tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84146559382676971372024-03-16T11:52:46.420-07:00Larry Dablemont OutdoorsGloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.comBlogger538125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-49419707562467421502024-03-11T13:08:00.000-07:002024-03-11T13:08:04.170-07:00An Enticing Skirt, A Deadly Blade<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWFQjRGjG_QHJQN_-t03SVY_i-2eMkxZGk7Vv-ysByifjuYByHbnS4WWqkB6H7ZUCrToQYOP587pBKjO6nuLpYiAXMNo-gyg24naOiAw7-4WxN6JAgtLSaazSRaDe3BDBTmD02fkxST6Jrjm4rvB7zhgk8lF5GbiP78fRv6sfQG9VCVCOiof3J5W0XYSw/s1600/l.d.--bass%20trumantif,%20ld%206%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWFQjRGjG_QHJQN_-t03SVY_i-2eMkxZGk7Vv-ysByifjuYByHbnS4WWqkB6H7ZUCrToQYOP587pBKjO6nuLpYiAXMNo-gyg24naOiAw7-4WxN6JAgtLSaazSRaDe3BDBTmD02fkxST6Jrjm4rvB7zhgk8lF5GbiP78fRv6sfQG9VCVCOiof3J5W0XYSw/w480-h640/l.d.--bass%20trumantif,%20ld%206%20copy.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">It was two o’clock in the afternoon before we got to the lake, and it was up a liitle but not much. The water was just a little murky, but there was still a few feet or so of visibility in it. That’s about perfect for a big spinner-bait. If you fish small spinners and light line, clear water is fine, but if you are after a brawling, broad-sided bass, and the spinner blade is about the size of a spoon you use to serve mashed potatoes with, a little bit of murkiness in the water is fine.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">I pulled a yellow and white skirt with two large gold willow-leaf spinners out of my tackle box, and I put a trailer hook on the main hook. I added a strip of white pork rind on the main hook below the trailer, so the trailer hook wouldn’t come off, and it made the whole thing look even more delectable. When you get through with that you have about three-quarters of an ounce of lure to cast. With that I was using an Ambassadeur 4500 casting reel and 14-pound line, on a medium-heavy graphite rod. Of course, such a rig isn’t meant for enjoying the resistance of small fish. You are hoping to attract a largemouth of lunker proportions, and you are looking for him in brushy water, back up in a cove which is full of timber, or maybe in that cove halfway out to the main lake.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">And of course, I caught five bass in the first hour from 12- to 15- inches long. That is better than nothing, but I am one of those lunker-busters. I want a hog… a slab-sided frog eater! Smaller bass would have been great fun on a spinning outfit with eight-pound line but in the brush we were fishing, that kind of gear is too light. They were out away from the bank in six or eight feet of water, and to get to them, I was hanging up on occasion, then working to get that lure loose.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">It happens that way when you fish a spinner-bait the size of a bird’s nest in that kind of water. You don’t just cast it and retrieve it. You vibrate that blade, you lift it and you drop it and you let it fall and flutter into water where there are logs and limbs. You try to tantalize a bass, get him to rise up from the brushpile hideout where he lurks and come after that spinner bait. You use your rod tip, you feel your lure through places where you can’t actually see what is there. I don’t know what a bass thinks that spinner-bait is, but you make him like the idea of eating it, by causing the blade to throb and the skirt to undulate. You make it look alive, like something with a fishy taste to it.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">There are all kinds of spinner-baits today, and blades of a variety of colors and shapes. Apparently my gold willow leaf variety was what they wanted that day last week. I had just retrieved the lure from an underwater limb, and made another cast ahead of me, when between two upright trees, I felt it hit another limb. I lifted it quickly and felt it stop and give just a little. Then in a split second I saw it move, away and down. I set the hook hard and the bass, only eight or ten feet from the boat, didn’t give an inch. A hog!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> Finally I had attracted a bass worthy of the gear I was using. He just stripped a foot or so of line against my drag, then came back below me, arcing the rod like a catfish on a cane pole. It was fun… at times like that I remember why I like to fish for bass.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">No, it isn’t quite along the lines of dueling a four-pound smallmouth in a current below a river shoal, but a big largemouth bass with a mouth that will easily hold a softball, and a belly wide and heavy with eggs, will make you forget there is any work left undone at home. I fought him, and I won. Many times I have hooked bass of that size and they have won the struggle, but last week it was my turn. I hefted him, actually a ‘her’ and my partner took a couple of pictures. The bass was a little better than 21 inches long, and you can guess it’s weight by going to my website (<u><span style="color: blue;">www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com</span></u>) and looking at the photo.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">The lake was a place of solitude that day in midweek. There wasn’t a boat to be seen, not an unnatural sound to be heard. I don’t fish lakes which are heavy on development, and I don’t fish on weekends because there are too many boats on the water, often because of the tournament crowds. I like being out there alone when I can be, where you can’t see anything but water and woods around you. And with those conditions, every now and then…</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in; vertical-align: bottom;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;">Read more of my outdoor news and columns on larrydablemontoutdoors. Email me at <u><span style="color: blue;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</span></u>. Our river trip on the Big Piney will be April 20 and the Truman Lake pontoon trip will be April 27. Call and talk too my secretary, Ms. Wiggins, if you want to go along, or get more information. The office phone is 417 777 5227. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: black;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 0in 8pt; width: 22pt;" valign="top" width="22"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p></td><td style="padding: 0in; width: 560pt;" width="560"></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #202124; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-21251198669933139682024-03-08T11:57:00.000-07:002024-03-08T11:57:21.103-07:00 Hot Dog, Jerry’s Coming!!<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8Pgc_sI8R7kB4fN20GjLECj2uq-Bi8GPaT2GQ-ChOeZyosOysfz5eB23AyD5j-5bl6IcdwiJ7Oc7xrEKCL0e3dE2wOwxMTnocab4FjIGp63ddM65pGvSQDOwu4f8d_HohVmyQ3gox1CnHzq_W9xbMcfbJYwY2LvDtHMywqps5gYMGpkfxPv5M302mTs/s969/jerry%20mccoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8Pgc_sI8R7kB4fN20GjLECj2uq-Bi8GPaT2GQ-ChOeZyosOysfz5eB23AyD5j-5bl6IcdwiJ7Oc7xrEKCL0e3dE2wOwxMTnocab4FjIGp63ddM65pGvSQDOwu4f8d_HohVmyQ3gox1CnHzq_W9xbMcfbJYwY2LvDtHMywqps5gYMGpkfxPv5M302mTs/w528-h640/jerry%20mccoy.jpg" width="528" /></a></div><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> Jerry McCoy, who is one of the best north Arkansas guides, especially for White River trout, will be at our swap meet on Saturday with all kinds of antique and modern fishing gear and antique lures. He is an expert on old fishing lures and old gear, and he buys a lot of those. He has written some great articles for my magazine, “The Lightnin’ Ridge outdoor journal. But he can tell you the value of old lures, reels, rods, creels, any kind of old time fishing equipment. He is a magnetic personality and you will enjoy talking to him, a man who has 60 years of fishing experience on the lakes and rives of Arkansas. I can’t wait to see him again, one of my favorite fishing partners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> That Swap meet is 9 to 2 on Saturday, the 9<sup>th</sup>, at the Noble Hills Church Gymnasium about 5 miles or so north of Springfield Mo on highway 13. It is free to who who come, but it costs 10 dollars to get a table or two to sell your wares. I do hope that you will be able to come because I am speaking at 11 a.m. about how I almost became the head of the Fish and Wildlife Service during the Bill and Hillary Clinton presidential administration. Last time I did that, only four people showed up. This time I am hoping to have twice that many. The $10 vendors pay and any donations goes to the church youth to help them pay for a summer camp they want to attend. I will also be selling my 12 autographed books, and individual copies of nearly 100 outdoor magazines I have published over the last 20 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> If you have something to sell too, bring your own folding tables, no more than two, 6 or 8 footers. If you have an interest, call Steve Johnson or me. His phone number is 417-414-3128. We have been assured that President Trump will visit if he doesn’t have anything else to do. And many other celebrities will be there!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> If you want to come and only have one or two items, like an old-time shotgun or deer rifle or squirrel gun, you can leave it at my table with a price on it and I will sell it for you. I am an amazing salesman! It has been said of me that I could sell mushroom seeds to a garden center. I once sold spaghetti plants to Pizza Hut.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5KZLvcANasxyYMZwCMGjkCVdO1NCVogW2XxynUgMosmDGE-jL-w83gGvBqN9bjKr-6XDCK6PEJw4jxwPcwzhA9RYexp6mD8g7sDViMhZE44L6bUUehoznuxd_6sJr5Zxa-RaZwsNdImMBBLknFSYiofV0WBRinYbzWgAmVG0dVPs1Hw6spO7gvfBTxjs/s1364/20.%20Niangua%20intrepretative%20float%201%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1364" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5KZLvcANasxyYMZwCMGjkCVdO1NCVogW2XxynUgMosmDGE-jL-w83gGvBqN9bjKr-6XDCK6PEJw4jxwPcwzhA9RYexp6mD8g7sDViMhZE44L6bUUehoznuxd_6sJr5Zxa-RaZwsNdImMBBLknFSYiofV0WBRinYbzWgAmVG0dVPs1Hw6spO7gvfBTxjs/s320/20.%20Niangua%20intrepretative%20float%201%20copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"> On a more serious note, I will have two interpretive trips this spring. One will be a float trip on t he Piney River near Licking Mo The time will likely be early April whenever water conditions are right. I once was a National Park Service naturalist on the Buffalo River doing such float trips involving up to 40 people at a time. We stopped often to identify the trees and furbearers and birds, we seined fish, taught people how to fish with casting and spinning gear, how to paddle a boat or canoe, and had a big dinner on a shaded gravel bar with a fish fry as the big attraction. I hope to have several guides for those who need one… the main attraction will be 80 year old river guide Charlie Curran who guided fishermen on the Piney when I was born.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKaBoqCcT5s1wULzClgavMcy9kudb8iG4wHfqcC5mpYLyVwHMkHksRlPDDWigoChr-fJLSaQTwqwSSaqzQN0Sa3N0drCknEC0eowfVTpRWxYcepiLti2Vmw1wueLXmcrPJ15231xOCANpEewYGhfl1DSbBwklkheOcL16Vjo-ByTTc6vCvys7ZfhS968/s2400/%201.%20Niangua%20intrepretative%20float%201%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1621" data-original-width="2400" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVKaBoqCcT5s1wULzClgavMcy9kudb8iG4wHfqcC5mpYLyVwHMkHksRlPDDWigoChr-fJLSaQTwqwSSaqzQN0Sa3N0drCknEC0eowfVTpRWxYcepiLti2Vmw1wueLXmcrPJ15231xOCANpEewYGhfl1DSbBwklkheOcL16Vjo-ByTTc6vCvys7ZfhS968/w400-h270/%201.%20Niangua%20intrepretative%20float%201%20copy.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> We will also have another trip for up to 15 people back into the wildest area of Truman Lake I know of. We will go there on my pontoon boats, have a mid-day fish fry, and hike into some timbered regions of the lake, then ride around just before sunset to see eagles and migrating spring birds, which should include Canadian loons. If you are interested, contact me to get on the list and we will notify you a week or so before the date we set. There is no charge for either trip.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 18pt;">My office phone is 417 777 5227. Write to me at P.O. Box 22 Bolivar, Mo. 65613. Read more on the computer at larrydablemontoutdoors, or email me…<u><span style="color: #1155cc;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</span></u>. There is no ‘g’ on the end of lightnin.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18pt;"> <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-73357135804438590492024-03-02T17:46:00.001-07:002024-03-02T17:46:47.096-07:00 I Need Help<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> I need help. Not for me, but for three children and their father in north Arkansas… David, the father, has done some work for me and he is a very intelligent man, a hard worker about as down on his luck as anyone I have ever seen. He has been beset by the law and justice of Boone County if you want to call it that. David’s wife and mother of his kids is not with them. He moved from a town in Ohio to a country setting at Lead Hill Arkansas, seeking a better life for them. He got a job there and traded a kayak for an old car. Times were difficult, so he didn’t have the money to get the car licensed and buy any insurance. His kids, now from 9 too 13 years of age needed to be fed so David took a chance and drove to a food pantry in nearby Yellville. Coming back the only cop from Diamond City spied him, a real dandy of a lawman, confiscated his car and wrote him out a fine he had no chance to pay. The old beat up car was towed, confiscated and sold. David saw it being driven around a month later, after being told it had been destroyed. Lying is fine if you are part of the justice system.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> So I called the court in Harrison and told the story of how, could David get his license back, I could help him get a car and he could make a couple hundred dollars per week working for me on weekends. I was speaking with a ‘judge’s aid’ by the name of Mrs. Wright, who seemed soooo sympathetic, telling me that the lady judge would be very sympathetic to helping those three kids. She told me to be in court the next Thursday at 10 a.m. and in only minutes, before regular court started, we would see how much money I would have to pay to get fines cleared and get David a drivers license.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><span> </span>Keep in mind that David works for hourly wages. He rides a motorbike to work a mile from home in any type of weather, cold, snow, rain, whatever. But they are as poor as they can get, and Mrs. Wright was sure anxious to help. Apparently the judge wasn’t!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> That Thursday I drove 2 and a half hours, arrived early to find that Mrs. Wright, for some reason, was gone, couldn’t be called, wasn’t going to be back. Mrs. Judge had no intention of talking to me, hadn’t even heard of me, or David, and couldn’t care less about three kids. That wasn’t her job! Her job was whackin’ victims who appeared before her, guilty or not. In front of a judge anywhere, offenders are guilty if they cannot pay a lawyer! But I was told that MAYBE about two o’clock she might see me. Maybe you can see why I lost my temper. But the ladies at the desk couldn’t help, and a little banty rooster court helper told me to get out quick or he would take me to jail without charge.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> That’s what the north Arkansas justice system is all about…David and those three kids are of no importance. Who is, unless they have money? David can’t afford a lawyer and it takes a lawyer to get him a driver’s license and the kind of money it takes to make a living in north Arkansas. Lawyers help those who can pay a lot of money. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. If we can get him a driver’s license I am willing to help him get a car, and pay the judge and lawyers in Harrison whatever fines they demand. All they have to do is listen to the problem as Mrs. Wright did and just help someone. And if you get a chance, you might call Mrs. Wright and ask her why she wasn’t at work that day, when I drove 5 hours to do what that judge could do in 5 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> If anyone knows one good lawyer who might work a couple of hours to help those three kids without being paid, tell me who he is. I have been around those three children. They are respectful, obedient and intelligent kids. I want to help them, but I have no idea what to do now.