Springtime good for turkeys, gardening
Published 7:55 pm Friday, April 2, 2010
Now that it’s Easter, the weather should stabilize and give us some extra good fishing weather as well as some good mornings to call in an unsuspecting gobbler. This past weekend I talked with several folks that had gotten a gobbler and one or two other folks that had missed one. One ol’ boy declared that the gobbler had ducked under his shot and wasting no time, had flown into next week. He will be alive next week when some of his brethern won’t. They probably should teach ducking a shotgun blast in turkey school. That is what happens when you try to make too good of a shot. When the gobblers head is stuck way up in the air and you decide to shoot it off, you can sometimes miss, especially if he drops his head to peck something on the ground.
These warmer days, as well as nights, have the turkeys in full swing in the breeding season. We refer to the breeding season as the gobbling season and it occurs in the springtime, right about now. The hunting season lasts until about the middle of May and the breeding season lasts until all the breeding is over and the hens are nesting. The eggs will hatch in less than a month after the hen starts sitting on the nest. It is against the law to kill a hen and is something a sportsman will not do. I suspect, however, a hungry person will take the shot and eat everything but the feathers and peck. Hopefully we don’t have anyone that hungry and with luck, never will.
We had a couple of Saturdays that were great. The sun was out and warm like we haven’t had so far this year. If we could get the wind to subside somewhat, things would great and stay great for the hunters and fishermen. Time has come also to really begin working in the yard as well as the garden. My daughter-in-law has started herself a vegetable garden. It has peas in it so far. She bought seeds and about a million dixie cups. In the cups she put a single seed in each and got the plants started while it was to cold to plant them outside. When it looked like it was going to stay warm she transplanted the peas in the backside of the backyard. I am not used to planting running peas so they looked strange to me. Maybe it will work. Next, tomatoes.
My son doesn’t turkey hunt, so the best bet for them is to have fish with the vegetables she grows. We had that when I was a kid, along with cornbread. You had to have cornbread or the meal wasn’t complete. It goes with fish and vegetables both and is really good. Maybe next time she will get bunch beans or peas. The reason she may do just that is Kaylee promptly took all of the stakes out of the ground that the vines were supposed to run on and put them in another part of the yard. I thought it was kinda funny, Sarah didn’t.
I don’t know about fish as a favorite food for that child. When she was a year or so old, she did love catfish. Fried catfish and french fries and she was a happy little girl. Not so much lately, but she can eat her weight in chicken legs and potatoes. But then most children raised in the south like fried chicken and potatoes. She eats my part, as the grease in the fried foods doesn’t agree with me like it did in the past. I still like fried pork chops and especially the boneless one that have been run through the cuber. Kaylee eats those also and would smack her lips if she knew what smacking lips was all about.
I want to go fishing but am so hungry just thinking about the food we have talked about today that I am going to have to eat before I starve to death. I don’t usually get that hungry, but today has been the day that I need to visit a buffet. The fish are still biting in a few places up the river and just about any bedding area in the lake. If you go and fish hard anytime during the next two or three months and don’t catch any fish, you don’t need to bet on the lottery because you are a hard luck individual. Fish are biting good and it won’t get much better until the bream and shellcracker bed.