[AT] ND Members?

Bob Seith seithr at denison.edu
Thu Oct 27 09:05:43 PDT 2005


Deer? My oh my do we have deer. Too many of them. They walk through the 
village in the middle of the night, eating peoples' flower beds. They 
come down my alley and dine on my neighbor's privet hedge. I let my 
beagle out to bark at them, and they simply ignore him. They know he 
can't get out of the fenced yard.

And turkeys. A flock of them (probably three dozen birds) right on the 
edge of town. Big rascals. I even saw a lone one downtown one Sunday 
afternoon. Walking through a nearby yard.

Woodchucks. We must be paradise for them. Earlier this year, a baby one 
took to squeezing under my back fence so as to come into the yard and 
munch white clover. Barkley Beagle chased him under the barn where I 
store the Cub (mandatory tractor reference) and kept him pinned down 
there as long as he could.

Also large gray squirrels. My neighbor has five bird feeders, so my 
neighborhood is blessed with exceptionally well-nourished specimens. 
Most of them live in the big sugar maple in my backyard. They taunt my 
dog and provide what little exercise he gets. We also have an oversupply 
of chipmunks, but they move so fast you hardly see them. They are trying 
to take over my neighbor's crawl space. Won't THAT be fun come winter?

Buzzards are now year-round residents, in abundance. Unfortunately, they 
like to line up on the roof of the college chapel in the morning to 
catch the sunlight and warm up. They roost in trees in a small grove in 
the middle of campus. Nothing grows beneath a roosting tree; the 
droppings are too potent. We are not allowed to kill them; they have 
some sort of protected status.

I also have a large and imposing toad that lives around my front porch. 
He has been observed regularly until this recent spate of cold nights. I 
hope he is going to hibernate over winter and take up residence again 
next year. Barkley is scared of him but has learned to leave him alone.

That's the wildlife report from Granville, Ohio
Bob Seith
1953 Farmall Cub

Indiana Robinson wrote:

>On 26 Oct 2005 at 20:58, Don Thiel wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Yeah.  I am still lurking here.   Not too many pheasant
>>hunting areas around here, though.   Not enough cover for
>>them once the corn is taken off....
>>
>>Don
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>	Gee, Pheasants... I have almost forgotten they exist. I 
>guess the coyotes get at them too bad???
>	I disked a little10 acre patch to plant wheat last week 
>and I saw about 40 rabbits and while I did not see any deer 
>except the one I was driving (4020 with IHC 16' disk) I did 
>see what I would guess to be 200 bed spots. Might have been 
>200 deer or 2 deer sleeping in a new spot every night...   
>;-)   I'm guessing maybe a dozen or two deer.
>	We have plenty of quail running about. I have not heard 
>any turkeys this year but heard some last year about 1/2 
>mile west of me.
>	I have not seen any pheasants or any traces of any for 
>maybe 8 years now. Even back then it was only one. They 
>turned a big batch of Korean Pheasants loose about 10 miles 
>north east of here about 20 years ago and informed the 
>public that they would not tolerate any shooting or 
>trapping of them. I was told by a friend in the area that 
>everyday he could hear shooting...  Nothing was "in season" 
>at the time. They arrested several.
>	I'm not sure why we have plenty of everything else but no 
>pheasants. I have not allowed any hunting at all except for 
>Scott and I for a very long time and we only go sit waiting 
>for a deer to come up and line themselves up with the end 
>of a muzzle loader a few times a season (hasn't happened 
>yet). The place is over-run with deer until the day before 
>the season starts then they apparently all go hide in some 
>big underground bunker someplace until the season ends.    
>:-)
>	Not many ask to hunt here anymore, it is just getting too 
>built up. I did hear some construction worker working on my 
>neighbors new pole barn brag about shooting at some guy's 
>target deer in a lot behind that guys house by mistake... 
>Hey, he saw antlers... Shudder... I don't think I would 
>have considered that something to brag about... Especially 
>since he missed...   :-) 
>	I think Wally World has increased hunting here a little 
>just by having so much stuff out on display. Guys buy 
>blinds, tree stands and shooting stuff quicker if it is 
>right in front of them rather than having to order it or 
>look all over for it. There is also a lot of impulse buying 
>just from seeing it there every time they go buy motor oil 
>or the like.
>	BTW, I didn't get that wheat planted yet... The weather 
>man lied. It rained a day earlier than they called for and 
>rained about daily since. It is drying out now. Maybe 
>tomorrow... I usually plant wheat with my Farmall SMTA  and 
>an old John Deere FB-B grain drill with a cultipacker 
>hitched behind it. I have welded a rear hitch to the back 
>of the last two drills I used. I'm not sure why the factory 
>does not put a light hitch on them. I really believe that 
>cultipacker helps a lot.
>	 
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>  
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