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-82553114254589438552024-03-01T08:52:00.000-07:002024-03-01T08:52:14.579-07:00A Sad Season<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9TPdb3O7zl84hBKx5C94E9M9h5ugU9GrIFwHts9jJyTBJ66Iozx720pKProrlo9z3bFsuntMdmucVHZui9wgxNTV_zGtBsyN0QXVDJDL8nX5WC7wubKFgKwWuys5w41Y_ODYFKaVbeWuDbkw4YtI_rhEyTfjjLiGrgbXWjB10WnYvU8xIp6Mj5rmSzWo/s3900/ld%20Bolt%20hunting%20over%20decoys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3900" data-original-width="2600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9TPdb3O7zl84hBKx5C94E9M9h5ugU9GrIFwHts9jJyTBJ66Iozx720pKProrlo9z3bFsuntMdmucVHZui9wgxNTV_zGtBsyN0QXVDJDL8nX5WC7wubKFgKwWuys5w41Y_ODYFKaVbeWuDbkw4YtI_rhEyTfjjLiGrgbXWjB10WnYvU8xIp6Mj5rmSzWo/w426-h640/ld%20Bolt%20hunting%20over%20decoys.JPG" width="426" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> All through the fall hunting season, those of us who love to hunt waterfowl prayed for rain. The one thing you need for great duck hunting is plenty of water, and we just didn't have it. So I have decided to go duck hunting this spring, when the ducks start heading back to the north. I’m going to hunt them with my camera. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><span> </span>Shucks, if you like to watch ducks work the decoys and respond to your call, why do you have to have a shotgun with you? I can take home a whole flock with my camera, and never miss. Another thing I will do this spring, before the hunting season, is shoot some turkey gobblers… again with a camera. As our wild turkey numbers decline drastically, more of us old-time gobbler getters should turn to that. You bag more wild turkeys with a camera, and you don’t have to clean one. Then at the local grocery store, a turkey that is ready for the smoker costs a fraction of what a turkey tag does.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> All in all, I think I'll put this last hunting season in the "ones to forget" file. Outdoor writers who hunt and fish often have wonderful opportunities and, therefore, some very good trips. We write about those trips and very often keep quiet about the others. But we all have outings we'd like to forget, The duck season of 2023-24 was like that for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWWJu2SvSJu4cSFOfdhfpscMg0n0iVhb-h7ts_qX0jBI0MgOUzkT-ZzgXrKVUTpb3I0u-uAO2qZE7yC3L5kdSH9bqThryCpip64C6F2-rCiscqerdqznZFjDOELseEPH-jV520WBohIBGmDDKueW7pBAvnqWfK22lNfPA-WTxuR0viPYNJzKMIXDVQ2Ds/s1800/river%20hunters%202235%20copy%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1295" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWWJu2SvSJu4cSFOfdhfpscMg0n0iVhb-h7ts_qX0jBI0MgOUzkT-ZzgXrKVUTpb3I0u-uAO2qZE7yC3L5kdSH9bqThryCpip64C6F2-rCiscqerdqznZFjDOELseEPH-jV520WBohIBGmDDKueW7pBAvnqWfK22lNfPA-WTxuR0viPYNJzKMIXDVQ2Ds/w288-h400/river%20hunters%202235%20copy%202.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><br /> There have been plenty of disastrous hunting trips for me, but it may be, the all-time most embarrassing situation took place 25 years ago when my Uncle Norten and I went duck hunting on the Sac River. I've hunted rivers since I was shorter than my shotgun. We do that often via a floating blind. We've floated hundreds and hundreds of miles in a johnboat concealed with a blind of limbs and camouflage, hunting everything from deer and turkey to ducks and squirrels. <o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> In all those combined years, no Dablemont ever let his boat get away from him until that December. It happened because we stopped on a gravel bar so my uncle could go up into the timber to visit a man about a dog! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> I stayed with the boat, adding some more foliage to the blind. Then I pulled the johnboat up on the bank and sat down against a log to wait, my back to the river. I dozed off a little in the warm sunshine and my uncle returned and called my attention to the fact that our boat was floating out into mid-stream, heading away with the current. We followed down the bank knowing full well it wouldn't come back, despite my pleading. It drifted into a log on the other side, and sat there with our guns and gear, in water ten feet deep or better.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> We were in big trouble. Fortunately there was a farmhouse on a ridge behind us. Getting there in chest waders was something of an ordeal, but I did it and the farmer said he had an old boat and paddle he'd loan me. The ground was frozen, so he drove the boat fairly close to the river in an old farm truck. I used his boat to paddle across to retrieve mine, and an hour later, we headed downstream again. The farmer had a lot of questions, of course, and I answered them in a somewhat deceptive manner in order to make him think I wasn't some sort of greenhorn, and then I thanked him and told him my name was Joe Smith. He said there was a fellow who wrote a newspaper column who looked a lot like me, and I said I had been told that before. My uncle accepted full blame. He said he should have never left me in charge of the boat!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> Let me remind readers of this column that there are other stories and columns I write each week which you can read on my website, larrydablemontoutdoors, via computer. I am posting one this week about a father with three children. They need help. They are located in north Arkansas and I can’t tell their story in newspapers. Please go to that computer spot and read about them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> The outdoorsman’s swap meet at the Noble Hills church a few miles north of Springfield on Hwy 13, will be Saturday, March 9. If you want to come and set up a table to sell old fishing and hunting and outdoor gear, call me at 417-777 5227. You can also email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLR4D44ojvWDeqh34Qitv8Ml7iiVeDX0ticSFuDaq_U9V_ZasYYo_vb_dGBTixjYnp-rGkedPObUJlhabvcvHXKwAC7ogOo2TffMKpPM71sot4EOGZWCF92f8DmHYrz4lQE8eDaLYKSYNi8iEzg9TkdCLmZe46bijMa1cUlw9p0Oy7fJomodcCiSIhtxc/s2338/2024%20swameet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2338" data-original-width="1700" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLR4D44ojvWDeqh34Qitv8Ml7iiVeDX0ticSFuDaq_U9V_ZasYYo_vb_dGBTixjYnp-rGkedPObUJlhabvcvHXKwAC7ogOo2TffMKpPM71sot4EOGZWCF92f8DmHYrz4lQE8eDaLYKSYNi8iEzg9TkdCLmZe46bijMa1cUlw9p0Oy7fJomodcCiSIhtxc/w466-h640/2024%20swameet.jpg" width="466" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-20357189932969159922024-02-21T09:39:00.001-07:002024-02-21T09:39:35.175-07:00Too Many <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4L1s-KDtInVf4q6sSyZr74J6Kd8IDO4umENCXcPtWazZA9mhaXBh8alLhrb61n4OZ3X1mD7-QQTd5lGiEE0SCBMcv1sE6xXsAZTuW3zbFf-n6NjLhM90_rW6eTAROwO8Go_Nzn_bcM9CYE01OGwpWpKIbl70YaReO8USlIET7NKjRsdRbfbNfW2hFao/s1200/skunk%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4L1s-KDtInVf4q6sSyZr74J6Kd8IDO4umENCXcPtWazZA9mhaXBh8alLhrb61n4OZ3X1mD7-QQTd5lGiEE0SCBMcv1sE6xXsAZTuW3zbFf-n6NjLhM90_rW6eTAROwO8Go_Nzn_bcM9CYE01OGwpWpKIbl70YaReO8USlIET7NKjRsdRbfbNfW2hFao/w640-h428/skunk%20copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> I have noticed that there are more skunks in the Ozarks than I have ever seen before, and I want to remind readers that skunks often get rabies, likely carriers of that disease second only to bats. If you see one during the day, or have one around your home that acts strange any time of the day, shoot it. A skunk killed instantly will not spray its scent. Don’t take a chance by ignoring them! Killing skunks will not harm species numbers. From what I see now, there are likely twice as many skunks across the Ozarks as there should be, many more than what is a normal population. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> I think I wrote about black vultures years ago and their migrations northward. I notice that people in the Conservation Department are just now talking about what a problem they might become. Those birds should be shot on sight, and you can only do it with a rifle, because they are very wary, not often approachable with a shotgun. The problem is, there are so many armchair naturalists out there who are incensed about shooting any wild creature. They have no idea what Ozarks ecology is and what species like skunks, armadillos, black vultures, cormorants, coyotes and other species can do to that ecology. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> Invasive species never, ever fit in the Ozarks, and many times native species go wildly out of control as well, like raccoons, beaver, possums and now skunks. And you never talk to people about the connection of armadillos to the dreaded leprosy disease. In the southeast, humans are contracting leprosy because of that animal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> I hear constantly from snake defenders who do not want poisonous snakes killed and are upset because I recommend it. I was a contract naturalist who studied wild areas in the Arkansas Mountains and undammed rivers. In those areas, I did not kill any snakes, and I came across many timber rattlers, copperheads and cottonmouths. But if I find them out of that wild habitat, around where humans were found, I kill all I come across. Last February, Sonya Cansler, who lives near Bull Shoals Lake, enjoyed the several different days of unseasonable 80-degree temperatures, so she went on a walk. On the second day of that month, sat down on a log and was bitten on the hip by a large copperhead. Do you realize that if she killed it, she could have been cited for breaking a Missouri Department of Conservation law? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> I will have her story in our summer magazine. She called the MDC and was told that the venom of a copperhead had never killed anyone. Folks need to know that is simply untrue statement. The MDC put out a color publication about snakes years ago that stated that no one has ever died from a copperhead bite. At Missouri’s Sam A Baker State Park, a man got the publication and believed it. A day or so later a copperhead got in his tent and he picked it up. It bit him and he did not seek medical attention. He died from the venom a day later. The same year, I think, another man died from a cottonmouth bite. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> If anyone is bitten and seeks medical attention as Ms. Cansler did, there are antivenin injections today that will save your life. As a park naturalist for the State of Arkansas and later on the Buffalo River as a naturalist for the National Park Service, I made it a point to interview many elderly people born in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. I was surprised that many told of people they knew from the past era they lived in, who died or lost limbs from the bite of a copperhead. It was a time when medical attention for snakebite, didn’t exist. The venom kills if there is a sufficient amount injected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> In this day of young biologists who grew up in cities, there is much information given out by them that is not correct; that assertion about copperheads being one of them. The ineptness of people being hired for jobs they have little knowledge about is the reason for many incorrect statements which are taken as the gospel. See it for yourself in the proliferation of otters, stocked with no forethought. That is also the reason that wild turkeys have declined in the past years to about 40 percent of what we once had. Young, city bred biologists in Missouri claim we have 1200 or so bears in the Missouri when the number is likely half that. But whatever today’s conservation departments say is never questioned by the public nor the news media. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> That is wrong!! But I can’t see any change coming. If the people of the Ozarks believe the MDC’s false information about poisonous snakes, there will be more deaths from copperhead bites and cottonmouth bites in the future. Ms. Cansler didn’t believe what she was told, and she recovered. In that magazine story, she will tell you what she went through.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> Read about the progress on the Big Piney River museum and nature center, which I believe will open in May, <span style="color: #cc0000;">and the big Outdoorsman’s Swap Meet in March on my facebook page. </span></span><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;">You can email me at</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a style="font-family: helvetica;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</a><span style="font-family: helvetica;">,</span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> or write to me at P.O.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;">Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 656132.</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;">If you want a table at that swap meet, call me at 417-777-5227,</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-large;">spaces are filling up fast.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-19290911076496570412024-02-14T08:18:00.000-07:002024-02-14T08:18:05.656-07:00Caves, and a Swap Meet <p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEM9OCkTF4vRHsnB6pzPSQnlA78WoyiBJsrjZ8N1JZQkcPQ-hZBi_NgkiMSroCD_nT7F6_3yaTcis1FBFNf_uGQvwZbwEyq3wRKmS2-oWRTuNw8eICDs5XRWB_VB9Th60ihQrsDKHEhvPrKHhZ5IEdjukYLt98v6thX_KcgJvtBWIJtv4kQYGzC5izoCU/s1600/cave%204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEM9OCkTF4vRHsnB6pzPSQnlA78WoyiBJsrjZ8N1JZQkcPQ-hZBi_NgkiMSroCD_nT7F6_3yaTcis1FBFNf_uGQvwZbwEyq3wRKmS2-oWRTuNw8eICDs5XRWB_VB9Th60ihQrsDKHEhvPrKHhZ5IEdjukYLt98v6thX_KcgJvtBWIJtv4kQYGzC5izoCU/w640-h426/cave%204.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> A strange thing is happening out in California, where people are starting to live in caves. If you remember, I wrote about my grandfather and I staying in caves on the Big Piney River in the sixties. We found all kinds of arrowheads and pieces of clay pots, and even an ivory artifact in one. I wrote about him telling me that someday people would live in caves again. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYbJGr_2HovyA_3BxpGHD22VAwgScSamJAyoz9FFgotYA1m76w9FA0KI4hVDr2IOpPR2ps8N0zv_ddweU3w3WRWT16HlbdWl9kykwJju6kE6-d7hP-mZw5IFuajePPpgqbQIt7OJJgIMkbGi8JlcKhthd3RatuP7ExM1LwENyFC-VBtfhYdottwB6YS4/s2400/DSC_0175%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2400" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYbJGr_2HovyA_3BxpGHD22VAwgScSamJAyoz9FFgotYA1m76w9FA0KI4hVDr2IOpPR2ps8N0zv_ddweU3w3WRWT16HlbdWl9kykwJju6kE6-d7hP-mZw5IFuajePPpgqbQIt7OJJgIMkbGi8JlcKhthd3RatuP7ExM1LwENyFC-VBtfhYdottwB6YS4/w320-h213/DSC_0175%20copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> Undoubtably, if you consider the thousand of years behind and before us, millions of humans lived in those caves, likely as many as there are humans living in houses today. As a state park naturalist in Arkansas in the 70’s I once talked to an elderly lady who was born in a cave near Devil’s Den State Park. It had been walled up by her father in the late 1800’s and her family lived there while they built a log cabin. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> There are hundreds of caves on the Big Piney and Gasconade Rivers, and my grandfather showed me some that were nearly impossible to find. He had spent many nights in them, running the river in years past as a winter trapper. Grandpa and I stayed overnight in some of them, but there was one he wouldn’t enter because he said in a dream that he had met and talked with people who lived in them thousands of years ago. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rXmTAKZofzbw4dlHUIJIAmv0oqngWfvtu6eQTqQjQ_5jvYADbFY51UR0o417wTLiqVhVG0zyuyPWRIie-qXY9U3hOzpNq-c1y9SSSx15VPjyE_XZTeHXcz7weROOgPPn9SH8OrJRpJVx2HqqkIXXXfqIbcCG02YlD9Xq8h-EetFbbWMoLLoPW75B-ic/s1600/Piney%20cave%20formations%204%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1144" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rXmTAKZofzbw4dlHUIJIAmv0oqngWfvtu6eQTqQjQ_5jvYADbFY51UR0o417wTLiqVhVG0zyuyPWRIie-qXY9U3hOzpNq-c1y9SSSx15VPjyE_XZTeHXcz7weROOgPPn9SH8OrJRpJVx2HqqkIXXXfqIbcCG02YlD9Xq8h-EetFbbWMoLLoPW75B-ic/w286-h400/Piney%20cave%20formations%204%20copy.jpg" width="286" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /> My cousins and I explored many of those caves when we were young. There is one in particular which has the 3 foot long jawbone of some kind of creature embedded in a cave wall. <o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> My grandfather’s predictions often came true. He told me that about a hundred years from the first atom bomb dropped in Japan, there would be one explode in the United States. He also talked of the horrible 1918 disease that killed so many, and he said I would see it come back someday to kill many many more people. </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><span> </span>Grandpa told me to never live in a city and to be independent enough to live without the conveniences of those things most men would die without. He hated electricity, called television evil and despised what he often referred to as ‘frigidaires’. He said that men were sacrificing their freedom and the quality of their lives to own such things.