RUDIMENTS, pt. 603
('duck, squawk, shout, shoot)
One time I spent, I swear, five
hours in some dumb old guy's
row boat - with him - on a
pond he had on his property.
It was a large enough pond, yes
but not really big - nothing like
you'd see in a park or anything.
Anyway (always willing to say
'yes' has screwed me up a few
times more than I mention), this
guy saw that my pond had geese
and ducks. He and his wife were
getting old, like 70, then, and
felt it was time to unload their
10 or 12 ducks. So they came
up the road one day and asked
if I'd be willing to take the pond
animals from them. I said yes.
Problems abounded - and I
should have realized, and so
should he have. Our two little
pond set-ups that we had on our
property were doing fine and were
just enough room and free-space,
apparently, for the 6 or so ducks
and geese we had. Once we put
his new stock in, it was (suddenly)
a crowd. To start this story, the
first thing I had to do was go
over there one day - the ladies
stayed aside, in and out of the
house. We got in his small
rowboat-type thing, and his
intentions, (whatever his thought
process was) had it that by just
rowing to each duck we'd be able
to calmly bring them in one at a
time - to same cage mishmash
he had on the rear of his truck.
We'd do three or four at a time,
and run them over to my place,
and then return. It didn't work
out well at all. The ducks kept
retreating, of course, as we
approached, and they'd squawk
and do that half-fly thing that
ducks do to speed away. The old
guy, civil and calm at first, started
going crazy and getting all agitated.
Fearing for his age and bulk, (and
heart attack!) I tried to calm him
down. He began netting the poor
birds, with a long-handle net he
brought out. That worked, but it
was all very noisy and I was sure
he'd kill one or the other, by
accident or wring their necks
(which seemed more and more
a possibility). It took a really
long time to make progress
but, I admit, once we got
the hang of it, it worked. I
stayed in the water with the
boat, and he'd lurk at the
shoreline with the net. We
made the relay a few times,
and - in all - it took maybe
4 or 5 hours, with some
lunch thrown in.
-
That was all fine, but at my end
the ducks were all crowded. We
also had, that Spring, a family of
muskrats - which is a weird,
sleek and shiny, swimming animal
that remains stealthy and mostly
hidden on the water, in the mud
and muck - we'd see them sloshing
or diving from a log - they just
looked like shiny wet socks; and
never bothered anything. Kind of
nice to have, or just know they
were there. The geese stayed in
their clump, and the ducks had
theirs. There'd often be eggs
around, in the higher grass, in
the Spring weeks when that
happens. My father once came
back up the field with 4 or 5 eggs,
geese eggs, larger than chicken
eggs, and made himself breakfast
from them. The yolk was much
deeper yellow in color, and he
claimed they tasted rich and
strong and wild as 'eggs.' Far
better, to his liking. You need
to remember though, this is
the same guy who, at another
time, chowing down, declaimed
how much more wonderful the
food up there was - all that
country butter and milk, and
the rest, and how it all tasted
so much better. To which my
glum mother replied, 'Andy, we
bought all this from Shop-Rite
at home, before we left, and
brought it here. Don't you
remember?' Alas, she was right.
But it didn't stop him from
eating even more energetically
and enjoying the food. I myself
was heard to mutter, 'It must
be the gas.' Meaning the stove.
(It was electric, as were all our
utilities).
-
Well, all this geese and duck
activity, as it was sure to do
eventually, brought to us an
animal evidently on the hunt.
It began that, of a sudden, we'd
suddenly find the carcass, the
bones, with feathers strewn
about, of one or another of the
ducks and geese, one at a time
every few days. Our small herd
of feathered water-fowl friends
was diminishing. Word was,
as it got back to us, that a
silver fox had been seen now
prowling the area, and the
locals were sure that was
behind this disappearing
duck operation. And, it
came to pass, that one day,
on one of our tree stumps, the
neighboring farmer, Warren,
espied this silver fox sunning
itself, lying about on that tree
stump - which fox, from a
distance, he shot at, and did
not miss. Short order, and
problem solved. By this time
we were down to about 4
creatures left.
-
Back in the days of DDT and
all that, it was not like it is now,
with deer and animals everywhere.
Most of that stuff was far more
scarce than now. Up in this high
country where I was living of
course, it was different by far
from Avenel and NYC and the
rest, where things had gotten
built up and rows of urban and
suburban junk and clutter, and
rows of cheesy housing, had
taken things over. It was rare
then, outside of mosquitoes,
and Japanese Beetles which,
for some reason, were plentiful,
to see wildlife. Certainly a hawk,
or some deer in the yard, was
unheard of. Over at the prison
farm, right behind my house, even
there there was no abundance
of the sorts of scavenger and
crop-eating animals you'd have
today. The wildest thing, and at
most, that I ever heard was a
few early morning pheasants, at
times, as they landed around.
Their strange noise always
sounded, to me, like the noise
of an old clothesline that needed
some oiling at the rollers. That's
the way things have changed, and,
in this case, there was a certain glee
felt by these farm-folk in their
realization that a fox was lurking
near and handy. It was an invite
to the hunt. Except there was
no hunt. They got the poor,
fatted, thing while it slept.
-
I had always had trouble with
road-kill, for pity's sake. One
time, along Harkness Road,
coming up from East Troy along
Mt. Pisgah, a squirrel got tangled
up under my car and run over.
I nearly died for what I'd just
done. And here, on my own
property, now they were
blasting away the happy life
of a snoozing fox. I didn't know
which way to turn, and suddenly
those ducks and geese seemed
far secondary.
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