Among the Bois D'arc.
Rich as Croesus, Matt is a cognoscenti of fine guns, good whisky, and dresses better than most of the healing profession, although that’s not saying much. Most doctors dress little better than bums. He’s an oral surgeon, by the way, and, over-achiever that he is, it follows that he is a board-certified oral surgeon, as well. He’s also a capital shot. I’ve only know him fifteen years or so, so maybe he was a slacker in high school. Since our acquaintance though, I’ve never known him to tackle a subject on which he wasn’t an authority. He’s not an expert in the female department, but then, who really is? I mean, really? Anyhow, sometimes, mired firmly in mediocrity as I am, it’s damn discouraging to associate with someone who does everything well, or perhaps more accurately, only does things which he does well, and those things happen to coincide with my own interests.
I’m terribly competitive at times. Not always, though, but enough that I would tell a shrink about it. I don’t have a shrink though. Probably should. Held back, however. The bastard would probably shoot better than me, anyhow. That would only worsen my condition, if, that is, I actually have a condition. Not sure.
Anyway, went afield with Matt on Sunday just in front of a massive storm front. The birds have been difficult to find lately, no doubt because of the weather - unseasonably warm. Figured perhaps the barometric pressure might winkle them out. Not sure whether it is a sound theory, meteorologically, but we found them.
The dog coursed over a busted pair without detecting them in the slightest and one of them popped up in front of Matt, which for a bird is the least desirable thing. The other flew out and away before I’d even realized that he was a quail, and so no shot. A few yards further in the watercourse and another arose, sharing a similar fate of the first. Again no help from the dog, or me, for that matter.
Gunshots do marvelous things to rivet the attention of a hunting dog though, and U. abandoned his carefree ways and went to work in earnest. On down a bit, the waterway gave way to a wash at the end of a bean field and we concentrated our effort on each edge of the field, with U. up the slot, pinball-like. At the end of the field, which was kidney-shaped and rather small, U. locked up at the base of a hedge tree.
I hate hedge.
Maclura pomifera, the Osage orange tree, called Bois D’arc by the French trappers, and colloquially called hedge because of the practice of planting them in hedge rows, is our version of the live oak. When mature, they are about thirty feet high with quarrellous, spreading branches, many of them low to the ground. Impermeable to insect damage, they were favored by farmers for fence material, and they rot very slowly. Like decades slow. Interestingly, hedge burns hotter than most other woods, and they are very, very dense trees; dried for firewood, hedge wood is the next best thing to uranium. They bear an inedible fruit that we call hedge apples, big green multi-segmented things the size of a softball and the deer love ‘em. But that’s not why I hate hedge. The saplings are the problem, they are thorny, pernicious damn things with the same unruly pattern to their branches as their mature forbears and they have a positive knack for nailing me in the crotch at the slightest provocation.
So when Utah went down at the base of a six foot hedge tree, I figured I’d take the easy way out and let him flush the bird instead of picking up a score of half inch thorns in the essentials. I tapped him on the head to release him, he moved about half a millimeter, and locked up again.
Nothing for it but to take one for the team, I strode in wishing I had a cup or at least a chain mail hauberk. Right about the time the whip-like branch smacked me in the eye, the pair broke to my rear and Matt’s gun barked and the bird tumbled over into bare ground, which I thought was rather decent of him. Although I contorted enough to get off a shot at the other bird, it was a Hippocratic shot, as a board- certified oral surgeon might say might say;
“First, do no harm.”
At least the dog did well in the end.
I’m terribly competitive at times. Not always, though, but enough that I would tell a shrink about it. I don’t have a shrink though. Probably should. Held back, however. The bastard would probably shoot better than me, anyhow. That would only worsen my condition, if, that is, I actually have a condition. Not sure.
Anyway, went afield with Matt on Sunday just in front of a massive storm front. The birds have been difficult to find lately, no doubt because of the weather - unseasonably warm. Figured perhaps the barometric pressure might winkle them out. Not sure whether it is a sound theory, meteorologically, but we found them.
The dog coursed over a busted pair without detecting them in the slightest and one of them popped up in front of Matt, which for a bird is the least desirable thing. The other flew out and away before I’d even realized that he was a quail, and so no shot. A few yards further in the watercourse and another arose, sharing a similar fate of the first. Again no help from the dog, or me, for that matter.
Gunshots do marvelous things to rivet the attention of a hunting dog though, and U. abandoned his carefree ways and went to work in earnest. On down a bit, the waterway gave way to a wash at the end of a bean field and we concentrated our effort on each edge of the field, with U. up the slot, pinball-like. At the end of the field, which was kidney-shaped and rather small, U. locked up at the base of a hedge tree.
I hate hedge.
Maclura pomifera, the Osage orange tree, called Bois D’arc by the French trappers, and colloquially called hedge because of the practice of planting them in hedge rows, is our version of the live oak. When mature, they are about thirty feet high with quarrellous, spreading branches, many of them low to the ground. Impermeable to insect damage, they were favored by farmers for fence material, and they rot very slowly. Like decades slow. Interestingly, hedge burns hotter than most other woods, and they are very, very dense trees; dried for firewood, hedge wood is the next best thing to uranium. They bear an inedible fruit that we call hedge apples, big green multi-segmented things the size of a softball and the deer love ‘em. But that’s not why I hate hedge. The saplings are the problem, they are thorny, pernicious damn things with the same unruly pattern to their branches as their mature forbears and they have a positive knack for nailing me in the crotch at the slightest provocation.
So when Utah went down at the base of a six foot hedge tree, I figured I’d take the easy way out and let him flush the bird instead of picking up a score of half inch thorns in the essentials. I tapped him on the head to release him, he moved about half a millimeter, and locked up again.
Nothing for it but to take one for the team, I strode in wishing I had a cup or at least a chain mail hauberk. Right about the time the whip-like branch smacked me in the eye, the pair broke to my rear and Matt’s gun barked and the bird tumbled over into bare ground, which I thought was rather decent of him. Although I contorted enough to get off a shot at the other bird, it was a Hippocratic shot, as a board- certified oral surgeon might say might say;
“First, do no harm.”
At least the dog did well in the end.