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> He talked on occasion of our enemies living amongst us and killing thousands and thousands of people in one day! I really thought he was a little bit crazy at times. I realize today that he was extremely bi-polar, but back then no one knew what it was. Now I remember some things he said then that seemed ridiculous and today they are coming to pass.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> But what I most remember as we sat in a Big Piney cave before a warming fire as a storm raged outside, is how he said that someday men would live there again. And now, the news that in California, thousands of homeless people are living in caves, once again. I hope that is the last of grandpa’s predictions that comes true.I am going to float the Piney again this year and spend a couple of nights in one of the caves where he and I sat before a fire and listened to the storm as it passed.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">*. *. *. *. *. *. *. </span></b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> For about ten years or so, we had an annual Outdoorsman’s Swap Meet in the Brighton Assembly of God Church gymnasium on a Saturday in March. With that, we always raised a few hundred dollars for their youth program. Each year, hundreds would attend the free get-together. About four or five years ago that church got a new pastor, and he put an end to the annual get-together for whatever reason. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> We found another church which welcomed the event but the Covid pandemic ended that idea. Now we are going to revive the Outdoorsman’s Swap Meet on Saturday, March 9 at the Noble Hills church that is located on Highway 13 about 5 or 6 miles to the north of Springfield. The whole thing is being organized by outdoorsman Steve Johnson. Steve and I once did an outdoor radio program for station KWTO in Springfield, and we made a fishing trip together a few times, so I know him well and promised I would help. We need vendors to set up their tables there and bring outdoor items for sale. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;"> In a few weeks I will tell you some of what you can find there. But for now, call Steve to reserve a table before the space is all gone. His number is 417 414 3128. My number is 417 777 5227 if you need any help or information I can provide. I am going to be there selling my outdoor books and talking to readers of this column, and am anxiously looking forward to it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> My email address is <a>lightninridge47@gmail.com</a></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">. The word ‘lightnin’ has no ‘g’ on the end of it. You can write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613</span></span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-74533440162984681512024-02-01T12:27:00.001-07:002024-02-01T12:27:05.021-07:00Outdoorman's Cabin Fever Swap Meet<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJ4gui5bfRjubmJJtjTwfWFVPLfm7xg73HupPx2aypkdwMo7AuZTsfwgfBOAeteXqbbjo-C0OLu2dZXPPnOzeBXAhsJNfPZ4WRWH62oho4fy6uXPcJIV0Zs-9JA9JDYqbkIVR5R-94ak8AwcsDr_kGvm6yz_aBmPd1sY092juQYcW1vPXRFRDWOVw7Hc/s3071/2024%20Swap%20Meet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3071" data-original-width="2371" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoJ4gui5bfRjubmJJtjTwfWFVPLfm7xg73HupPx2aypkdwMo7AuZTsfwgfBOAeteXqbbjo-C0OLu2dZXPPnOzeBXAhsJNfPZ4WRWH62oho4fy6uXPcJIV0Zs-9JA9JDYqbkIVR5R-94ak8AwcsDr_kGvm6yz_aBmPd1sY092juQYcW1vPXRFRDWOVw7Hc/w494-h640/2024%20Swap%20Meet.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-54715271349246733192024-01-31T12:22:00.002-07:002024-01-31T12:22:53.477-07:00 The Prayer Duck. and new MDC controversy<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWdthnVcGqturr1ON-F4Egtv8v5qpa3XcUGoMwfHoyewQrNYLqUpclHEIqT1sA4Um4ati7ki2RSqUcaXRkGvV5ksS7ibuk7KRd9yXPDE_QvvoTl8ga3-6cqx5gExfDBA5FILtfQG9J-muptABLIZOaa8DNXKplMtaTIZlC2g0aX1NcwIiBQXnf_d27E0/s1800/DSC_0043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1748" data-original-width="1800" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWdthnVcGqturr1ON-F4Egtv8v5qpa3XcUGoMwfHoyewQrNYLqUpclHEIqT1sA4Um4ati7ki2RSqUcaXRkGvV5ksS7ibuk7KRd9yXPDE_QvvoTl8ga3-6cqx5gExfDBA5FILtfQG9J-muptABLIZOaa8DNXKplMtaTIZlC2g0aX1NcwIiBQXnf_d27E0/w640-h622/DSC_0043.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> When I am hunting and fishing now I am almost always alone and I have conversations with myself. Some say that when someone does that, it is an indication that they are crazier than a pet coon, but I ain’t. Crazy people ask themselves questions. I don’t do that. I did sometimes when I was younger, but I could never answer any of the questions I would ask myself so I gave that up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: x-large;">I often take a notebook out in the woods with me and write something while sitting up against a tree waiting for a squirrel, or while sitting in my boat when the fish aren’t biting. When I walk in the woods or paddle downs the river, I sing songs beneath my breath, quite often making up my own songs or poems. So here is what happened folks and I swear it is the truth.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I was walking along a crop field at the lake waiting for some ducks to come into my decoys. It was late afternoon and there had been no ducks all day so I went out in that field to look for arrowheads. I find a lot that way, most of ‘em broken. I just never have been lucky like some people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> As I walked, I worked on a poem… “Lord please give me just one mallard drake. I’d druther have that than a chocolate fudge cake.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Let me say here that I am bad addicted to sweet stuff, and I would almost never put something ahead of a chocolate fudge cake or peekan pie, or a donut with icing on it. Or a strawberry cheesecake! Geez, do I love strawberry cheesecake! But that is neither here nor there… as I continue to search for arrowheads and work on the song I am singing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “ Dear Lord, you ain’t never granted me much luck, (going back to those broken arrowheads) but I’d thank you anyway if I just got a duck. One big old greenhead is all I need, just let one fly by at an extra slow speed.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> What I am praying for is not just a shot at one, but an easy one I can hit, and take home and eat. I really like grilled breast steaks off a mallard duck, with banana cream pie afterward. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;">Still walking I get really stumped with a verse I come up with. If any one out there knows a word that rhymes with mallard, I would sure like to know what it is. So here is verse three…<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “So Lord I ain’t asking for much but a green-head mallard, <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;">even a small one, skinny and squallard,”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> And I was going to continue with verse 4, 5, 6 and 7, but folks I will say this with my hand on my grandma’s Bible and no fingers crossed…honest as I can be or ever was! Just after that last verse, looking at the ground trying to think of a word to rhyme with aggrevated, sitting between a row of Milo stubble, right in front of my front boot… </span><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold";">there was a beautiful green-headed plastic mallard drake decoy!!!</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> Kinda makes the skin stand up on the back of your neck, don’t it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I am not going to say it was an act of God, but what would you call it? I have always thought the Creator has a sense of humor. But then, I have a lot of duck decoys like that one. I wonder if I should have asked for a goose!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Now for something very very serious. The Missouri Department of Conservation has just entered into an 18 million dollar contract with a private company to restore the Schell Osage waterfowl area. An engineer for MDC told me about this. Apparently there were no bids taken for this project. This needs to be investigated, but it will not be. The MDC has all the equipment, millions of dollars of it, and the personnel to do this themselves. A few years ago they built a private waterfowl hunting marsh along the Sac River for a judge, on his land. It is a great hunting marsh for him and his friends. Read more about this and see photos of the historic Schell-Osage Area on my website, </span><a href="http://www.larrydablemontoutdoors/" style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">www.larrydablemontoutdoors</span></a><span style="font-family: Geneva;">. It is quite a story. I wrote and article about it years ago for a national magazine. The story about what is happening cannot be printed in many newspapers because of MDC disapproval of the facts being given to the public. Something is bad wrong here. Eighteen million dollars would build a dozen such waterfowl marshes and hunting areas! How long can a state agency get by doing this?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Contact me via </span><a><span style="font-family: Geneva;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> to learn more. I am forming an organization we have named Common Sense Conservationist. I would like to have you join us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><span style="font-size: large;">By the way we are having a new Outdoorsman’s Swap Meet on Saturday, March 9<sup>th</sup>. Get info on that at the above website.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-17301564951559747802024-01-25T09:28:00.000-07:002024-01-25T09:28:53.559-07:00Getting’ Here Late<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YvvN2_Q_9ChGjmEP65ANJdwc1hu0OnlFGrSxzRCGaFd3LyZ5lHNlh_pxJfNXhl1878YSVcd3-V5Re_A3CqB5ZMUysr3mBkQcjq0desTy1KUyIV5zX3Ln2bI_fMIzGf1lvz9FftsS3-nCKUIfGBDS7cmOUDWyO6jEhXYKILI7svQLtiO6GuNbgCSuam8/s1200/PICT0192%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1087" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YvvN2_Q_9ChGjmEP65ANJdwc1hu0OnlFGrSxzRCGaFd3LyZ5lHNlh_pxJfNXhl1878YSVcd3-V5Re_A3CqB5ZMUysr3mBkQcjq0desTy1KUyIV5zX3Ln2bI_fMIzGf1lvz9FftsS3-nCKUIfGBDS7cmOUDWyO6jEhXYKILI7svQLtiO6GuNbgCSuam8/w580-h640/PICT0192%20copy.jpg" width="580" /></a></div><p><br /></p><br /> <span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;">On the first day of January I went looking for ducks on some of the many ponds and ranch lakes in my region of the Ozarks. As one old-timer in the pool hall once said about honest politicians on the ballot… “They wa’nt none!”</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I have never seen a time in 32 years of living here, that there have been no ducks here in late November and early December. Until this year! That is something of a catastrophe to me and other duck hunters who hunt in the Ozark section of the state.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> Usually gadwalls start showing up here in the southern zone about a week before Thanksgiving, which is a week or so after the wood-ducks leave. Mallards usually right on the pale yellow heels of gadwalls, a week and a half behind them. I love to hunt the rivers of the Ozarks for ducks but the awful drought we have had made it next to impossible to float most of the stretches I like because of low water. What a fouled up fall and winter we have had.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7ABWvLiBT7nMFFdavb8fOIFdxKZzF49pUYmhwdqmaEpYsbgcl5kgasgkQyvazEUsGANmeM36PmpAQqzb-_2VuOaEMldZItOyIqSAX6o4dGu1vGQXd8ts8tM_VgtAaqZgLtEpqUlIDzCQQQ0i-qKXefRK9J9aOFBC8S2q5wiuATnX-ld2WEHAKS0ODbs/s1020/PICT0135%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="930" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7ABWvLiBT7nMFFdavb8fOIFdxKZzF49pUYmhwdqmaEpYsbgcl5kgasgkQyvazEUsGANmeM36PmpAQqzb-_2VuOaEMldZItOyIqSAX6o4dGu1vGQXd8ts8tM_VgtAaqZgLtEpqUlIDzCQQQ0i-qKXefRK9J9aOFBC8S2q5wiuATnX-ld2WEHAKS0ODbs/w365-h400/PICT0135%20copy.jpg" width="365" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> Then the intense cold hit the Midwest in early January and the ducks came to the Ozarks, finally. But almost everything was froze-up, a duck-hunting term that means there ain’t nowhere to hunt. But experience has taught me that shoals and flowing riffles on the river never freeze, and there is food there for ducks. I went to the closest shoal on a nearby river and there they were, about a hundred mallards and gadwalls and even a few green-wing teal. The thing I have learned to do is, go in and flush them and throw out a few decoys and wait, because quite often the flocks will return in an hour or so. But really, you don’t need the decoys and you don’t need a duck call. Without using either, I waited in the weeds high on the bank and they began returning, a flock of 20, then 6 or 8, then in scattered pairs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqnoW9YjYFz1Ic26oxPLdvwpOvxhb44ex_2lzbsIQoZKhBxyUZ32_bszGFmPbgovoBcMVD-89WZacu6fYDU3CFL1lyd5wVwsZcTMD-5Jpjamo7vqmKpI8vHaQI4pSNQlaNPsWs5n0iUPc5oghfEZ2-MXDqZ4ENbXpshsCf87rdnBEb4LSPORBBISSi4qU/s1200/IMG_0013%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqnoW9YjYFz1Ic26oxPLdvwpOvxhb44ex_2lzbsIQoZKhBxyUZ32_bszGFmPbgovoBcMVD-89WZacu6fYDU3CFL1lyd5wVwsZcTMD-5Jpjamo7vqmKpI8vHaQI4pSNQlaNPsWs5n0iUPc5oghfEZ2-MXDqZ4ENbXpshsCf87rdnBEb4LSPORBBISSi4qU/w300-h400/IMG_0013%20copy.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> You should have seen the shots I made on a pair of mallard drakes! Finally about 2 months after the start of duck season in the Ozarks, I got some mallards for supper. And later I dropped a drake gadwall too, which is an algae-eating duck not nearly as good to eat as mallards or teal.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> That last greenhead came back up over me and fell in the weeds behind me. Both were stone dead. I hate to cripple a duck, which is what happens if you don’t lead them well. You might deduce from that, that I am a good shot, which I sometimes am. I never write about the sometimes that I are not, which is far too often.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I know there are those readers who feel sorry for the ducks I brought home that day, but you have to realize that each winter, duck steaks grilled on a spit with onions and green peppers is a big part of my diet. My daughter, who is a doctor, told me that in order to stay healthy, I have to eat a dozen or so before February is over because it is good for me. Not necessarily the duck meat is good for me, but the exercise I get building blinds, struggling through the water in hip boots or waders, and trying to get a fire built when I trip and get a boot full of cold water.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> At School of the Ozarks College a lady botany professor, Dr. Alice Allen Nightingale often talked to me about plant evolution being a slow change, which she believed, was only God continuing His creation. I think I see that in nature often in other wild things. Ducks are a good example. How they have changed since I was a boy hunting them on the Big Piney. I will go into that in a later column, but the change I see is tremendous in waterfowl.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><span> </span>Here is another question for readers, which I will answer in the next column. What is the fastest flying duck, with speeds clocked at about 70 miles per hour?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> Answering last weeks question about the skunk’s greatest predator… it is the great-horned owl. Birds do not have any developed sense of smell so I guess that is understandable. But why it doesn’t affect an owl’s eyes I cannot understand. I once had a pet owl and its eyes were huge. If anything else gets skunk scent in the eyes, it is torment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I have written more about skunks and owls on my Internet site… larrydablemontoutdoors. Go there if you are interested. And I will finish the duck story in next week’s column and tell you how the Missouri Department of Conservation is giving 18 million dollars to a private company to try to refurbish one duck marsh! Unbelievable story! Email me at </span><a><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> or call me at 417-777-5227. I usually get in from duck hunting about dark.