Bottle Hunt Part Two

       Inspired by my first creek find I decided to head back to the creek and walk a longer section.  I couldn't resist, the weather the last couple years has been so dry we I could have plenty of chances to hike the creek, but even a little rain would make this a much harder journey.  Even now, between the downed trees and small pools of water I had to hop op onto the bank to get through certain areas. Up on the bank the brush is so thick that without the machete I would have had to turn around.  Amazingly this trip I didn't see a single snake.  Monday I saw one Copper Head, but  the snake was up ahead of me and moving fast. As often is the case for me I found the only really good find on my first trip.

       I picked up these three even though they weren't that interesting and all of them were screw tops. If it hadn't been on our property I probably would have left them, but I will drop notes in them saying when and where I picked them up and add the three to our collection.  Since getting through the creek is rough going I picked them up in order to get a chance to clean them up.  When the bottles are covered in dirt it is hard to see if there is any embossing on them.  The jug only says Half Gallon and my wife thinks it is probably a syrup bottle from the 70's.  The brown bottle says W92 Purex on the bottom, but I couldn't see it until I washed off the dirt.  I didn't expect to find bottles these large on my hike and was unprepared for there size and weight.

• Machete
• Backpack
• Plastic Grocery Bags
• Canvas Shoulder bag
• Water
• Shotgun with Shoulder Strap
• Small Trowel

       There is probably more I would bring next time, but this is my revised list of things to bring while bottle hunting in a creek bed.  I took a machete, a shotgun and a plastic grocery sack. The machete has a sheath to hang on my belt so carrying the shotgun wasn't a problem until I had to hack through some brush.  In my excitement I had hoped to find more small medicine bottles so I hadn't planned on finding anything large and filled with sand. After carrying around the jug for a while the grocery bag ripped and I found my self carrying three bottles and a 20 gauge through the terrain which of course got thicker as soon as I found myself in this situation. If I had a pistol I would bring it instead just in case I stumble upon some wild pigs which is why I brought the shotgun.  I am happy to have found anything and I am glad I went, because any day the rains could refill the creek and cover everything.

the battle for the bottle

When we first came here to visit I new we were kinda going to the south and I was vaguely aware that this was the inside the bible belt.  I did not realize that as we drove down here from Dallas that we were  traveling backwards in time.  Back to a time before prohibition ended and you couldn't buy or sell any form of alcohol.  I had no idea what a dry county was and when it was explained to me I couldn't help making tons of jokes about how I was gonna round up the Duke boys and run some shine down here in Hazard County.

Moving here from Las Vegas where it is perfectly acceptable to walk down the street with 64 oz  Margarita,  (hardly any booze in it, but don't tell the tourist that) I still find this entertaining.  Now of course if you travel in any direction there is a liquor store just past the county line which  means that tax dollar from the sale of booze goes to the counties in which it was sold.  For the first time since we have lived here the county is going to vote on weather or not to lift the ban and allow business to sell.  Of course those for it are local businesses including Wal-Mart which is the principal supplier of everything in Tyler county.  Those opposed say it will encourage more alcohol related problems.

Personally, I don't really care either way.  If they passed something that allowed only locally owned business to sell then I think it would make a slightly larger difference in the local economy.  Either way I am planning on making some wine this year and I am not really sure if that is legal or not.  Since I couldn't sell it anyway I don't think it matters, but since I was planning on calling it Dry County Wine it will spoil my fun if they allow liquor sales. 

This year is the year of the berry.  Our place is covered in wild black berries.  Last year at this time you could pick a couple cups of small berries and it was only later on that I could could go out and fill a big bucket in couple hours, but in hour a picked these from a spot right next to our driveway that didn't even have berries growing last year.  All the way down the 1/4 mile of driveway on both sides is fields of berries growing around the pine trees. Even the coyote poop that is normally full of rabbit fur is absolutely black from the coyotes snacking on berries. 

I am not sure what caused them to take off so much this year, but we are going to have more than we know what to do with. Last year Luci took the berry's and made jam, but it wasn't until the end of picking season that we really had enough for her to make a batch.  Even with the kids eating a ton we should have plenty for me to learn how to make my own wine.  I hate for them to go to waste.  When I was picking this morning I could imagine what it would have been like to find a field like this if you were a hunter/ gatherer tribe.  It would be like wandering into the candy store.

Come and take It

This is Western Weekend in Tyler County. Yesterday was parade and rodeo day, so we took the kids to both. They had a great time--they love seeing all the horses and wagons. The back road that we take to town is one of the paths the trail riders take into town so we even got our own private parade before the main event. There are probably a few dozen wagons that people build to look like covered wagons except they use truck tires and weld the frame out of tube steel.

Besides parades I'm not really sure where people ride these things. Most of them are part of trail riding clubs, but I don't know where these trails could be. After the parade, the fairgrounds have a rodeo with bullriding, roping, and group riding. For the entertainment of the adults, they also have a goat scramble where kids chase a goat and get a trophy if they manage to catch one. Our youngest tried this to no avail. Even more entertaining is what they call mutton bustin'. Take a bunch of six year old volunteers, slap on helmet, and put them on the back of a very unhappy sheep. Within seconds the kid is face down in the mud. You just can't that in the city.

