Elmo waiting for hunting season to begin
Today, I am freezing my ars off in my office because Scrooge is too cheap to put an extra coal on the fire. A client blew me off. That’s OK because his scheduled visit forced me out of my hovel in the mountains where I have been hiding from reality since I ran out of work (and money…and motivation).
Yesterday, I forced myself to change out of my pajamas and go look for ducks with Elmo, my hunting dog. I say LOOK for ducks because if I FOUND ducks I would be saying yesterday I SHOT SOME DUCKS but as it were, we (Elmo and I) were only looking for ducks.
Elmo likes to look for ducks. Elmo likes to look for anything, actually. If I wanted to hunt voles he would be the happiest hound dog. When we start looking for ducks he gets all goofy and wiggly because he knows we are going hunting for something. He understands this situation because I put a little orange jacket on him and it smells a bit like pheasant feathers from being stored in my hunting bag since last winter. We hunt pheasants in the winter right after duck hunting, though this is my first duck hunting season.
I am hunting ducks for the first time and alone at that because my huzbun and another guy from the mine are fly fishing in Idaho. They have stable jobs and accumulate things like vacation days and sick days and time off for holidays – benefits. I, on the otherhand either have work — or not. Fortunately, if it is duck hunting season and I am out of work it is simply a matter of getting out of bed and driving down to a local public access where a rancher dug a pond some hundred years ago.
First, I heard it was duck hunting season and since I had a small game license that allows me to hunt pheasants, I was ready to go shoot ducks. Then, I found out you need a special STAMP. So, I went and got one. Then, I went to go shoot ducks. Elmo and I found 4 on the rancher’s pond and I shot at one with my huzbun’s home-load, which didn’t have enough powder because it was his “learning batch” and the shell got hung up in the barrel of my shotgun while the ducks had heart attacks in mid air over my head. I could have netted them out of the air they were so close if I weren’t yanking at the sideways shell sticking half out of the chamber.
Later, I learned that not only did I grab the wrong shells but that I had to have SPECIAL STEEL shot shells – the ones I was using were illegal lead ones. Thank goodness I didn’t run into a ranger! So, I dug deeper under my huzbun’s tools in the barn and found a can labeled “hunting loads” with boxes of steel shot.
“This’ll do!” I told Elmo.
We have driven out to that pond every morning, every afternoon, every evening since then and not seen one duck. Word got out. So, Elmo and I started hiking the river up stream and down. Still no ducks. Then, my brother-in-love told me that I need a special STATE duck stamp in addition to my federal duck stamp! Thank goodness I didn’t run into a ranger again and again and again!!
The missing client just called. As soon as I am done with trying to sell my wares through my presentation of rotating underground mine workings and drilled data like some kind of flying jellyfish on the computer screen, I am going to go buy another duck stamp and head for home. I saw some ducks on the river between here and there….
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