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-85752987350526179392024-01-25T09:15:00.000-07:002024-01-25T09:15:06.899-07:00Of Owls and Skunks<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_EKCudN4P005AH6PZtdn83onMjMsotxsbbPN66zXVqtpWiTuN7CHYEt4vMlxdmqXUE1iN21tgXEftVY2E26DnI04WNsb1PTdWI64n9h23y4V8Rb_9eXnbk8JrBbMulkOiibNrVfbRodHzfLt0fb1fwxvgU6qaQ4AzLrA56RjNR87135pbyMcCCq-p_l0/s1643/great%20horned%20owl%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1643" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_EKCudN4P005AH6PZtdn83onMjMsotxsbbPN66zXVqtpWiTuN7CHYEt4vMlxdmqXUE1iN21tgXEftVY2E26DnI04WNsb1PTdWI64n9h23y4V8Rb_9eXnbk8JrBbMulkOiibNrVfbRodHzfLt0fb1fwxvgU6qaQ4AzLrA56RjNR87135pbyMcCCq-p_l0/w468-h640/great%20horned%20owl%202.jpg" width="468" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmuhLK8cBYhZUyjG0q4yAkq-iF_oo3pXuIGP2NycL6KtWOoE7vSzzjSXsvhyphenhyphenYXk5qk2EVZyfUR1O7BZiAuxdBsNShS-LEnO_Y9l_q4pRU8frRntIGVv8aQZgWbIXcm1s4RJZJVb0h6Zds-R9xPUAwgyV1Z6bICY4LhDCeUjH5hCTCfTHRH5da0KF2HJ4/s430/istockphoto-485589061-612x612.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="430" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvmuhLK8cBYhZUyjG0q4yAkq-iF_oo3pXuIGP2NycL6KtWOoE7vSzzjSXsvhyphenhyphenYXk5qk2EVZyfUR1O7BZiAuxdBsNShS-LEnO_Y9l_q4pRU8frRntIGVv8aQZgWbIXcm1s4RJZJVb0h6Zds-R9xPUAwgyV1Z6bICY4LhDCeUjH5hCTCfTHRH5da0KF2HJ4/s320/istockphoto-485589061-612x612.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> Great horned owls are one of the deadliest Ozark predators because they hunt at night with special wing feathers that keep the sound of their wings completely silent. For some reason they obviously have a sense of smell that is nonexistent in most winged predators, which allows the owl not to be affected by skunk scent. Since that spray burns the eyes of men and dogs, many wonder why it doesn’t seem to affect owl eyes.<o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> In the 1930’s and early 40’s, my grandfather’s chickens were often killed by great horned owls. Since the chickens were important to his family, he would cut the top out of two or three cedars nearby and set traps on the bare wood of the trimmed top. He would put a squirrel or wood rat on the trap, and run a wire up to it. Owls who fell to that trap would be on the ground at daybreak, held by the trap and wire. For many years he and other farmers and trappers would get a fifty-cent bounty for each pair of owl feet they brought in. Very often, those owls would smell like skunks!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskukrbF8DFfR10eoHyYyqkBARFtmDYc26ttGmAV7O0qGnE3_TUuUJl_I_mmkppcHTWa1ZOeFPN5PzL0_KWSUBzDS1conduYbB8yjvjb-VJa3gG4kumgzM13eiZ1Cwr2uHn7Dy322w8N59foSc1x-w4ivI4SV693hyiyiefGZ1BEP7YeUkbA0b-J5VvYA/s615/skunk3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="615" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiskukrbF8DFfR10eoHyYyqkBARFtmDYc26ttGmAV7O0qGnE3_TUuUJl_I_mmkppcHTWa1ZOeFPN5PzL0_KWSUBzDS1conduYbB8yjvjb-VJa3gG4kumgzM13eiZ1Cwr2uHn7Dy322w8N59foSc1x-w4ivI4SV693hyiyiefGZ1BEP7YeUkbA0b-J5VvYA/s320/skunk3.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A black skunk caught on game cam in Georgia</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> In the ‘30’s, the pelts of skunks that my grandfather’s sons (my dad and uncles) caught in deadfalls brought a dollar or two at St. Louis fur houses. But when they came across a ‘star-black’, which was a totally black skunk except for a small white patch on the forehead, the pelt was worth about twice as much. So my grandfather tried using shoe polish on the white backs of ordinary skunks to make them more valuable. Fur house buyers saw right through that, and had a good laugh the first time he tried it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Skunks are easy prey for the owls because they are not a very smart animal and are an easy target. They hunt by scent and can’t see very well. I had a pet great horned owl when I was a kid and they aren’t all that intelligent either. I have written many articles about my experience with him. No bird of prey makes a good pet… except crows.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-80092646344972986412024-01-13T18:45:00.000-07:002024-01-13T18:45:12.183-07:00Two With One Shot<p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV74qpN49nNZpde7w0JV721M3sWHM0hV-U9URNb394aFmlQoLyS0f1e1ZLuBZuSHSa1bqIUORsUOz6uJ8n0lilmuZQGChgCiQIQDIdE9U5bshr9BBQUgR7eoW6u9q-bfsZe94AsHoFEI8Z8HHayj_ED8uqoUMi7lNVcVJLPKMU-dqP2OtWlCwsgJNZNBw/s732/3%20does%202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="719" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV74qpN49nNZpde7w0JV721M3sWHM0hV-U9URNb394aFmlQoLyS0f1e1ZLuBZuSHSa1bqIUORsUOz6uJ8n0lilmuZQGChgCiQIQDIdE9U5bshr9BBQUgR7eoW6u9q-bfsZe94AsHoFEI8Z8HHayj_ED8uqoUMi7lNVcVJLPKMU-dqP2OtWlCwsgJNZNBw/w628-h640/3%20does%202.JPG" width="628" /></a></div> The last few days of deer season are tough. Those final days for me occur at the close of the ‘muzzle-loader season” when whitetail deer are almost finished with the ‘rut’ and bucks are returning to normalcy, not acting so much like the sex-crazed idiots they are in October and November.<o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> In January, deer gather together and ‘yard up’ and lean toward being nocturnal. When you find them they are apt to be in heavy cover during the day, coming out at night to feed and move from one spot to another, then finding cover for bedding down, just at daylight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> My daughter Christy went with me to see if my old muzzle-loader would really kill a deer, and that tendency of deer to ‘group up’ displayed itself. That cold morning we were walking slowly down an old fenceline in the middle of the woods and I saw about 10 or 12 whitetails coming toward us about to cross the fence. Two or three jumped over it, and I drew a bead on a doe, and fired. <br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> The old rifle belched smoke and fire and she dropped in her tracks about 40 yards from us. Then came the surprise… a second deer had also been hit, and it too was dead, right behind her. That .54 caliber slug had hit each deer through the heart. I hadn’t seen the second one, but they had to be standing perfectly side by side. Christy had already used her tag by then, but the second deer was not wasted. A friend of mine tagged it. Both were the best of venison, each one a three-year old doe. Amazingly there was a hillside behind them where I dug out the slug and I have it on a shelf in my office.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> Killing 2 gobblers at once happens on occasion but I never knew of killing two deer with one shot. Anyway, I have a witness, my daughter tells the absolute truth, no matter how often I have asked her to exaggerate just a little. Strange things happen in the woods, and over the years we have both witnessed a lot of them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvEx3-vAcu0jM4CTi4nnQPSZUOpPpSs_A47c-YMLKxUSV9YB_PBASzRd9AL1iZOeBwydkH5az1uaJX7KoZmVXXJi9SUnI16_mPBd8bf_04gVvHPLoVfrxCXz_IzNoKxI1LYlZkBn55PqGdMC3PDjyaHp25OprNj5frlgUfzv8BCVTQ8fHb97c82w5xFtY/s1200/2%20does%203%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1200" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvEx3-vAcu0jM4CTi4nnQPSZUOpPpSs_A47c-YMLKxUSV9YB_PBASzRd9AL1iZOeBwydkH5az1uaJX7KoZmVXXJi9SUnI16_mPBd8bf_04gVvHPLoVfrxCXz_IzNoKxI1LYlZkBn55PqGdMC3PDjyaHp25OprNj5frlgUfzv8BCVTQ8fHb97c82w5xFtY/s320/2%20does%203%20copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> During the muzzle-loader season, which just ended, I came across a totally black skunk scurrying about in the woods in mid-morning as they sometimes do in the dead of winter when food is scarcer. It was pure black, with just a white patch on its forehead. Long before I was born, my grandfather was a river trapper after mink, beaver, raccoon and muskrat. His young sons ran dry-land deadfall lines. Those produced feral cats, possums and skunks. Killed by a deadfall, a skunk almost never released its scent. In the thirties and early forties, a trapper could get a dollar or so for a possum hide. A skunk with the white stripe was worth about 2 dollars, but any skunk that was totally black was worth twice that. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> At fur houses they called those rare individuals ‘star-blacks’ because they always had a little white star on the forehead. None of the trappers in the pool hall ever had seen a complete total black skunk without that little white star. I thought I had finally found one that day in the woods but not so. When he finally turned I saw a little white star not much bigger than a silver dollar. If I had anything but my muzzle-loader I would have been tempted to shoot him, knowing how many ground nests he will destroy this spring; quail, woodcock, meadowlarks and others, including the wild turkey. And I would have skinned him out and have the hide tanned. I would like to have put his unusual pelt in my upcoming museum. Star black skunks only made up about 1 out of 50 skunk-hides at fur houses long ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> There is only one predator that will kill and eat a skunk with no concern for the skunk scent it will be blasted with. I will bet that only one out of 50 readers will know what that deadly predator is. I’ll give you the answer in next week’s column… with a humorous story about my grandfather’s attempts to sell more of those star-black skunks in the 1930’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> Please read other columns I write on the Internet at </span><a href="http://www.larrydablemontoutdoors/" style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">www.larrydablemontoutdoors</span></a><span style="font-size: 20pt;">. Much that I write cannot be printed by some of the 40 newspapers or so that use this column so I put them on that website. I want you to see a photo I took recently that is one of the most amazing pictures I ever got. It will be on that website and you won’t believe it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"> I will also have some new information about my “Big Piney” museum that I hope to open in the spring. You can see some of our recent progress. We are about to put a roof on it when it warms up a little. </span><span style="font-size: 20pt;">I intend to open it about the first of June, and it will be free for everyone to enjoy, no charge!</span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-54440181605133823572024-01-13T18:32:00.001-07:002024-01-13T18:32:08.679-07:00Big Piney River Museum Progress<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFPxvEdzzt1z_jafa_H1-48MStWHbraA4dxps03ioR550Ro8HHqKV2DMZi3etE-5WX17HlfUeDWDQT5i45O4owxheBZOGwej-Oo5ZhWzm-mP1BeAxcPfrsTOIVp8wgr8Lr4PF5zgomK34qmSrbc4fbhqDhOOMRNc8O3YWxjOucD2jUq-jDBfEPIPULVqc/s6000/DSC_0022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFPxvEdzzt1z_jafa_H1-48MStWHbraA4dxps03ioR550Ro8HHqKV2DMZi3etE-5WX17HlfUeDWDQT5i45O4owxheBZOGwej-Oo5ZhWzm-mP1BeAxcPfrsTOIVp8wgr8Lr4PF5zgomK34qmSrbc4fbhqDhOOMRNc8O3YWxjOucD2jUq-jDBfEPIPULVqc/w640-h426/DSC_0022.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">workers finishing the walls of the Big Piney River Museum, a mile and a half south of Houston on hwy 63. Hopefully this free museum and nature center will be ready to open in early summer. When the weather breaks we will begin building the roof and finishing the inside. The building is 28 by 48.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLfcKbPqK6ZvdaDjgOvCKbgQrcF37aKFmjbIExMveJVp6NocUQ8u-AfkYu_SBpPSvFdUYHF2mwJ0SUSKAzkyaJ3fcSNgo7Ir3zydx_niY4w03ytRJkRrsI28irt43_KTJ0M-jMjVxex36co_ZwFFotujpuqqA8yBJrUzw_hXLpNXh3kCmQ7P-hAZUngs/s6000/DSC_0025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLfcKbPqK6ZvdaDjgOvCKbgQrcF37aKFmjbIExMveJVp6NocUQ8u-AfkYu_SBpPSvFdUYHF2mwJ0SUSKAzkyaJ3fcSNgo7Ir3zydx_niY4w03ytRJkRrsI28irt43_KTJ0M-jMjVxex36co_ZwFFotujpuqqA8yBJrUzw_hXLpNXh3kCmQ7P-hAZUngs/w640-h426/DSC_0025.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-85087900930667685192024-01-13T18:22:00.005-07:002024-01-13T18:22:58.491-07:00Not Just A Cloud<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaJkL8m7jC2nUA7WQyqcx7409H3P75NCBVa2pBMjZamGIr5wYDbn868bX3kdS-zZMGnTubtxdfxNXPFlTgSZEFUn41BrkyiqKUi-MHiMVFT7FOicDJFDjxoeQeWdpFWMog8CWSmJ1DXCf55D4t6i7NmwEVjUELqW5dGpLXORmn4NtHcO7XZ4UT5kzCZY/s1600/IMG_1183%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1203" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaJkL8m7jC2nUA7WQyqcx7409H3P75NCBVa2pBMjZamGIr5wYDbn868bX3kdS-zZMGnTubtxdfxNXPFlTgSZEFUn41BrkyiqKUi-MHiMVFT7FOicDJFDjxoeQeWdpFWMog8CWSmJ1DXCf55D4t6i7NmwEVjUELqW5dGpLXORmn4NtHcO7XZ4UT5kzCZY/w482-h640/IMG_1183%20copy.jpg" width="482" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> One evening in December as I was driving just to the west of the Big Piney River valley I said, “Lord, thanks for this nice weather. I don’t know whether I should work on my museum or go fishing tomorrow.” Then I topped a ridge and there was this cloud before me. This is not a photo shop creation, it is a real cloud to the east of the Piney. What does it look like to you? To me it looks like a bass jumping out of the water, trying to throw a lure from its mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-19068543459925511722024-01-10T17:19:00.001-07:002024-01-10T17:19:39.950-07:00IF WE WERE ALL RICH...<p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gAjVHXHSlZKZNme4xp6aLRSFBDyH2Eycgr3s8K18dtzJ-V8aDK_bB7Xyq-9lPcaRE2oqND0YIvxYFLCe0KAt-o15v6R9XrW4_MBcsE_Ao4SGjOF51qDogoBRgYts31OC0D0ZnT8p4tRGPOSL0ssOdg-ii8K37WEoI5DYzOVvQ4LewYADszdfxzmuMuI/s1913/Pool%20Hall%20Kid%20&%20Grandpa%20McNew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1913" data-original-width="1743" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gAjVHXHSlZKZNme4xp6aLRSFBDyH2Eycgr3s8K18dtzJ-V8aDK_bB7Xyq-9lPcaRE2oqND0YIvxYFLCe0KAt-o15v6R9XrW4_MBcsE_Ao4SGjOF51qDogoBRgYts31OC0D0ZnT8p4tRGPOSL0ssOdg-ii8K37WEoI5DYzOVvQ4LewYADszdfxzmuMuI/w584-h640/Pool%20Hall%20Kid%20&%20Grandpa%20McNew.jpg" width="584" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pool Hall Kid</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Doc Dykes was a frequent visitor to the pool hall in 1963.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">He was quiet and good humored, plagued with petit-mal seizures on occasion.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Doc Dykes was a chiropractor, and likely as educated a man as our pool hall ever seen.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well dressed, he always wore a long grey overcoat, and usually a dress shirt and tie beneath it. Occasionally he played a game of snooker and was fairly good at it.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> He was likely in his forties, while most of the “front bench regulars” were over sixty. While the older men, some of them world war one veterans, were men of remarkable wisdom, Doc Dykes was highly intelligent and everyone knew it. On the last night of 1963, the eve of a new year 60 years ago, the pool hall was full, the front bench crowded and all five tables going with pool and snooker players. It was loud, with the clack of billiard balls and laughter throughout and cigarette smoke hanging above the lighted tables. Up front, as usual, the old timers were discussing important things, like trotlining, shotguns and coonhounds, chewing tobacco and acting like it was just another night and tomorrow just another day.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I loved that pool hall and the men in it. I believe I would be content to have never left it, to be the ‘House Man’ there until today. But Dad would sell the pool hall in just a month or so and at sixteen years of age, I would only visit from then on. Dad and Mom were home that night with the Hartmans and the Sheltons, about to see the New Year in with a card party, cake and coffee. In the pool hall, I was in charge, for the fourth year. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> I would someday own a pool hall of my own, I figured, and then I would continue to be a Piney River hunting and fishing guide, as I had been for years. I really figured I would quit high school soon and get started early. After two tries at passing my drivers test in October I had finally succeeded in November. Roy Fisher was going to sell me my own car soon, a 1954 Chevy from his junkyard for 50 dollars. It was a lot of money but I had already saved 12 dollars.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Doc Dykes came in dug out his billfold to show me something I had never seen before… a crisp new 100-dollar-bill. The fellows playing snooker on the front table all came over to look at it, and most of the old men on the front bench did too. Doc said a client of his had given it to him for a Christmas gift. I stood there thinking what I could do with one of them; buy that car and two or three boxes of shotgun shells and maybe one of those new red Ambassador fishing reels everyone was talking about.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Doc held everyone’s attention when he told us that there were several places in the country where the government could print ten thousand of those hundred dollar bills in an hour. He said that if the government wanted to they could give every man and woman over 21 in America, a hundred and of them! That would be a hundred thousand dollars for every one in the pool hall, except me of course. Satch Hinkle, one of the snooker players who wasn’t often one not to give his opinion, piped up and said that if he got that much money he would spend all his time playing snooker or fishing on the Piney.