Generally Speaking

With the airwaves filled with Political ads and promises yet to be broken and a final debate between two adversaries tonight, I thought an essay I wrote a number of years back would be in order. Here it is from “The Tales of the Front Bench Regulars and Fog Line Club”

Generally Speaking, About, and In The Neighborhood

It was the March meeting of The Front Bench Regulars and Fog Line Club and, as usual, conversation was not centered on anything in particular. About a dozen members gathered around the bench and the conversations were loud. The topics varied depending upon which end of the bench a member was seated. That is the customary procedure at The Front Bench on any given morning.
One topic that generally draws everyone’s attention sooner of later, and quiets down opposite ends of the bench, concerns the list of words “the regulars” refer to as “those ohhh words.” They are called ohhh words because just the very use of one of the words on the list elicits an entire group of regulars all saying, “Ohhh” at the same time.
The list of Ohhh words started out as just one word. One morning at a regular meeting, Bobby McGhee pointed out that it’s always easy to know when you are talking to a politician because when asked a question, the answer is always preceded with the word “about.”
Over the next few weeks, the Regulars started reading closely and listening carefully, and sure enough they all agreed that Bobby McGhee was on to something. It wasn’t long and they had added more words to make the list. Words and phrases such as “nearly,” “close to,” “around,” and “generally speaking” soon became the list of “Ohhh Words” at the Front Bench.
Quotes from newspapers and magazines are highlighted and pointed out to the rest of the members when they are found, and a scrapbook of clippings should probably have been started.
The Front Bench Regulars is a consortium of guys who lay claim to being illiterate but in reality are pretty bright, intelligent group with years and years of wisdom behind them. Not a lot gets past the entire group and although they seldom agree on anything, one thing they have agreed upon is that the list of “Ohhh Words” is a list that really should make a person start listening closely to people who start using them.
During the aforementioned March meeting, Old Gray sauntered into The Front Bench, and as usual took over the conversation. Suddenly the term “pretty much” was heard and, in unison, no less than half a dozen regulars said, “Ohhh?”
“What, what’s that all about?” asked Old Gray.
“Pretty much?” queried Harley Hanks. “Now Bobby, there’s a word we got to add to the “Ohhh Word” list. Yup, pretty much says as much as, about, generally speaking, around and all the other words we’ve added to the list. Don’t ya think.”
“Yup, it sure does,” said Bobby McGhee. “As far as I can figure! It’s officially added to the list as of now.”
“Now there’s another one for you,” shouted Kenslik Lyons. “As far as I can figure? That leaves about as much to interpretation as any “Ohhh Word” on the list. Is “as far as I can tell” just the opposite from “As near as I can tell?”
Lars Watash quickly pointed out that Kenslik had just used one of the dreaded ohhh words in his last sentence and said, “I figure, we all oughta run for some kind of office. We’ve been hearin’ that language so much, we’ve started usin’ it ourselves.”
Ketch chimed in with “I think a few of you guys oughta get together and update the list, that’s what I think.”

“Ughhhh – a few you say,” said Peters Hooper. “Ketch how many is a few to you? Kenslik how many is a few to you? You guys sound more and more like politicians all the time. It won’t be long and we’ll find you using words like “a couple,” “not very many,”  “pret near,” and “several.”

Laughter filled the room and people started to leave. Kenslik Lyons headed out the door and said, “See you guys in the morning!”

Bobby McGhee answered with. “What time are ya gonna be here in the mornin?”

“Approximately 7,” quipped Kenslik with a wry smile on his face.

 

Front Bench Regulars “Ohhh Word” list

 

Around

Approximately

A few

A couple

Several

Generally speaking

Pret Near

Pretty Much

In the neighborhood

Close to

Not much more than

Somewhere around

Nearly

I’d estimate that

Not quite

As near as I can tell

As far as I can tell

Some

Almost

Not Quite

Round About

Not many

Many

Numerous

Darn Near

Damn Near

In Search of More Deceased Deer – 10/7/12

After typing the other post from today and being that it was a beautiful day, I chose to donn my chest high waders and go for a hike in the creek. Not along the banks of Rocky Run but right in the water.

I wanted to see if there were any more whitetails dead in or next to the creek and I just wanted to get out there and be a part of our own “little wilderness.”

I got all the necessary equipment around such as: Chest High Waders, Camo hat with wide brim, camera, cell phone, and shotgun. I chose to take along the Mossberg 500 .410 gauge as a piece that would fend off any critters that might consider me a smorgasboard.

Sure, sure – laugh if you will but remember that I am the guy with the actual pictures of that Puma footprint in the marsh not too far from the Locust Pole Stand and not too far from the new tower we erected last fall. You see, big cats have a habit of hanging around Oshaukuta and I seldom venture out back without some form of smokeless protection I’m not referring to chewing tobacco here either). Today just happened to be the .410 because I had never carried it up there.

I entered the water directly from my lawn. I exited when I’d reached the site of our old duck blind. That’s a pretty good hike in the water against the current.

Here is what I saw and what I heard. Several small trout as well as several very nice sized trout gave me a look. Several other things made very large wakes in the creek as they swam upstream away from me. I saw lots of small minnows. I noticed some really neat undercut banks. I saw one magnificent drake wood duck that presented a great shot if I’d had a duck stamp. Alas I do not and didn’t raise the gun. A great blue heron was using Rocky Run for an aquatic smorgasboard today and I rousted that bird out of it’s stalking territory three times in all. Just above “Fountain’s Bend” a very large deer bounded from it’s bed not more than six or seven feet from me. I did not see the deer at all but from my vast experience of doing what I was doing (stalklng in the creek) the deer had the sound of a large one as it landed on it’s bounds out and away from that goose neck in the creek. The thing that always amazes me on hikes and adventures like this is the fact that one can get so close to those critters and not see them before they bound away. I’d been as close to that deer earlier on when I was on the downstream side of that oxbow and that deer held it’s ground. I would guess that watching me and listening to me make my way up the upstream side of oxbow just made the deer, a large buck is my thought, too nervous to hang in there any longer and off he went. They have a natural tendency to bed down on the points of those oxbows on the inside bends. By doing so gives them two good means of escape 1) across the creek in a single bound or 2) back up through oxbow on land between the upstream and downstream sides. Today’s deer chose to wait and high tailed it out of there on land.

