Signs of Spring around the Homestead

The bees are busy.

The apple trees are in bloom.

The vernal pond is full of water and teeming with tadpoles.

An interesting nest has appeared in one of my bird boxes. A Chickadee or perhaps a Nuthatch??

My grafting skills seem to have improved. In future years I'll be enjoying old-fashioned apples with names like Pomme Gris, Red Limbertwig, and Newt Grindle to name a few. Let the average person eat their store bought Red Delicious & Yellow Delicious, I'll be savoring these old apples from the past.

Life is good here on the homestead.

Tiny Dancer

About every evening I visit Simpson LTD's website. It's a gunshop that specializes in WWII items, but also from time to time imports large shipments of shotguns from Sweden, Belgium. and Germany. There are usually a fair number of old hammerguns in various conditions from good to wall-hangers. The nice ones usually are sold in a day or two and I can usually resist the urge to buy for that long. Well last week I noticed a 16 ga. Belgium hammergun on the site. It was a top-lever gun with straight grip, back-action locks (my weakness), with blackened 31.5 inch damascus barrels built in the 1880's. It was described to be mechanically fine with tight barrel lockup, excellent bores and a good walnut stock. I lusted over it for a little while knowing that it would go quickly and left the site. The next evening to my surprise it was still available and I fought off the urge, for I surely didn't need another hammergun. On the third evening I searched it out and there it was still waiting to be bought. I took this as a sign, picked up the phone, and in minutes she was mine. Being classified as an antique, no FFL was needed and she arrived at my door last Friday. As I assembled her I was struck by her light weight and suddenly she had her name "Tiny Dancer" after an old Elton John song from the early 70's. The kitchen scales showed her to weight 5 3/4 lbs, the lightest gun I've owned but her long barrels makes for a smooth swing and on Sunday I hit every claybird I pointed her at. With her cylinder chokes she should be right a home in my woodcock coverts.

God these hammergun guns are addicting.

Wandering a Spring Woodcock Covert

Was able to take Emma today and wander the Shawnee Creek Covert, a large expanse of nice looking woodcock cover that I had discovered last fall. Just several hundred yards into the cover I saw Emma making her way back to me with something large in her mouth. I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get a pic of the retrieve , but this is what she brought me.

A very alive opossum that was "playing possum". I had to wonder if a coyote or bobcat instead of Emma had found it, would it's playing dead act had saved it's life? I guess I should have gotten a rock or club and killed it for the egg eating predator that it was, but I've gotten "soft" in my old age and just can't kill something without giving it a sporting chance.

We worked our way through the nice cover. Both of us enjoying the nice day afield.

Finally Emma's bell went silent and I found her pointing in some thick alders.

 Further on in the cover she had several bumped birds until she found another one that proved to be more cooperative.

The skunk cabbage was bursting out of the ground along the creek, the first plant to proclaim that spring was here.

The birds that I saw today seemed to be large, no doubt hens, and I know that very soon nests will be built, eggs laid, and I'll have to stay out of the coverts till fall.

 

 

Back Forty Cat

My nephew Jim and his boy Caleb have been trapping the Back 40 this fall hoping to catch a coyote but catching only raccoon. Just before the snows came their luck changed.

Second Season Wanderings

Now that the snow has curtailed my hunting I thought that I'd catch up with some pics from the second season. The grouse were scarce and nervous but Emma was able to give me one nice point in the Graham covert that I missed with both barrels. Here are some of the covers that we hunted.

As usual I'm always looking around as I wander these mountains seeking the beauty in nature. For some reason fungi always catches my eye.

The day the snows were to arrive I hunted my southern Chaneyville coverts. I hadn't hunted this area much the last several years and I hunted several new coverts that had just begun to reach grouse holding potential. I didn't move any grouse in the first two coverts.

The last covert turned out to be a huge clearcut that gave us two wild flushes.

As we pushed further from the truck I could see the snow coming from the south.

As I made my way back to the truck the snow began and I eased my way down off the ridge on the slippery skidder road, feeling a little melancholy that my season might be coming to an end, but knowing that Emma and I had made enough memories to last us till next season.

A Woodcock with Two Oldtimers

 Emma developed a limp after our last hunt so I decided to take Copper for a short hunt. She's 9 years old with bad hips and is losing her hearing but last year she showed me she could still handle a grouse with some dog work that I'll remember for a long time. I also pulled the Husky Model 44 from the gunsafe for her maiden hunt into my coverts.

Copper happy to be out and about.

We hunted some clearcut strips where Emma and I had moved some grouse on a previous hunt. The grouse were still there but they proved to be too smart for us with several wild flushes and Copper bumping one. We worked our way through some open aspen cover filled with goldenrod and bordering large spruce trees.

It was there that Copper went into a low crouching point that said WOODCOCK. I moved in with the old 44's hammers back but the point proved to be empty. Copper was certain a bird was there and began to trail through the goldenrod. 30 feet later she pointed again and this time she had it. As I moved in the woodcock sprang into the air, I dropped the right hammer on the old 44 and the bird dropped like a stone. The Husqvarna Model 44 with her first american woodcock.

I couldn't help but reflect back on who might have hunted with this old beauty of a gun and what type a game dropped to her shot back in her homeland 130 odd years ago when she was new. To take a bird with the first shot from her made me very proud and I felt privileged to be able to hunt with this old gun and know that with the proper care she would be taking game 130 years from today. The thrill of shots made, the beauty of forgotten coverts from the past, what tales these old guns could tell if only they could.

As I wander these Allegheny Mountains that I love I'm always taken by the beauty of a moss covered log or a lichen covered rock and sometimes I encounter something that is a complete mystery to me. Here are some pics of that days mystery.

A few pics placed on the internet and I had my answer. It's a porcupine den. I saw my first porky in the woods less than 10 years ago when Copper half-heartedly pointed one in a blowdown. Now I see several each season. My dogs ignore them so I let them continue they journey through the coverts. 

My Wanderings Nov 12 thur 16

I spent the first 4 days of this week hunting grouse in my northern coverts consisting mostly of reclaimed stripmines. If the grouse were there Emma and I couldn't find many of them. Most of the ones we found were wild flushes with Emma bumping the rest.

At one new cover that I stopped to try Emma found and retrieved a wounded hen pheasant.

This track had me scratching my head. I thought all the elk in Pa were north of I-80, but this pic is from southwestern  Clearfield Co. That's my size 12 EE boot for comparison.

Tired of driving 2 hours to hear a grouse flush, I stayed close home and hunted one of my woodcock coverts on Friday. I found just 2 birds in 2 hours one that I flushed and one that Emma pointed. I was carrying Elin again the 16 ga. Husky and her right barrel did it's magic. Emma with the retrieve.

The bird that saved the week.

Back at the truck for a pic of dog, bird, and gun.

The season's starting to take it's toll on the both of us.