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Smiling, Doc Dykes said the pool hall would be closed if Farrel Dablemont had a hundred thousand dollars and the Piney would be so over-ran with fishermen who had quit their jobs there would be no place for another boat. Ol Bill Stalder, a plumber, said Doc was right. “I’ll be dang if I’d be fixin’ the pipes under some ol’ ladies sink if I had that kind of money. And they’d have to close the feed mill. Who’d go work there for ol’ man Amelon if they had any money?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> It took a while for it to dawn on me but Doc was right. They could print enough of those hunnerd dollar billsfor everyone allright, but if they did it would destroy our country. “By dang, I would love to get all that money,” said Junior Blair, “But Doc is right; if we all got that much who would ever work again. There wouldn’t be a grocery store nor a hardware store open nowhere. My ol’ lady wouldn’t even sweep the floor… she’d just throw out the supper dishes ever’ night and go buy some new ones.” That brought a laugh but Doc pointed out that in little time there would be no dishes to buy, because who would be making new ones if they were too rich to work?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Churchill Hoyt said he sure as heck wouldn’t raise no more hogs, and Charlie Watson, with that high-pitched laugh of his, said if the gov’amint would give him just half of a hunnerd thousand he’d give his milk cows to anyone who wanted them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The banter went on for awhile with several of the men going on about what they would do if they got that much government money each year. And what they wouldn’t have to do ever again. Doc pointed out that thousands of very rich people in the cities would starve and men would be killing each other not for money, which they had plenty of, but for a loaf of bread, which they couldn’t get unless they could make it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have more to say about the coming of 1924 in next week’s column. </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-17808021709353946832024-01-04T16:40:00.000-07:002024-01-04T16:40:08.177-07:00 The Lemming’s Solution <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMTIzry3szEaRHdB0xbUHN2TwMbHo9LHrWLSqVhTai9Gry3ZG1TpFRrCD8ofgma4f9DObiGrta0xWsGl3dE7uNA6w2Kr_BKWSnXy-i4kPkpUVsj7shR_3n57n3yx1ObZf0kW0Z7ZgY65wJKhWmubisCjGahKem7KnXKi5gGBTthNpZdLpzP8ikIlpmTA/s2140/28%20making%20paddles996%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1810" data-original-width="2140" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMTIzry3szEaRHdB0xbUHN2TwMbHo9LHrWLSqVhTai9Gry3ZG1TpFRrCD8ofgma4f9DObiGrta0xWsGl3dE7uNA6w2Kr_BKWSnXy-i4kPkpUVsj7shR_3n57n3yx1ObZf0kW0Z7ZgY65wJKhWmubisCjGahKem7KnXKi5gGBTthNpZdLpzP8ikIlpmTA/w640-h542/28%20making%20paddles996%20copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Grandpa Fred Dablemont hand planing and making sassafras paddles at his little home with no running water or electricity (until his death in 1970). Everything in that house was hand made by Grandpa.</span><br /><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> All through the history of the earth, (and I am talking about tens of thousands of years back) there has been ‘climate change’ on earth. If you want to call it that… I don’t. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> There was a time when the temperature of the Ozarks never got above 32 degrees. That was when there was a glacier pushing down over us from the north. In what we now call the Middle East, biblical lands, there are now deserts where there were once lakes. It is just the way the earth is, constantly affected by change of some sort. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> There are those who want to deny ‘climate change’, but it is obvious that it is a fact. But it is a far cry from what the politicians say it is! I call it, ‘earth change’ because having lived as long as I have, I see things happening that have nothing to do with climate. Lowering water tables across the Midwest has nothing to do with temperatures or carbon emissions. The more of us there is, the more we take the lower it gets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> The fact that rivers in the Ozarks now flow about 40 percent less water than they did 80 years ago has nothing to do with modern climate change. Springs that gushed water in the 1950’s, which I drank from as a boy, dried up years ago and have never flowed since. I swam in small Ozark creeks each summer that will never hold a foot of water through the spring season ever again, and none in the summer. Such things are permanent until the population of the earth declines, no matter what politicians blame or try to change. More people, greater problems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> There is an old farm well on my place that held water for the family that lived beside it in the 30’s and 40’s. Why is it dry? It is not because of carbon emissions. It is earth change, which comes about because where once in a whole county there were five hundred people with 500 cows and a 500 hogs and a thousand chickens. In the same county now there are five hundred thousand people, and giant hog farms with tens of thousands of hogs, tens of thousands of cattle, and as for chickens… there may be one poultry farm with 25,000 chickens and one a few miles away with 25,000 turkeys.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> I am not lamenting how things are. It is what it is. Who amongst us will NOT acknowledge what we have today living in the Ozarks. But remember this… we will have ten percent or more added cement and pavement in the nation and in the Ozarks this coming year and each year thereafter. Could that cause greater heat from the sun than before? So what shall we expect to happen? Cooler temperatures, fewer storms, tornadoes, hurricanes? But what the heck, we have to have more concrete and pavement and new homes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> You can vote for whatever leadership you want, but there is no answer in politics, because the problem lies in one thing…Populations of men and their animals. There is o answer… what is coming is coming. In 1950, my grandfather was overtaken by the knowledge that there were 150 million people in our nation. Today we are getting close to 400 million. In a hundred years this nation will likely have a billion people. The diversity we applaud will create wars amongst the diverse, in huge cities. Maybe the Ozarks will be a refuge!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> On a gravel bar in the mid 50’s Grandpa told me some things he thought would happen. I couldn’t get his prophesies printed in today’s newspapers but he was fascinated what he had read about some little animals on islands that would swim out into the ocean when they became overpopulated. Lemmings, he called them, telling me of what he had read… looking for a better place to live, all about to drown.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"><span> </span>He was as happy as anyone I have ever known, in his handmade cabin with no running water or electricity. He said, “Live your life depending on no man, needing nothing or no one but yourself and God.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> I am sure that oil and vehicles are not this country’s greatest problem. If they are replaced with electricity, the problems that will create are catastrophic too, but the politicians cannot foresee that. Our survival depends on one thing and nothing else… population declines here and all over the world! It will not happen until something comes that is like what happened to the dinosaurs, and there isn’t a darn thing mankind can do about it. I just wish we didn’t deserve it. If there is a population adjustment in the near future I hope it isn’t me, or you, or us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 18pt;"> You have to see the photo I got last week. Unbelievable! That and other columns I have written can be seen on my website, larrydablemontoutdoors. Contact information can be found there. I am spending this week in the woods hunting with my muzzle-loader. Read about that next week.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-1359493761854790382023-12-22T09:44:00.000-07:002023-12-22T09:44:14.062-07:00The Borrowed Shotgun<p> </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBiiTvgWAUEhOKkn9_377md0d3-nwYbo8LCaWbJxgvsAlRk1qm0VVKCmin_K1eo0sFRhXnnTcIb0x3qDcw0Qs7gCTh0xE1armehlKGb5j0g47gKxNrwCY8eaAIFdbQVtz6mRXpa5Rr1Z-jyAK5jWoaHqEHFUit6m2wzZfYI01aK-MfJ9QcPIR2RpQ4DE/s1200/dad%20and%20i%20%201958%20jpeg.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="956" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBiiTvgWAUEhOKkn9_377md0d3-nwYbo8LCaWbJxgvsAlRk1qm0VVKCmin_K1eo0sFRhXnnTcIb0x3qDcw0Qs7gCTh0xE1armehlKGb5j0g47gKxNrwCY8eaAIFdbQVtz6mRXpa5Rr1Z-jyAK5jWoaHqEHFUit6m2wzZfYI01aK-MfJ9QcPIR2RpQ4DE/w510-h640/dad%20and%20i%20%201958%20jpeg.tiff" width="510" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dad and I, 1958</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> I turned eleven years old in October of 1958. When we floated the river in November that year I just sat in the front of the old johnboat, peering over the front of the blind, wishing I could hunt too. Dad said I was still to young and small of stature to carry a shotgun. But when we would float upon a group of mallards, watching those big beautiful greenheads swim out from the bank, uneasily suspicious of that floating blind that concealed us, I would pretend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> My dad would get close, then turn the boat sideways, drop the paddle and grab his old pump-gun as the ducks would flush. I knew he wouldn’t miss very often. Soon we would be picking up two or three mallards to lie on the front of the boat before me, behind the blind, where I would smooth their feathers and marvel at their beauty. I would always wonder what it was like where they had come from... perhaps Canada, the magical far-away wilderness a world away from my beloved river.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> The greatest thing I had ever happened to me occurred just after Thanksgiving, when Dad brought me a borrowed shotgun that he said I could use for awhile. It was small, loaned to me, he said, by my old friend Bill Stalder. Ol’ Bill, one of the pool hall regulars, was a great riverman himself, my grandfather’s trapping partner. I held it and pretended we were floating the river as I aimed it at make-believe flying ducks. It was a magnificent little 16-gauge single-shot hammer gun, an Iver Johnson, with a shortened stock that just fit me. It was used of course… a gun made years before I was even born. But to me, the faded blueing and worn forearm made it even more wondrous. I wondered if someone, grown up by then, had once used it as a boy when it was new, to bring down ducks and quail and a squirrel or rabbit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> Dad took me out that very day and let me shoot it at cans on a log. I missed the first one, but hit the next two, and wanted to shoot at more, but shells were too expensive, about 20 cents apiece. When we went out to get a Christmas tree, Dad let me carry it before him with a shell in the barrel, broken down for safety. I got to shoot at a rabbit, but missed. We hunted ducks each weekend that December, floating the river as we always did. But this time I sat in the front of the boat with my borrowed shotgun, breach closed, and when a flock of mallards jumped before us the recoil nearly pitched me backwards off my seat when I fired. As the flock winged on down the river, I had to ask Dad if I got one. I hadn’t pulled a feather.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> Finally it came time to take the little Iver Johnson back to Ol’ Bill, a week before Christmas. But dad had told me that next year when my birthday came, he and I would go out and try to find one like it just for me. That helped a little, but who was he kidding? We’d never find a little shotgun that fit me like that one had. My dad was six foot three but my Mom and I were just a little over five feet. I was sure I wasn’t gonna grow... Mom hadn’t! I was the littlest kid in the seventh grade, such a runt that I didn’t have any friends, except for those aging men in the pool hall.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> There would be a big dinner with grandparents and relatives on Christmas day of 1958, with a ham and a turkey for us all. Dad had won both at the turkey shoot before Thanksgiving. On Christmas morning my sisters ran to the Christmas tree to anxiously grab their gifts. One was a big doll that seemed to make them so happy. My sisters were crazy like that… dolls! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It wasn’t going to be much of a Christmas for me. I picked up one package, and feeling it, I knew it was a shirt. Mom and Grandma made all my shirts. But there was a second wrapped package way back under the tree, probably store-bought jeans. I couldn’t reach it so Dad said for me to lie on my belly and crawl back and get it. I did, and as I reached for it back behind the stump of that cedar tree, I saw the stock of a shotgun sitting behind it, out of sight. It was Ol’ Bill’s 16 gauge, Iver Johnson break-open hammer-gun. I nearly upended that tree going after it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> I don’t reckon there’s much more I need to say about the Christmas I remember from when I was eleven years old. A thousand memories of great times in the outdoors began that day. Many of them come back to me as I gaze upon Dads old ’97 Winchester pump gun, which hangs on the wall of my office; and I can see that little shotgun from my boyhood, hanging beneath it. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> It causes me to thank God for this wonderful life He gave me as a Naturalist-Writer going forth from Christmas of 1958. But as I do I remember the greater gift He gave us all… back nearly two thousand years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-53934953071051933862023-12-22T09:38:00.000-07:002023-12-22T09:38:28.923-07:00A Conversation With The Chief<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmkHevlNSMs_U0EWWo64HQDJwkc-Uz9-mB-MthIrW5Mws6ayIGVmlrkOpFhwIN32tEQkHiKgfjOrkRH0RV3ZpLuUMTU58eOUAEzfl3eljZYrr_8bR-4Gd0m-n_GVhVzAnLglAoWqaASd4Zpdvb-9mEjuaVRgI-Hp7ujtR8sbptyDlRDMnB8jjx3Mg1fA/s1914/%20turkey%20restoration517%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1347" data-original-width="1914" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmkHevlNSMs_U0EWWo64HQDJwkc-Uz9-mB-MthIrW5Mws6ayIGVmlrkOpFhwIN32tEQkHiKgfjOrkRH0RV3ZpLuUMTU58eOUAEzfl3eljZYrr_8bR-4Gd0m-n_GVhVzAnLglAoWqaASd4Zpdvb-9mEjuaVRgI-Hp7ujtR8sbptyDlRDMnB8jjx3Mg1fA/w640-h450/%20turkey%20restoration517%20copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">I was there in 1962 when Missouri Conservation Commission (not Missouri Department of Conservation back then)... biologists and game wardens were working with hunters, and landowners to stock wild turkeys on their land. I was 14 years old, witnessed some of it and couldn't wait to become a game warden like my old friend Bland Wilson.<o:p></o:p></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;">Today these people landowners and hunters.... are victims...targets for what they call 'Conservation Agents'.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> </span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> I continue to talk to Enforcement Chief Randy Doman of the Missouri Department of Conservation and try to pass on what he wants hunters and fishermen to know. I stress to many who doubt what I report, that Doman is the supervisor of all conservation agents in the state and is the last word in rules and regulations and laws those agents enforce. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Before him was Larry Yamnitz who, before he retired, seemed to hint to me, when I was in his office talking about the problems some agents were creating, that he just felt he had no control over some of them, and just wanted to retire soon without problems.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">I have written about those interviews with Larry Yamnitz, whom I sincerely believe was trying to do the right thing in his job. He actually did make an important change in what agents could do. There isn’t room here to go into that, but I urge you to read about that on my website, </span><a href="http://www.larrydablemontoutdoors/" style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">www.larrydablemontoutdoors</span></a><span style="font-size: 22pt;">. You can read about how Yamnitz had to deal with an agent who darn near killed an old man.