That deer conjured up so many forever memories of my hundreds and hundreds of hikes along Rocky Run. Over the past 46 years I’ve chased deer out of every bend, every oxbow, every red willow thicket, tag alder clump or poplar thicket the marsh has to offer. As I move along through the property now-a-days it’s like opening up a journal that I’d never kept. It all comes back to me, every one of those experiences. I could take you along and show you where I’ve jumped, bumped or floated right past deer. I could show you where I shot several in their beds when they didn’t suspect a thing as I floated by.

I inspected some patches that I’ve worked on the past few years that are working and looked at a couple that need attention soon. I also shake my head every time I get to what I now call Two Piers. That lack of attention in that particular part of the stream cost us more than 200 yards of prime trout water. That’s lost forever!

The area in front of the old duck blind has really changed. My late father-in-law would cringe if he were able to see what has happened on that part of the stream. It’s just the way things go. They are always changing and offering newer adventures somewhere else on the property for me and younger adventurers to experience.

I didnt’ find any more dead whitetails in the stream today but the one that I’d found before is gone. My question is, what animal could have pulled that buck out of the water and made off with it? The answer to that question could very well be — the reason I was carrying that shotgun today.

So, when you venture out to your deer stand in the blackness of an Oshaukuta morning or stay in your stand past shooting hours in the darkness — will you be alone or will a pair of green eyes be looking at you and thinking to itself “Aha, A buffet!”

Have a great Oshaukuta Day!
Bob

A lot of Catching Up to Do

Don’t fret! I won’t type about every Oshaukuta activity that has taken place since my last post in February. I will however, touch on just a few of them.

I’ll work my way backward from where I am at today and go back through some things that fall into a category I’ll call – “Where I’ve Been”.

Recently Bud and I have done some long distance shooting from the tower. We have a 100 yard target set up as well as a target at 200 yards and a third one at 320 yards. We’ve been trying to zero in our high powered rifles. It’s been a hoot and I think Bud and I are going to host the first-ever – Oshaukuta Long Shot Day.

Bud also shot his muzzle loader a couple times at 50 yards and those results clearly indicate that we need to make more smoke. He didn’t do very well at 50 yards.

I also was involved with some long distance shooting the Hilton with a couple of non-Oshaukuta friends. Actually, I suppose they are now Oshaukuta Friends due to the fact that they were in the Hilton and outside the Hilton shooting at my targets and they shot a lot of times. Jeremy was zeroing in his new 7mm Mag with a bipod on the front and I think he also has one of those new, fancy bullet drop compensator scopes. Troy was blasting away with a pair of AR pieces he recently acquired in .223 of course. There were lots of holes in the paper targets.

EHD has hit Oshaukuta in a strong way. The first deer was found by Brian lying in the creek just above Two Piers. He also found a doe near the creek. I found a doe south of the creek and another one near the ditch that runs from the Gold Stand east to the north south drainage ditch on what is now Mike Fountain’s corn field. The Crawford boys found a nice buck dead in their mother’s pond and could actually see where the deer had just walked right down into the water and died. I told Matt Z. about the EHD stuff and he discovered a dead doe in the water on the public hunting grounds as he hiked out to the Island to look things over. I talked with Cory L. last week and told him about what had been going on out here. He took a hike last Saturday and found three dead ones near the water on the north side of Morse Road. I then found another small buck in the creek just below the power line when I was “frogging around” up there fixing the brdige across the drainage ditch.

I’m going to hike up along the creek bank and back on the other side to see if I discover any more. We are right around a dozen or so confirmed deer deaths in an area less than a 5/8 square mile so there are most likely more in the area.

I’ve now seen three fawns that appear to be motherless in the alfalfa below the Hilton. They are never together as there is a single doe fawn and a pair of twins that are buck and doe. There has yet to be an adult doe with them. Brian says he has seen a couple of small sets of antlers out there and that he has a picture of one better sized buck.

I’ll put out more cameras this week.

The hot summer drought really raised heck with the creek water levels. It may have been lower at some point since I started looking at it back in the 1960s but I don’t recall a year when it was as low as it has been this summer and fall. The marsh is extremely dry. However, the marsh weeds were taller than I can recall this summer. The first time my grandson Graham and I took a six-wheeler trip up through the marsh we couldn’ believe how tall those marsh weeds and grasses were. The frost from two weekends ago has dropped most of the marsh weeds and grasses down a bit and they are turning brown instead of green.

Between Matt Z and myself, my yard and that of my mother-in-law have yielded no less than 18 moles and there are still more working the yards. Last week was a six-mole week for my trap line.

The crops on the farm didn’t do very well. The beans were a total loss and so was the corn for the guy who rents the property. He cut, wind rowed and round baled the fox tail that grew where the beans were supposed to be. Those bales have to be filled with sand burrs because I had lots of them on my pants, socks and shoe laces after walking in that stuff. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone baling fox tail before. The corn crop is filled with fox tail and ragweed. There is lots of ragweed. I’m not sure what the guy is going to do with that stuff. The alfalfa isn’t too bad and is providing what few deer we have with some fresh, green shoots.

That’s it in a nutshell. Keep posted as I’ll get back into the swing of typing and posting pictures.
Bob