I Don't Kill Them Any More!

My first winter of retirement in the hills was a learning experience.  I was open to almost anything.  One of the first neighbors I met was a huntress.  She was a true "Great White Hunter".  You name it, she hunted it.  Her goal each year was to top the buck she shot the year before.  The number of points on the antlers determines the hunters desire to kill a buck and mount the "rack" on the wall.  She would patiently wait in one of her many deer blinds for the perfect buck to come to the feeder where the corn was flowing freely just before dark.  The feeders are equipped with timers programmed to release the corn about 30 minutes before dark.  During this time before dark or just before daylight  the hunter is tucked away secretly in a hunting blind some of which are very sophisticated.  Hers were pretty nice, at least they impressed me.  It was a box painted camo green sitting on four legs about 8 feet tall with a ladder for the hunter to ascend and descend.  Inside was carpeted all around, including the walls to absorb any sound the hunter might make while sitting and waiting for the unsuspecting deer to approach the feeder about 50 yards away.

My huntress neighbor wanted to teach me to hunt.  I have shot a gun before, just target practice but never killed anything.  I wasn't even sure I could do it.  It was Christmas time and my older children were visiting.  The boys had gone on a "hunt" several mornings in a row and come back with nothing.  I was giving them tips from my neighbor.  We didn't have a fancy blind or a feeder.  We were believers in real hunting where you hide behind a tree, spot a deer and whack it with your thirty-ought-six rifle.  My boys laughed at me, telling me I didn't know what I was talking about when I told them to put some corn in a coffee can and rattle it a bit before sprinkling it on the ground in the area they thought the deer might feed.  I tried to explain to them that the noise from the rattling corn in the can would attract the deer because the deer had become accustomed to the noise of the electric feeders.  They made fun of me and told me I was full of baloney and didn't know anything about hunting.  My neighbor being a woman  was not to be believed either because women didn't know anything about hunting.

Being ridiculed by anyone only serves as a challenge to me.  I told my new huntress friend that I needed to shoot a deer to prove that I could...poor deer.  She took up the challenge and decided we needed to have a mom's hunt every Christmas season.  Totally forgetting how much I love animals I got into the spirit!  I had "kill" on my brain.  I was ready for the challenge!  It was agreed that we would meet at her house an hour before dark.  I was there on time dressed for warmth.  It was cold and windy.  We hopped into one of her little "mules" which is a fancy golf cart that any rancher worthy of being called a rancher has these days.  We drove to one of her many hunting blinds and ascended the stairs with our coffee and guns for my first hunting lesson.  I was using one of her guns. My oldest son has since presented us with a beautiful hunting gun for Christmas.   As we sat and waited for a deer to appear she gave me lessons on how to shoot that big gun.  It was loaded already so she told me how to work the safety and use the sight finder.  I practiced for a while but didn't actually pull the trigger.  She was very matter of fact and I was a good student.  I had it down perfectly in my mind what I was to do.  Raise the gun, rest the butt firmly against my shoulder, do not put my face on it as I was looking through the "sight"....  one could get a black eye or a gash in the head doing that because when the gun actually shoots it has a "kick" to it....release the safety, put my finger on the trigger, deep breath and hold, slowly pull the trigger, do not jerk it, just slowly pull it.  I was ready.  I knew I could do this!

