Today it’s setting a temperature high record for Nov. 27 in the low 70s. The sun is shining and the wind is blowing and I’m trying to write a column so I won’t have to later in the week during the deer season.
I’m not an avid deer hunter by any means as venison is not my favorite protein to eat. However, deer hunting does provide an old geezer like me with a relatively leisurely way to hunt that isn’t too strenuous until there’s venison to pack out and butcher — and then I can call on help.
There are so many deer in this area that I kind of feel an obligation to help keep the population in check. And, unlike most hunters, I make no effort to harvest a big trophy buck. A nice fat young deer is my preference. And, even then, I give most of the meat to whoever helps me pack and skin my deer. I usually just take the tenderloins, the back-straps, and one muscle from the hind quarter for making jerky.
When I wuz a kid in southeast Kansas, I never dreamed of hunting deer. In 1960, I wuz a senior in high school riding the school bus when I saw my first Kansas whitetail from the bus window. The sight wuz such a novelty that our bus driver stopped the bus so everyone could look at the doe looking back at us.
Now, 57 years later, Kansas is overrun with deer. Every week our local newspaper lists one or more car/deer accidents. Last week in Kansas a lady wuz killed in a car/deer accident. Luckily, I’ve never hit a deer on the road, but I’ve come mighty close a few times.
When I wuz younger, I took a more proactive approach to deer hunting. I’ve never cared to hunt from a tree blind because a deer will walk over you in a ground blind if the wind favors your location. I used to get up early in the predawn to freeze my butt off hunting deer and then try again in the evening. It didn’t take too many years of hunting frosty mornings for me to see the error of my ways and switch to hunting almost exclusively in the evenings.
In spite of my nonchalant deer hunting attitude, as best I can recall I’ve harvested 16 deer in my life — 13 with my trusty Savage 25-06, one with a Hawken muzzleloader, and two with my well-worn 20-gauge Savage shotgun. Fifteen of the deer were whitetails and only one a muley.
Ironically, I harvested my first whitetail not in Kansas, but near the Snake River close to Pullman, Wash. During my two years of working in Washington state, I harvested one more whitetail and my only mule deer buck. Getting that muley story told would take an entire column of its own, but suffice it to say, a friend and I killed it in the breaks of the Snake River about 1 p.m. and it wuz midnight before the carcass wuz cooling in my barn.
After we moved back to southeast Kansas near Parsons, if my memory serves me right, I harvested six more whitetails. Then we moved to Iowa and I only killed one doe with my muzzleloader during the 13 years I lived near Boone.
Then we moved here to Damphewmore Acres in the Flint Hills 13 years ago, and I count six more whitetails harvested while I’ve lived here, including the two with my shotgun. Four of them were actually harvested at Damphewmore Acres.
So, if I’m lucky, for being lazy in my old age, perhaps some fat Flint Hills deer is wearing my lucky 17 number this season.
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This funny ain’t rural, but I’ve got to use it. Late one night a mugger in Washington, D. C., wearing a ski mask jumped into a path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs.
“Give me your money,” he demanded.
Indignant, the affluent man replied, “You can’t do this! I am a United States congressman!”
“In that case,” replied the mugger, “give me MY money.”
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A middle-aged farm couple finally learned how to send and receive texts on their cell phones.
The farm wife, being a romantic at heart, decided one day that she’d send her husband a text while she was waiting at the parts counter of the local machinery dealer.
She texted to hubby at home: “If you are sleeping, send me your dreams. If you are laughing, send me your smile. If you are eating, send me a bite. If you are drinking, send me a sip. If you have dust in your eyes, send me your tears. I love you.”
Her husband, being a no-nonsense, pragmatic sort of guy, texted back: “I’m on the toilet. Please advise.”
***
With all the hot news about “groping and fondling” by movie moguls, movie and tv stars, and Congressmen, I won’t be surprised when dairy cows launch a class action “groping and fondling” lawsuit naming dairymen as defendants.
On the same subject, did you hear that Caitlin Jenner is suing her former-self, Bruce, for fondling her for more than 50 years?
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And, lastly for this week, I’m surprised the lame stream media still allows Black Friday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Everyone knows its a benign theme, but it certainly sounds racist and I’m not sure it should be allowed.
Get your Christmas shopping done early for a change instead of at the last minute like I do. Oh, and, have a good ‘un!
Milo Yield