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Doman reiterated again that no law or regulation requires anyone to take an agent to a place where they have hunted or killed a deer or turkey or squirrel or any thing else, legally or illegally taken. He says, and I quote, “A search warrant is needed for an agent to enter your home, automobile, barn or outbuilding, but even a search warrant does not require you to take an agent to show him where you have killed game of any kind.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Every year, I hear some very uninformed, or downright ignorant, people telling me some of the most ridiculous rules they think agents can enforce. They believe conservation agents exceed the power of any law enforcement agents, even the FBI! You can’t believe the silliness I have been told because no one takes the trouble to know the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Steelville hunter Jeff Ramori was wiser, and when he killed a wild turkey on October the first, he called it in as required and an agent showed up within a couple of hours demanding that he refused to take an agent to the spot where he had hunted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> “He had no search warrant,” Ramori said, “so I wouldn’t let him in my home, and he got mad. He stayed outside in my lawn for most of two hours. Then later he came back to my door and said he wanted to see the turkey, so I took it out of the freezer and took it outside to show it to him and he took it, refusing to give it back to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> What that amounts to is theft of property! Ramori should go to the local sheriff and file charges against the agent for theft. Then before he left, the agent wrote Ramori a ticket for “refusing to allow inspection”. The regulation or ‘MDC rule’ he cited allowing him to do that consisted of more than 40 numbers and letters. Jeff gave me those numbers and such a rule does not exist. He said that the ticket has still not been filed. What happens now?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> I gave Doman all the information and he says he is initiating an investigation. He even thanked me for bringing the situation to his attention. Smile when you read that. I have been there before! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> BUT… no one anywhere, including your local newspaper, nor me, nor the governor, can find out what the investigation includes or comes to find out. Doman says personnel matters are kept within his office and if the agent is reprimanded or absolved of his actions, NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!!! He sure as heck cannot be fired!!!!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> I assume that the only way anyone or any news source can find out about an agent breaking the law or violating a citizens rights is if he kills someone. I am not sure that will even produce any info from the MDC.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">Randy Doman tells me he is eager to hear from anyone who feels that an agent has broken the law or violated someone’s rights. You can talk to him by dialing 573-751-4115. You will get a voice giving several numbers. After listening to that recording, dial 7 and you will get a lady wanting to know how she can help you. Tell her you need to speak to Chief Randy Doman. Leave a message and your number and if he doesn’t call you back, call me… 417-777-5227 and I will see to it you get to talk to him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Hundreds of hunters have been forced to take an agent to the spot where they have killed a deer or turkey. Every one has received a citation! A year or so ago a man here in Polk County took a female agent to the place where he killed a deer and wound up paying a 200 fine for nothing. He and his wife had 2 small children and they had to give up the Christmas money for their kids to pay the fine. If you will look for the website I just gave you can read about others, many others<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> Anyone who has had that happen can find a lawyer and file a lawsuit against the MDC.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">Many tell me that the government agency cannot be sued and that is part of the ignorance so many have, which allows them to be a target of unscrupulous agents who feel they are untouchable. The MDC, a few years ago was sued for a million dollars and lost. They paid it, and didn’t even appeal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> I will report in the future what has happened with Jeff Ramori and the agent by the name of Ryan Catron, who targeted him. I would report Catron’s side of the story, but he is not allowed to talk to me about it. The power of the MDC forbids the news media from getting any information they do not approve of. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">The story about working with retired chief Larry Yamnitz and the abuse by agents at the time will be added here this weekend.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-74899130194925953402023-12-12T09:50:00.001-07:002023-12-12T09:50:53.267-07:00Letter to Joe<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwyuBFUeX0Z0sCbGZinQosi9Ftl1gJv3iP7I6cVYxiWZcGsiG42_X0tA8mOpUy_fTuA-RE1wVpjeosE75Pqb-eaTQ0WXUWQv2tNc86aPO3-zO5Ug7z-_4hOGBcCJ-p6KKMgwLgqXkpdojD8UUEKipD0NMS1v3glz5dBYnVZ-o0LMmJtNZc0XzTTG0wms/s1200/PICT0046%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1031" data-original-width="1200" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipwyuBFUeX0Z0sCbGZinQosi9Ftl1gJv3iP7I6cVYxiWZcGsiG42_X0tA8mOpUy_fTuA-RE1wVpjeosE75Pqb-eaTQ0WXUWQv2tNc86aPO3-zO5Ug7z-_4hOGBcCJ-p6KKMgwLgqXkpdojD8UUEKipD0NMS1v3glz5dBYnVZ-o0LMmJtNZc0XzTTG0wms/w640-h550/PICT0046%20copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Dear Joe,<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> I’m sure you remember old Ed Bradbury and</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Maggie, you haven’t been gone that long.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Years ago we hunted ducks on the slough</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> over on the </span></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">back of Ed’s farm, where you go</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> to floundering </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">around in the mud and nearly</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> got in over your </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">hip boots. Well, Ed was in the</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> pool hall last </span><span style="font-family: helvetica; line-height: 22.82666778564453px;">Saturday most of the afternoon</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> and </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">returne</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">d </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">to find Maggie lying dead on the</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> living room </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">couch. If you don’t remember Ed,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> I’m sure you </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">remember Maggie. In her</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> younger days there </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">wasn’t a man in these</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> parts who didn’t envy </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">old Ed. Everyone use to</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> wonder how in the </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">dickens he wound up with</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> her. Anyway she’s </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">gone! Doc Harris told</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> Preacher Bishop this </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">morning that he figured it</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> was her heart, but no </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">one will ever know. Ed is</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> taking it pretty hard, </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">but that’s to be expected,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> as close as they </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">were.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> I talked to him just last week in town when</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> he </span>was in getting her some medicine and he</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> said at the time she just didn’t feel like getting</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> out <span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;">of the pick-up. That’s not at all like</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> Maggie</span>, you know how outgoing she was. I</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> spoke to her that evening, but she didn’t pay</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> much attention, she was just sitting there</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> looking out the window as if she didn’t even</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> know who I was. I didn’t realize how old she</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> was getting, but if you think about it, Ed</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> brought her to this country nigh onto 15 years</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> ago. I remember she didn’t like it at first, and</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Ed though about taking her back to the city,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> but Maggie was quick to make friends and in</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> no time at all it was like she’d been here all</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> her life.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> The two of them were inseparable, every</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Saturday when Ed came in town to buy feed,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> she’d ride along, sitting right over next to him</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> as if she were afraid he was going to get away</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> from her. They’d drop by the filling station on</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> the way home and he’d buy her a candy bar</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> while he had a bottle of pop. Of course she</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> was a beauty back then, back before she put</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> on so much weight. I’m sure that getting so</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> heavy was hard on her health, but Maggie just</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> loved to eat, and Ed bought her nothing but</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> the best!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> They had her funeral on Sunday afternoon,</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> but </span>not too many of Ed’s friends were there</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> and I guess Ed’s pretty upset about that too.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> But shucks it was all so fast most of us were</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> gone or didn’t know about it until Monday or</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Tuesday. I’d have been there if I hadn’t been</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> hunting ducks. I thought the world of her. In</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> fact, I never told anyone this, but she came</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> over to my place once when Ed made that trip</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> to the city and spent most of the day. We went</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> for a swim down at the creek. But she was a</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> smart one…she was back home an hour</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> before Ed was. She was partial to me and one</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> of Ed’s neighbors, old Horace Glitch. She’d</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> get a little peeved cause she couldn’t go in the</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> pool hall with Ed, and she’d sneak off down to</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> the river where Horace was bank-fishing and</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> drinking beer, and not come in ‘til after dark</span>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Ed never did know where she’d been, and still</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> don’t I reckon. That Maggie loved beer and</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> pretzels even more than candy bars.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Some of his friends think it’s ridiculous for</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> Ed </span>to be carrying on this way, but they don’t</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> know how much he thought of Maggie. And</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Ed doesn’t have anyone else, his wife left him</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> 8 or 10 years ago. She told him to choose</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> between them and he chose Maggie. Who</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> could blame him, that wife of his never shut</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> up, and she spent money like it grew on trees.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> And she constantly found fault with old Ed.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"> Maggie never did…anything Ed did was all</span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> right with her. Well to all those who say it’s</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> silly for a man that age to grieve so over a</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> dog, I say they don’t know what it’s like to lose</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> a good Labrador! That Maggie was a</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> sweetheart.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Well, I’d best sign off Joe. I want to take my 'ol</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> dog Magnum out in the morning and see if we</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> can work some ducks before Christmas gets</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> here. The mallards and the green-wings are in</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> pretty good, and the wood ducks are long</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> gone. Can’t wait to see you and the family at</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Christmas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Sam</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">The Lightnin’ Ridge Magazine’s Christmas</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> issue is almost 100 pages of great reading.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> You can get one mailed to you by calling</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> Gloria at 417 777 5227<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.693333625793457px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="line-height: 22.82666778564453px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-79588040561950636512023-11-29T13:42:00.000-07:002023-11-29T13:42:04.745-07:00Road-Runners, BBC, and the Buffalo River <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh31Cnm0mMed4D7Huat0yEjynf0DyZ861EGwBLOF56Cz3D4itEG8G-uijMESCEs8b62e_8GWTZvwwFO1xjjT3Z6QDAqk7il_6-Vwv_6WaZd-nPAPokKJbDNf-rZ21ZSfhXShX7AAq1IKMKtZbx8fxPYl-U5amliFG6q8BrKbBztE5OLDH8elEDDodq13T0/s400/download-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="400" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh31Cnm0mMed4D7Huat0yEjynf0DyZ861EGwBLOF56Cz3D4itEG8G-uijMESCEs8b62e_8GWTZvwwFO1xjjT3Z6QDAqk7il_6-Vwv_6WaZd-nPAPokKJbDNf-rZ21ZSfhXShX7AAq1IKMKtZbx8fxPYl-U5amliFG6q8BrKbBztE5OLDH8elEDDodq13T0/w400-h278/download-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsa3Dzwji3U7fD3tf1oo2pbg8ajdRFmv-pBZjmtF4XhMZYjmEfFSpq2petHed-SYd5_mrEFb41dI5k4vSc1-fLv3h3q1Kx8ZsWiD1GSBrmDunSkXNLqCeWeKNmh9gyBUczMtO3pSFo70KkDp-vGbTeYSrzGyf7RshOWI_P3PGewftMN1Fxdq-Aq9XmXQ/s400/download-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="400" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsa3Dzwji3U7fD3tf1oo2pbg8ajdRFmv-pBZjmtF4XhMZYjmEfFSpq2petHed-SYd5_mrEFb41dI5k4vSc1-fLv3h3q1Kx8ZsWiD1GSBrmDunSkXNLqCeWeKNmh9gyBUczMtO3pSFo70KkDp-vGbTeYSrzGyf7RshOWI_P3PGewftMN1Fxdq-Aq9XmXQ/w320-h316/download-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> I keep track of all the birds I have seen on this wilderness ridge where I live and there is a huge list after living here more than 30 years. Several are very rare. The rarest of all showed up about 15 years ago this month… a bird never known to the Ozarks a hundred years ago. It was a female roadrunner, crossing my garden and then the gravel driveway, moving along to never be seen again. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Every time I get a call from someone insisting he saw a hen pheasant in the Ozarks, I know what they actually witnessed... Wiley coyote’s nemesis! I thought for a while that the one on my place, 40 miles north of Springfield was the northernmost range of these desert immigrants, but I have learned that there have been a couple sighted 20 miles north of here. On the north side of upper Bull Shoals, along a gravel road leading to the Big Creek Resort, I have seen an abundance of road-runners in the summer and fall. What in the heck do they find to eat in the winter? Look up those birds on the Internet or in books. Unbelievable creatures.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I hate television… but I watch old westerns by taping them so I can run through the commercials without seeing or hearing them. What I like to watch at night more than the old westerns is the British Broadcasting Corporation’s films of nature all over the world. It is spectacular filming of life everywhere and people aren’t... the oceans, deserts, high mountains, jungles, etc. It gives me hope, and shows me forms of life I never dreamed of. It gives me knowledge of the greatness of God’s creation where it still is not damaged or destroyed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKgovIHiLvPOXbHqPSSURahKrFfSHUy7hEBAWRWqrgqisBLiDCHoIalCdm-Jn62DNOpWBsyDh_FH0vSCgu0sl_VvX2wystGCuHEdYC0ga_4hZWBAO2-BbUM_-AJ1KusEy64HJAukBMwMHeKkkSRYV2oYVVjHYPVr1S2SP50Gh9-yQLCFUEylIhv6W3o8/s400/images-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="400" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnKgovIHiLvPOXbHqPSSURahKrFfSHUy7hEBAWRWqrgqisBLiDCHoIalCdm-Jn62DNOpWBsyDh_FH0vSCgu0sl_VvX2wystGCuHEdYC0ga_4hZWBAO2-BbUM_-AJ1KusEy64HJAukBMwMHeKkkSRYV2oYVVjHYPVr1S2SP50Gh9-yQLCFUEylIhv6W3o8/s320/images-1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> On those BBC programs I have seen hundreds of fish, and beautiful birds that I never would have dreamed existed. Last night I saw something I would have laughed at, had someone told me about it; a camouflaged horned viper in the a desert of India that had a duplicate of a pink spider on the end of its tail to attract birds or mice or whatever. That was one of the most evil looking creatures I have ever seen. </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4h4GEzRvbq9ExqYwsR1Bfb8yhYfdx6xknvTvGJz8URTTFWx_ygLF6mkgu8PjuuwX_RmhHy_yU6hWPI57yTKQ56eHh2L1aHnm3WS5E3dAT9zGOZgca-DcTBsGy4OzcVNO3N2BwQcyr6cZDNuJtv3eIhyphenhyphenDBp-KACu4iEan-E-alFQcbuhnR8CZXMKLD0wI/s400/download-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="400" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4h4GEzRvbq9ExqYwsR1Bfb8yhYfdx6xknvTvGJz8URTTFWx_ygLF6mkgu8PjuuwX_RmhHy_yU6hWPI57yTKQ56eHh2L1aHnm3WS5E3dAT9zGOZgca-DcTBsGy4OzcVNO3N2BwQcyr6cZDNuJtv3eIhyphenhyphenDBp-KACu4iEan-E-alFQcbuhnR8CZXMKLD0wI/s320/download-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Then there were big blue-faced, snub-nosed monkeys in the Himalayan Mountains that lived in the snow. They were as big as most humans. And I have seen birds on that regular program that are so beautiful and strange it amazes me. I can’t believe the millions of creatures that exist on this earth that are spectacular examples of a Creator none of us can understand. Without BBC we would never know of them.</span><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> *. *. *. *. *.<br /></span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Well...There is a big mess going on the upper Buffalo National River where a month ago 1500 very mad Arkansawyers gathered in Jasper to protest a big idea being floated by the Walton brothers who now control Walmart, and Johnny Morris who owns Bass Pro Shops, and are in cooperation of course, with the National Park Service. The Waltons and Morris want to create what they are calling a “Park Preserve” on the Buffalo, attempting to add land to National Park Service boundaries along the river. Morris has never acquired any land that I know of which benefits the public more than it benefits him. I sent him a letter asking him to tell me where he has done that for free public access and it is as yet unanswered. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> He has bought up land adjacent to the MDC-owned Peck Ranch, and state employees worked on that land, paid by our tax dollars to make it desirable for the elk that the Conservation Department brought in. Each fall the MDC makes nearly one hundred thousand dollars out of selling five elk tags. One of those five tags has gone to Morris in the past, to sell or give to friends. Now he wants to add land on the upper Buffalo, which is home to a good-sized herd of transplanted elk. Folks down there are seeing eminent domain being used by the National Park Service to take their private land. But if I were Morris and the Waltons I would back off their big idea on the Buffalo River. I have talked to some of those folks and they are MAD, MAD, MAD. Those backers of the plan didn’t show up at the meeting, and that was a wise move. I will write more about this when I can get more info.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Please read other columns of mine on my blogspot, larrydablemontoutdoors. You can write me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613 or email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com</span><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-26933355868871023562023-11-24T18:10:00.001-07:002023-11-24T18:10:49.210-07:001966 Newspaper Column I wrote about the Conservation Commission for The Houston Herald<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD7aO1TXhu37LxXI3YLBBxnMqIaBReExFEe1SRZBynTBjy4isZI7sVYCunSDaMZs-4CBVh5JUmqp1eXa4z3t1ZreoYsDD0FftO94l26pkB9CXhEH1MSioyb4yIzWBI8vguyHzH7D1XoA9vpxwsrfqJycc9hlYBQn2s_UhcanrnF5UzyjWYLxbsvoYFH3s/s2586/Winter%20on%20the%20Piney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2586" data-original-width="1151" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD7aO1TXhu37LxXI3YLBBxnMqIaBReExFEe1SRZBynTBjy4isZI7sVYCunSDaMZs-4CBVh5JUmqp1eXa4z3t1ZreoYsDD0FftO94l26pkB9CXhEH1MSioyb4yIzWBI8vguyHzH7D1XoA9vpxwsrfqJycc9hlYBQn2s_UhcanrnF5UzyjWYLxbsvoYFH3s/w284-h640/Winter%20on%20the%20Piney.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">Winter on the Piney by Larry Dablemont</span></p><p></p><p><span><span><span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><span> taken from the 1966 Houston Herald</span></span></span></span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <span> An editorial in the State Conservation magazine this month reflects the biggest problem we have in the </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">management of wildlife in this state. It seems that everyone feels the best way to have plentiful game is to stop the hunting and hire more agents to enforce stricter laws.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> Jim Keefe, the editor of the "Conservationist," seems a little disgusted with this attitude. For years the commission has been trying to get across to landowners and sportsmen the idea of habitat improvement as a means of increasing wildlife populations. In short, hunting con trolls population but lack of habitat limits it.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> I recall conversations with various landowners who blame hunters for the lack of game. But as you talk, you gaze across acres of farmed land, closely grazed pasture and fence rows that wouldn't herbivore a field mouse.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> No one expects a farmer to sacrifice a living to support wildlife, but there is always some ground available, which can be managed for all species of game.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> *. *. *. *. *</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> In a national outdoor magazine last month I noticed a small piece that might interest Texas County nature lovers. It concerned the fifth extremity of wildlife--the tail.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span><span><span><span> The 'possum uses hot as an extra hand, to carry nest material and cling to branches. The beaver uses his tail as a </span></span></span></span>trowel and as a warning device. Fish use their tail for locomotion and alligators use theirs for defense.</span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> The squirrel depends on his tail for balance and waterfowl use their tail-feathers as a rudder. A tail serves as a fly swatter for some animals, and others just display a tail for looks, such as a pheasant and peacock. The tail of the bird dog indicates game to the hunter.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> And, what good would a coonskin cap be without a coon tail?</span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> Kind of makes you feel shortchanged doesn't it?</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span><span><span><span><span><span>*. *. *. *. *</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Mothers across the Ozarks should be pleased to hear that a Columbia pet shop as just the thing to keep the kids busy--a pet mouse! No, not a white mouse, not a hamster, just a plain old house mouse. The symbol fo filth, carrier of disease and the scourge of every dwelling and storage building in the. country is now "selling like </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">wild-fire," according to the clerk, at 90 cents apiece.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span> Figuring mice at 90 cents each, the value of Texas County has just doubled!!</span> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-89141024037489565062023-11-24T17:42:00.000-07:002023-11-24T17:42:04.563-07:00Organizing Memories <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5ki3vzLxYIQdkZavDZNcpne4kqwJDSKRFQ-8M_e06cpPYizbOz-zYuYYgiAtM9EA69zN_R7RmMkNv1AAUkiZGIIPXMjtiePzm7lUPmzfSzr7jjQfLo9Ctl2P0F2ceZepJOzpdYKY8qAJczAJcYUlE_FCzXP63SzCNmCYInj9WhbXWqSlv9_iQDcRqg4/s1200/PICT0797%20copy%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="948" data-original-width="1200" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5ki3vzLxYIQdkZavDZNcpne4kqwJDSKRFQ-8M_e06cpPYizbOz-zYuYYgiAtM9EA69zN_R7RmMkNv1AAUkiZGIIPXMjtiePzm7lUPmzfSzr7jjQfLo9Ctl2P0F2ceZepJOzpdYKY8qAJczAJcYUlE_FCzXP63SzCNmCYInj9WhbXWqSlv9_iQDcRqg4/w640-h506/PICT0797%20copy%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me fishing the Roubidoux in an old wooden johnboat in the 1970's</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMThnbPqjSdJNhZUxD2TR_icY6HpC5v-o-sK0lFotstkQXddY580OSpMcX22u45ueleD2LfIha767Rwrxv6Z57oN84Kk5d3WVPQavwrWic_drQuZibKqiQiTNEopPJ3XkbUtoNLxB6xGUaisNIR5lrm0ixzCI-3WJq9niJhchoT7IGDlvzkx1-Nxdx5tQ/s1590/summeron%20thepiney%20copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="1590" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMThnbPqjSdJNhZUxD2TR_icY6HpC5v-o-sK0lFotstkQXddY580OSpMcX22u45ueleD2LfIha767Rwrxv6Z57oN84Kk5d3WVPQavwrWic_drQuZibKqiQiTNEopPJ3XkbUtoNLxB6xGUaisNIR5lrm0ixzCI-3WJq9niJhchoT7IGDlvzkx1-Nxdx5tQ/w320-h124/summeron%20thepiney%20copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> The other day I crossed the Roubidoux River and thought about Lane Davis. Lane was the longtime owner and editor of the Houston Herald newspaper and he hired me to paddle him down the Roubidoux, where he loved to fish. When I was about fourteen years old, I was a 50-cent-an-hour guide, and for local folks, one of my Dad’s wooden johnboats was included free. The Roubidoux River had about twice as much water in the ‘60’s and had lots of bass and goggle-eye. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I loved to read the outdoor magazines back then and write outdoor stories myself, for the guys in the pool hall to read. Lane got a kick out of that and he told me that he would use some of my stories in his newspaper. You cannot imagine how excited that made me. He printed the first newspaper column I ever wrote when I was about 17 years old, and made it a regular weekly column, “Summer on the Piney” and then “Fall on the Piney” and so forth as the seasons change.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I saved most everything I ever had published back then and I read one of those early columns the other day. It embarrassed me. I made some glaring mistakes, like the time I wrote that I had seen a golden eagle on the Piney. It had to be, I figured, since it was so big and dark, with no white head. Back then, bald eagles were seldom seen in the Ozarks, and I thought they all had white heads. I didn’t realize that an eagle larger than it’s parents, with dark plumage was just an immature bald eagle. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> That help from Lane Davis got me started on a life as an outdoor writer. At Missouri University I got a job as a weekly columnist for the Columbia Missourian newspaper, and saved many of those columns as well. Then upon graduation in 1970 I went to work as the Outdoor Editor for the state's largest daily newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas. Five years after my first column in Houston, I began to write regularly for Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> Last week I began to try to organize the newspaper columns I saved from the past, more than 6000 of them, published over the years in 200-plus newspapers in five states. With those, are more than 700 magazine articles published in about two-dozen magazines. What I have is a gigantic mess when it comes to organizing, and it is beyond my ability. There are many articles and features and columns I don’t even remember writing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I put many of those magazine articles, mostly the ones that won awards, into two different books I published nearly 20 years ago. I am going to do more such books in the future. If you want to read about that first book I did in the 1970’s and what it is now worth on the internet, go to my website, larrydablemontoutdoors. This week I will put one of those columns I did for Lane Davis on that website. It comes from sixty years ago in my hometown paper, the Houston Herald. Thanks Mr. Davis, I will never forget you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> In December we will publish the last of my Lightnin’ Ridge magazines for subscribers. It will be a Christmas issue and if you contact my office before December 1, you can get one mailed to you for $8. I published the first of my magazines in 2003 and there have been more than 100 published since then. But it isn’t the last one I figure on doing, and many people have misunderstood that. It is the last I will publish on a regular seasonal basis for SUBSCRIBERS. I will publish a couple more in 2024 but those will be different in that we will no longer have a subscriber list. I have notified readers, in my fall magazine we put out in October, that if they get on a list of folks interested in reading the magazines of the future, that we will contact them when a new one is ready, or when I have a new book out. Anyone can get on that list just contact our office at 417-777-5227.