Nothing came to the feeder that evening and my friend was very disappointed.  I was relieved...I wasn't going to have to kill "bambi" tonight after all.  I was so full of mixed emotions, to kill or not to kill.  My huntress friend was not to be deterred, I was going to kill a deer that evening, she was going to see to it.  It was so cold and windy but we plopped ourselves back into the "mule" and headed out looking for that deer.  I didn't have on gloves and the cold wind was tearing at my knuckles and biting my face.  I was thinking to myself, "I hope she gives this up and heads for home."  I was done with this for the day.  I was her captive as she drove through the hills, over rocks and ledges like we were being chased by an amazon deer out to take revenge. I was holding on to my rifle trying to keep it pointed away from her or myself as we bounced over the limestone.   She informed me that she knew of a place where she could roust some deer out of hiding which she did before the words were barely out of her mouth!  All of a sudden a big doe appeared right in front of us.  My teacher slammed on the brakes and yelled "shoot it".  I did just as I was told without even thinking.  I raised that rifle, pressed it firmly into my shoulder, released the safety, aimed it, slowly and methodically I pulled the trigger.  The doe rose up into the air and dropped right where she had stood a minute before.  I was in shock, what had I just done?  Where was I?  Who was in this body of mine?  The huntress jumped from our vehicle, whipped out her field knife telling me it was time for a lesson in field dressing a deer.  She cut that does belly open, reached in and ripped out it's innards, spat on the ground and told me to grab it's hind legs as she grabbed the front ones and we lifted that animal into the back of the vehicle.  At some point during that time in order to feel like I was participating in the "lab"  I reached down and pulled something from inside the deer and tossed it onto the ground.  Believe it or not, the gourmet in me was thinking the heart, kidneys and liver should be taken along to cook and eat also.  But my huntress didn't do these kinds of things.  She always left the guts for the coyotes to finish off.  After all, one has to share!  It just seems fitting to pay back to nature in some way after taking one of it's children!

Off we went, back to her barn where she called my boys and husband and told them to come on up and see what the woman of their family had done.  They arrived and I was toasted with beers all around as I was patted on the back and they remarked about how big the doe was and my friend related to them how I shot that deer without having any support for my rifle, just raised my gun in midair and aimed.  She couldn't believe it, right through the heart, first shot!  She was so proud of me and of course her own teaching skills.  I was her best student! I hung the now very dead doe in her cooler till I could get it to a processor the next day to be ground into sausage and cut up for steaks.  My boys were very proud of their new "huntress mama".

Even though they were proud of me, my boys couldn't resist teasing me about "beginners luck".  Oh my gosh, couldn't they see that only served as another challenge for me.  I now had to prove to them that I could hunt, I could shoot, and I could kill.  I had to kill another of nature's own!  Like it or not, it had to be done.

As I proof read this blog my actions during my "hunting season" make me seriously wonder about human behavior.  There might be some insight here into how gang initiations and peer pressure work.  It's a very frightening thought!  I don't want to put myself in that category!

A few days later I went out with my husband who thought he now needed to prove himself.  We sat in a grove of trees waiting for a deer that was "big" enough to shoot.  Every one that came along was too small for him and he was getting tired, he was going back to the house.  Truth is, he doesn't like killing unless he has to.  Oh, he does like eating the meat,  he just doesn't like being the one to kill it!  I wasn't leaving, I was going to prove myself again and I did.  Before my husband could leave me alone in the grove of oaks, a doe appeared.  I hoisted my rifle and balanced it on a tree limb just the right height and slowly went through the motions.  Aim, release the safety, take a deep breath, pull slowly on the trigger and boom, the deer rose up into the air and fell to the ground, another shot right through the heart...damned I was good.  This was not beginners luck.  We loaded the deer into the back of my son's truck and took it home where with the glow from a drop light we gutted it and hung it from a tree to bleed out for the night.  It was my second kill and reality was beginning to set in.  I was feeling guilt...extreme guilt!

My huntress friend told me I needed to kill another deer before the end of the season.  I listened to her and went out on another evening with the intent of killing.  I took my youngest son with me because he informed me he was going to kill a deer also.  I knew he didn't have it in him to do this.  Although he is a pretty tough kid, he loves animals....more so than his mama I think.  He doesn't shy from controversy and can defend himself well in a fight... but killing a deer doesn't come easy for him.  He had a deer in his sight and was aiming when he conveniently dropped his hat, making enough noise to scare away anything within hearing distance.  He and I both knew what he had done but we didn't speak about it.  We just quietly packed up our gear and headed home, each in our own thoughts.

My huntress friend continued to check on me asking if I was doing my duty in taking my allowed number of deer for the season. I told her I was beginning to feel a little ashamed of myself.  She scoffed at me telling me that they were just little "whores" looking for bucks.  They were overpopulated and needed killing.  It was all about the food chain and how we were at the top!

