a half-hour earlier.  Big mistake.  Mary yelled "Look at her!" just about when she went on point at the edge of the corn.  A moment later, a long-tailed rooster flushed and flew south onto posted land.  We were all at least 100 yards from her, and all we could do was laugh, which was better than crying! Another hour of hunting hedgerows and marsh grass yielded one more flush to Tasha, but Kathy was out of position and had no shot.  We took a break on a stone wall for a sandwich, then I had to leave.  The ladies kept hunting.  I haven't heard how they did, but I'd bet money on another bird or two in the bag.  They hunt thoroughly and flush more than their share of birds. I rushed home, changed and hitched up the boat, as it was time to take it back to Jalensky's, the dealer who sets up our camera boat each year.  On the way to Kenosha, I stopped at the river in Glendale and met up with Jack Abrams and John McKay to tape two short promotional spots for our Deer Hunting Special, coming up November 11.  In past years, we have aired an hour-long program, with live interviews and viewer phone calls.  With the DNR budget cuts the last two years, we have shortened the program to a half-hour and made it a pre-taped show, like our regular broadcasts. There are still some cohos in the Milwaukee River, and a number of anglers were after them.  We saw one caught Tuesday, but none yesterday. I'll finish the outside chores tomorrow morning, then look for something more fun to do.  Maybe those pheasants need some more exercise. Later... 9:58:36 PM    comment []