Unlike the Dogwood parade next week that has floats people make, the main decoration for the western parade is shiny western clothes and flags. Texans love flags. Most Texans will tell you that you Texas is the only state that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag, but according to Wikipedia, the source of all true wisdom and knowledge, this is an urban legend. All state flags can be flown at the same height. Checking out the wiki for the Texas flag, I did find the flag I want, which is a flag with a star and a cannon with the phrase "Come and take It" across the bottom.

the accidental coyote hunt

Living out here, I find that I have done a few things I never thought I would do.

This morning, Luci went out to check on the garden, and after a few minutes she started hollering for me to come outside. When I went out, she said she had just seen a coyote chasing down a baby deer just outside the opening where our back gate should be. I rushed back in the house to grab my boots and the shotgun. (We have a .410 Remington semi-automatic shotgun that we inherited from Luci's father. It is probably too small to kill the coyote from any distance, but the wound might do it in.) So I ran off into the woods where they were headed, assuming I would not find anything in our overgrown back pasture.

I walked to the edge of the first fence that separates what used to be two pastures and figured whatever was going on had moved on. BUT! As I turned to walk down the fenceline to get into the far back pasture, the coyote came around a corner through a little animal trail that snakes through the woods. I stopped, and he stopped, and as he started to growl or snarl or whatever I raised my shotgun and took a shot. He turned and darted in the bushes. It lasted about a second.

My wife says I should leave out the part of the story where I shoot at him (since I missed) but that doesn't bother me any. I know it is harder to hit a moving target than people often think, and I don't spend a lot of time shooting. I would have been happier to hit the little bastard, but I was just happy I had the gun.

See, that's a first for me. Never before today I have thought "Hey, probably a good thing I had a gun with me." The deer was about fifteen feet from me on the other side of the fence--I could see it bolt when I fired at the coyote. I realize coyote's gotta eat, but I won't feel bad killing 'em either.

I would imagine that the coyotes have been snacking on the rabbits in our yard, and now that they're all gone, the coyotes have had to start in on other food sources like the baby deer. On one hand, the coyotes keeping the deer away from my garden could be a plus, but I think these guys have to die. Either I am gonna have to man up and do it myself or get someone more experienced to do it for me. I just don't like the idea of my kids outside with them so close to the house.

Oddly enough, I know a genuine coyote killer. I met him a couple of months ago when I was working for the Census Bureau. We started talking after I entered his address into the computer and I mentioned that a few of our chickens had been eaten by coyotes while I was in Las Vegas last October. Luci called my one night after I had been out having a few drinks with the guys to tell me that there were wolves in the yard. To be honest it took me a while to wrap my head around that. This is not a call you get every day. Anyway, most likely they were coyotes. Department of Wildlife said wolves are extinct here so go ahead and shoot 'em. Anyway, Al-the-coyote-killer told me he only hunts coyotes and foxes anymore. He enjoys it because they are not easy and well, kinda dangerous.

Al explained the basics of coyote hunting. I guess you can either use a call or (and this sounds like more fun), a gut bucket. A gut bucket is exactly what it sounds like. Find a metal bucket or other container that you can close but has holes in it, and fill it with the nasty guts of something else you killed and leave it to rot and smell where you can wait a little ways off and get a clear shot. The calls come either electronic or blown. The problem with blown is that you are drawing a pack of hungry coyotes to yourself. Could be problematic. The electronic you set where you can get back and get off a clear shot.

I never pictured myself with much interest in hunting, but I must say it is kind of exciting. There is something about being out in the woods with a gun that makes you feel as if you need it. The same way a walk with a walking stick in hand has different feel to it.

I wouldn't really want to kill anything just to kill it, but to put food on the table or protect my kids, I wouldn't feel bad about it.

A few years ago I was working in Vegas and I told one of the guys that I was broke. He was an old timer and he asked if I was going home to go hunting for food. When I said no, he shook his head and said, "You ain't even close to broke yet."

As for protecting my kids, someone from the city might think that the coyotes are not really a threat, but I doubt they would want their neighbor's angry Rottweiler hanging around their front yard.

Weekend gardening plans

Collected about fifty gallons of water from this morning's downpour. At our house, the rain started pounding about 7:30 this morning (just in time for me to try and load the kids in the car, thank you very much) and was done by 8:30 or 9:00. In just that short time, the buckets filled up with about fifty gallons of water. I definitely need to refine this system so I can get more water collected and stored. We are trying to begin planning now for next year's planting, which will hopefully include a lot more fruit trees and berry bushes.

The quick rain clearing into a nice sunny day seems to be a great trend for the garden. Everything is growing well except for one type of corn, but it was seed we bought several years ago so a I am not suprised that it has not come up. My wife has bought some more tomato plants to put in place of the not-corn. We have big plans for the tomatoes. Should be putting up lots and lots of sauce this year.

The weekend will really consist of just Sunday since we have a soccer game for the kids and a parade to go to on Saturday. Here're a few things I hope to get done:

• clear more away from the pear tree to keep the squirrels off
• clean more of the dirt around the peach tree and possibly use some extra to form a little well around it
• strenghten the fence with some extra wire that is out by the old garage.
• plant the okra that I started in the house with the girls
• plant the seeds from the cantaloupe we ate yesterday around the garden

To do in the coming weeks

• plant some garlic
• get mulch for around the blueberry bushes