I listened to my friend and made another hunting trip on my own one evening...my heart not being in it.  I waited patiently in a grove of oaks when I heard a noise behind me.  I turned and saw a couple of deer staring at me.  It was as if they were sneaking up on me.  An eerie feeling came over me.  As they stared at me I could see something in their eyes I didn't like, it was accusation.  They were talking to me and I was listening.  They quietly moved on.  I remained in the oaks wrestling with my conscience as a young deer and it's mother appeared in the clearing.  I lifted my rifle to rest on a limb, pulled the butt firmly into my shoulder, got the deer in my sight, released the safety, took a deep breath, hold and rested my finger on the trigger.  I could not pull the trigger.  I was frozen.  I had had enough.  I was a proven huntress and that was my goal.  I didn't care if they called me a "namby pamby" any more.  I wasn't going to kill any more deer.  I packed up my rifle and headed home.

I figure it this way,,,,,I have proven myself and if I ever need to kill again to feed my family, I can do it.  But I don't like the "sport".  I understand overpopulation and the need to cull the herd...but someone else can do that.   I don't want to be a part of it.

We now have a deer feeder that we have put close to our house where we can feed the deer and watch them come with their babies. We also have an extra well with a stock tank where they can drink water.  The drought this year has been very hard on wild animals.  I feed the deer and the birds.  I have several bird feeders and bird baths in my yard, including one for the hummingbirds.  It's a full time job keeping them filled with seed and syrup.  My husband keeps the deer feeder full of corn and insures the timer is working.  Every morning and evening the deer appear for their meal of corn.  I'm sure it also feeds raccoon and other animals.
When I watch the deer as I water the few plants remaining that have not burned up from the current drought, I hope I am making amends for my killing spree.  They are not afraid of me, they look up at me from the feeding and don't run.  They trust me and I wonder why?

I now shoot the deer with my camera!

Below is one of our swallow families.   My daughter got this shot of the mama feeding her babies!

Birds at a feeder.

Below I think is a Scarlet Tanager

Feeding the animals is much more rewarding than killing them!

Chapter 16 Creepy Crawlers

When you build a house on land previously uninhabited by humans you are invading creepy crawler habitat and you must be prepared to share.  After the house was completed and I was cleaning it to move in I found many scorpions and quickly sent them on to the great beyond.  One of my first nights in the house as I was retiring to my bed I felt something crawling on my shoulder.  I laid very still for a second trying to decide the best move to make, smash it, grab it or turn on the light to see what it was.  My reflexes went with "grab it and fling it".  I did just that but not before it could sting me.  It hurt like a son of a gun.  I screamed, jumped up and turned on the light to look for it, scaring the whits out of my husband with my shrill scream. Our carpet in the bedroom is patterned and dark making it difficult to see anything that might be lurking about, therefore I found nothing.  My arm was hurting from the shoulder all the way down to my finger tips.  I could only pray it was not a poisonous spider.  I thought my arm was going to fall off for about 3 minutes and then the pain began to ebb and it was gone.  I never found that creepy crawler but it has worried me since.

I can vacuum one day and the next day there are spider webs in every nook and cranny.  These little tiny harmless spiders are very happy in my house.  If I don't vacuum for several days I can always locate their lairs by looking for little piles of pill bugs and other dead insects.  Every once in a while I have to turn my sofas upside down and vacuum under the skirts and the bottoms.  I once found a young black widow spider preparing her nest beneath the skirt of a sofa. We have many exterior doors and it is impossible to make them tight enough that these creepy crawlers can't get in.

Last night I scooped up a caterpillar the size of my pinky finger making it's way across my kitchen floor.  I just can't figure out how it got in.  A few nights ago I took a picture of the tiniest scorpion I have ever seen.  The picture is below.  I can handle little tiny spiders and even scorpions but the amazon centipedes send chills up my spine.  One night we had just turned the tv off preparing to turn in for the night.  I was in the kitchen cleaning up when my husband yelled, "Oh my God".  I already knew what it was without even asking.  Only an amazon centipede could elicit such a sound from him.  He grabbed a pillow and covered the bugger until I could arrive with a fly swatter.  His picture is below also.  I just cannot imagine  stepping on one of these.  They are fighters when they sense danger.  My neighbor saw one on her bedroom wall shortly after she moved in and was preparing to go to bed.  After killing it, she slept with her lights on and one eye open the entire night!  I have read that they can do real harm when they sting you, giving you flu like symptoms.

One has to be very careful opening doors at night.  Many times a scorpion has been lurking around the top of the door jam and fallen into the house.  I stepped on one recently in my pantry.  At first I thought it was a sticker or burr that had been brought in from the grass but looking closer I saw it was a scorpion and it was squashed from my weight.  At least I didn't have to bother trying to kill him but he did get a whack on the bottom of my foot which hurt for about 5 minutes.  I soaked my foot in cold water and sprayed it with lavender water!  It really works.  Two days ago I found an ant bite on my elbow and one on my torso.  I don't know how they got there and I never felt the bite but I had a little pustule in each place which is my reaction to ant bites!

I know we have invaded their land but I really wish they would just stay outside.  I woke up yesterday morning to find ants all over my clothes in my cedar closet!  I had to put everything out into the sunshine and put boric acid in all the crevices of the cedar boards and base boards to deter them.  I make sure I don't hang anything that I have spilled food on so I'm pretty certain they like the fabric softener in my clothes.  I remember once when I lived in the city in an established neighborhood finding ants all over my toddler's bed.  He had been wearing a sweater that I removed when I put him down for a nap, which I laid on the foot of his bed.  Apparently he had spilled something sweet on his sweater and it attracted the ants  His bedroom was on the second floor.  The leader of the platoon of ants must have sent them on a march from the flower bed, up the side of the house and through a crevice in the window.  Had I not gone to check on him he would have been covered in fire ants!

Last spring my husband came to me with a little pustule on his elbow that looked like an ant bite.  I just opened the top of it so it would drain and told him not to worry about it.  I few days later his arm was really hurting and it was red and infected with a red line going up the inside of his arm.  I was very alarmed and told him we had to go to the emergency room because it looked like a spider bite.  You would think living in the country that the local hospitals would recognize a spider bite and know how to deal with it.  Think again.  These docs were baffled.  They had no idea what it was or how to treat it.  The first ER one hour west of us gave him IV antibiotics and sent him home.  The next day the wound was much worse, the pain going up and down his arm with his entire arm red and swollen.  Even the lymph glands under his arm and in his neck were swelling.  We decided to try another hospital one hour east of us.  These docs decided to try to open it and dig inside, looking for what I don't know.  Then they hooked him up to another IV and administered more antibiotics.  After a couple of hours we headed home, he was nauseous and had chills.  He spent the next couple of days, very sick and in pain but it appeared to be getting better.  Lab tests from both hospitals revealed nothing.  Looking back we decided that a brown recluse spider must have bitten him when he was bringing wood in for the fire place.  Over a year later a scar still remains.  I still can't figure out why  they didn't give him cortisone.  Seems to me it would have speeded the healing and lessened the inflammation.

I purchased some copper scrubbing pads and cut them in little pieces which I placed inside all the weep holes on the outside of the house.  That is to discourage larger insects from crawling through and getting inside the walls or attic and making their way into the house.  I try to keep all my drains closed to keep scorpions from coming up through the drains which they certainly do.  It takes real effort to remember to do that though.  Clothes are never nonchalantly tossed on the floor for fear of a spider or scorpion crawling inside for a snuggle.  We hang everything.  I have come very close to placing my hand on a black widow spider on several occasions when reaching to turn on an outdoor faucet.  I check all the ceiling corners of the patio on a regular basis for black widow spider webs.

Not long ago I was cleaning around one of the carports where we had stored some bags of soil.  I had lifted a couple of bags and was about to lift another one when one of my dogs walked over to the bag and stood over it.  I could not figure out what he was doing but later realized he was protecting me.  Somehow he knew there was a huge black widow spider under that bag.  I asked my dog why was he doing that, of course he didn't answer but I had a premonition of danger.  I inspected the bag more closely and camouflaged with the print on the bag was a very large black widow mama.  Her body was as big around as a nickle.  I grabbed the shovel and smacked her a good one, then turned and thanked my dog! I wish I had thought to take a picture of her before I smashed her but then again I didn't want to chance her running and hiding while I was fetching my camera.

Below is the tiniest scorpion I've ever seen.  We found it in our bathroom and I sure hope it's mama is not lurking nearby.

This is the guy I stepped on in my pantry.