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;"> I will do some new books next year. One is a sort of biography of a writer-naturalist, entitled “The Life and Times of the Pool Hall Kid”. Another is entitled “The Justice of St. Clair County” which will cause your jaw to drop open if you read it… it is about corruption that was in the county's legal system about a sheriff who was keeping stolen merchandise in his barn, and that a judge there tried to arrange my murder. It will be the first I have written about it. Hard to believe, but true. Another book next year will be a collection of what readers have chosen as the best hundred of those 6000 newspaper columns. If you want to be notified when new magazines or books come out, contact me at Box 22, Bolivar, MO 65613 or </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a><span style="font-family: Geneva;">lightninridge47@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 16pt;">. You can also call my office, 417-777-5227<o:p></o:p></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-23821969950867331502023-11-17T10:24:00.002-07:002023-11-17T10:38:55.582-07:00Thanksgivingfulness<p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 16pt; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1x00MgnRftnr-zL6mFEvDKu8YB1X6GZ6J0tc30_UoOO8hW7Ok-eMAhWj3Jg27OS3bBFMRv89r8ckpNsXPIOjgLU8usNo1POpfqQ7MmQTyXMV3Y_8RqGwuDVgsLPaHq7OcYLqHqX5Im3XfLfHf1LSdxzA26Q2Au3jZFLeluCtQxYpwLQ51f6MRWgXBLc/s1996/dad%20jboat%20duck%20hunt856%20copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1996" data-original-width="1800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW1x00MgnRftnr-zL6mFEvDKu8YB1X6GZ6J0tc30_UoOO8hW7Ok-eMAhWj3Jg27OS3bBFMRv89r8ckpNsXPIOjgLU8usNo1POpfqQ7MmQTyXMV3Y_8RqGwuDVgsLPaHq7OcYLqHqX5Im3XfLfHf1LSdxzA26Q2Au3jZFLeluCtQxYpwLQ51f6MRWgXBLc/w578-h640/dad%20jboat%20duck%20hunt856%20copy.jpg" width="578" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My dad and his Winchester</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> There's an old model '97 Winchester pump shotgun hanging on my office wall. It is old and scarred, a long-barreled relic from the good old days of my boyhood. In the fall, when the Ozarks was bathed in beautiful colors and there was a frost at dawn and a nip in the air, they'd hold turkey shoots in Big Piney River country. They usually took place on the Sunday afternoons before thanksgiving. I was just a little guy too young to shoot, but I'd tag along and watch Dad pack that old shotgun up to the line behind stacked bales of hay and holler, "Pull"! From the other side of the bales, there'd come a thump, a clay pigeon would sail off across the broam sedge field and that old '97 would roar. Another clay pigeon turned to black dust!</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> Dad was awfully good with that shotgun. There was never a turkey shoot I remember when dad didn’t come away with a turkey and a ham. He'd lose on occasion, because there'd be 8 or 10 very good shotgunners there, each paying a dollar to shoot and back up a few yards and shoot again until only one was left. The last shooter to break a clay pigeon won either a turkey or a ham. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 16pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdi4blIjvkEepG1yQLrCTRkt3M0YpM9Z3cj40X_lNXoiOQkgkaQZwzQR1h7Eu6sygG5BUtfTgku-Eg5VCiCVudMa1XM27Npc0SA5xAQ73-MzZUzqO57DJkzLc9ihMQsmircLTJAFQr3GyepvYH14T3mx1e-UvaqtvT361yKOnih7Ag0gWLkWmCpdUVQzc/s1800/dad%20with%20ducks%20copy%202.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1315" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdi4blIjvkEepG1yQLrCTRkt3M0YpM9Z3cj40X_lNXoiOQkgkaQZwzQR1h7Eu6sygG5BUtfTgku-Eg5VCiCVudMa1XM27Npc0SA5xAQ73-MzZUzqO57DJkzLc9ihMQsmircLTJAFQr3GyepvYH14T3mx1e-UvaqtvT361yKOnih7Ag0gWLkWmCpdUVQzc/w293-h400/dad%20with%20ducks%20copy%202.jpg" width="293" /></span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Dad and I hunted ducks on the Piney in the fall, and he knew the range of that old long-barrel. He could break clay pigeons 50 yards away and we'd wind up with a couple of hams and turkeys for only three or four dollars spent. After any shooter won twice he was no longer allowed to compete. Heck, for years it was that old ’97 Winchester that made Thanksgiving possible for a whole family at Grandma and Grandpa McNew’s old farm house. I was too young to be thankful for that gathering of eight Aunts and Uncles and 22 cousins. But there are few of them left and now I am thanking God often for that boyhood of mine, and the old shotgun on my office wall.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">This year we can be thankful that it has been such a mild fall, except for that one three-day arctic stretch when it was colder than an ice-fisherman’s bobber. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;">On Thanksgiving Day we all gather to give thanks for our health and happiness, and there is an awful lot to be thankful about. If we just had more water in the Ozarks right now, and there were a good number of ducks arriving, I could just get swamped with thankfulness.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> But I don’t want anyone thinking I am ungrateful. I have been thanking God for the more important things, like my health… and a reasonably good family and acquaintances that keep giving me all this advice about what I ought to do different. Well there was that Canada fishing trip where I got a freezer full of fish, even though I ain’t much on eating fish anymore. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> Like you, I am thankful for good neighbors although I don’t know any of them because I live quite aways from them, thank goodness! And I am thankful for all those friends I use to have. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> As you grow older, you get like this, kind of cynical and contrary and less thankful than you was when you was younger and your knee didn’t hurt. But oh do I get thankfuller when I get off by myself on a flowing stream or in the deep woods, and realize that there is a good chance that heaven will be a lot like where I am then. I am thinking that my chances of going to heaven has to be better than 50 percent and I am thankful for that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> What makes any man’s life happier and better is the help and friendship he gives to others whether it is returned or not. That’s what the first Thanksgiving dinners were about, celebrating the abundance of the harvest, and sharing it with the Indians.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: x-large;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p style="font-size: 16pt;"></o:p></span></span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-89724179233891137152023-11-07T10:30:00.001-07:002023-11-07T10:30:06.991-07:00Know Your Rights as a Hunter<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold";"><o:p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Larry Dablemont Outdoor Column… 11-6-23 <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Know Your Rights as a Hunter<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> As I talk to outdoorsmen around the Ozarks it is amazing how ignorant they are about their rights as hunters and fishermen. The greater percentage of those I talk to wrongly believe that agents can come into their homes or buildings whenever they want to. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Randy Doman, the enforcement chief of the Missouri Department of Conservation has sent me a letter, which clears all of that up and every person needs to read and understand it. You can do that by going to my website, larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com to read his letter, and read what another MDC employee has sent me describing how agents today use the Teletech system to find deer hunters they can charge. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> I have sent these letters to the newspapers who use my column, but they cannot be printed in most due to space problems. Before you go outdoors with a gun, read Doman’s letter and be surprised to learn the truth. In one violation of a deer hunter’s rights, the MDC was taken to court and had to pay out a million dollar settlement, which they never even appealed. Until now, this has been hidden, never mentioned in the news media. If you are harassed or innocently charged, you have grounds for a lawsuit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> I asked a high-ranking official of the MDC if landowners who register their land with his agency are of higher risk because of it. He laughed at that idea, saying that registering your land will mean nothing when it comes to your rights as a landowner-hunter. “Can’t you see the obvious reason for that requirement?” he asked me. “Remember 20 years ago when we tried to get rules that made small landowners have to buy permits by making the land size requirement 80 acres? It was a boondoggle that made small landowners madder than hell and they dropped the idea.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> He went on to say the registering of land was a stroke of genius by the MDC bureaucracy because thousands of landowners, skeptical of any government interference would not do it. Therefore those thousands of landowners who won’t register their land now have to buy a deer tag to hunt their land, and the increase in revenue is immense. You can’t get landowner permits if your land isn’t registered with the MDC. That, along with the elk and bear tag sales situation adds well over a half million dollar increase to the MDC coffers each fall!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> In some ways, the move is backfiring. I talked to one landowner in the northern part of the state who owns 240 acres. He is indeed ‘madder than heck’ about the whole fiasco. “I won’t register my land with any agency just to get a 20-dollar deer tag free,” he told me. “But I will kill any deer I want now without a tag, and one of my sons will do the same. The MCD will never know a thing about it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Many landowners are doing the same thing. It is really easy to conceal a deer kill, and it is now going to make violators out of people who once did things according to the law. And landowners who once supported the MDC are unhappy with the land registration requirement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> But this advice comes it from an ex-conservation agent…“If you kill a big antlered buck, and you call in and tell about it, you are apt to have an agent at your door. When you call in, don’t you realize that the reason you are asked about the circumference of the beam and the number of points? That tells agents how valuable that rack might be? Don’t give that info, just say you killed a little eight pointer. You cannot be charged for giving whatever information you choose.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> “And remember that if an agent shows up during the deer season wanting to see your deer and look in your freezer, he has to have a search warrant!” He said emphatically. “No agent has any rights to demand a thing of you without that search warrant. If he asks you to let him come in, or look in your barn or your shed and you agree to it, you are asking for a fine. Close the door and ignore them. If you get one wanting to see where you killed your deer, just answer that you are too busy. You do not ever have to show and agent where you killed a deer or a turkey or even a coyote. Even a search warrant doesn’t require you to do that, and if you do, you are for certain going to receive a citation. Don’t be stupid!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Call me at 417 777 5227 or email <a>lightninridge47@gmail.com</a> Letters can be sent to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-67423297806086737722023-11-07T10:26:00.003-07:002023-11-07T10:30:38.392-07:00Letter From Randy Doman, Chief of Enforcement, Missouri Department of Conservation… <style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold"; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold"; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold";">Letter From Randy Doman, Chief of Enforcement, Missouri Department of Conservation</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">… <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;">“Mr. Dablemont, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> In a previous correspondence, you mentioned a desire to provide information that sportsmen should know to avoid problems with MDC enforcement. I appreciate your efforts to educate sportsmen and women on hunting and fishing regulations, even those rules you may not agree with. Avoiding problems with MDC enforcement is not difficult.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 37pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Obtain the proper permit prior to your hunt and have it with you while hunting. Acquiring a deer permit after the harvest and then checking your animal on that permit is illegal.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 37pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Immediately after harvesting a deer, hunters must notch their permit. (Select date taken on permit).</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 37pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hunters must Telecheck their deer by 10 p.m. on the day of harvest, before processing the game, or before leaving the state whichever comes first.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 37pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As long as a hunter stays with their harvested game, they do not need to attach the tag to it. But if they leave their deer or turkey, they must attach a tag.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure apply to conservation agents just the same as they do for state troopers, sheriff’s deputies, city police, etc. The Open Fields Doctrine provides that open fields do not carry the same expectation of privacy as an occupied dwelling or curtilage. Pending exigent circumstances, conservation agents may not search a closed barn or shed without consent or a warrant. Conservation agents MAY NOT force their way into a home without a search warrant or consent based on seeing a mounted deer head on the wall.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Regarding the enforcement of baiting laws, citations are warranted when hunters are found physically within or immediately adjacent to baited areas. When hunters are found outside of sight of the baited area or out of range for killing an animal standing in the baited area, no ticket should be issued unless other evidence is present to indicate the hunter knew or reasonably should have known the area was baited and is hunting there because of the bait; Conservation agents may instruct hunters in the immediate surrounding area of the bait that further hunting in that area is prohibited until ten (10) days following complete removal of the bait. Agents are instructed not close entire farms or large areas of land simply because bait was found at a particular location. Likewise, adjoining property owners should not be considered in violation unless they were aware of the bait and were using it as an attraction to deer or turkeys for hunting.”</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Regarding your concerns about conservation agents conducting Telecheck investigations, Conservation agents must abide by the same 4<sup>th</sup> Amendment protections as any other law enforcement officer. Conservation agents often follow up on deer Telechecks as their schedules allow. With the discontinuation of wildlife check-in stations in 2005, these Telecheck investigations have become an expectation and a valuable tool for conservation agents; not only to increase compliance with the <i>Wildlife Code</i>, but to ensure the integrity of the self-reported harvest data. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8414655938267697137.post-32079334484808793542023-11-07T10:24:00.005-07:002023-11-07T10:31:31.513-07:00MDC Agents use the Teletech system to charge hunters - Letter from a concerned agent<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> “Dear Mr. Dablemont.---<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> We began a new phase of law enforcement when the MDC adopted the telecheck system. It provides much information about the individual who uses it, capturing the hunter’s name address and permit number. It provides the date and time of permit purchase, the date and time of the animal being checked, the telephone number or computer address used to check it. It also provides the history of the permits purchased and all animals checked. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Soon the telecheck system was being used as a major component of law enforcement by agents. The telecheck system was soon being used to instigate investigations. It started with “quick check” investigations, where there was only a short time between permit purchase and the checking of the animal. This was very successful and lead to a broadening use of the system. So it began to be modified to get more information for enforcement agents. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Filters and alerts were place on the system. It began to be used to provide information on such things as; multiple animal checks, after hours checks and first-time checkers. Filters provided real-time alerts for short interval checks and checks on landowners with small acreage. The system has also been used to check on hunter education certification. While it sounds like a good tool for legitimate law enforcement, resulting investigations began to come dangerously close to violating civil trights. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span> The system allows for </span><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold";">PROFILING FEMALE HUNTERS</span><span>, and others who are first time users of the system. Agents began to use any information they deem suspicious to find and confront hunters who have legally checked a deer or turkey. Many times these confrontations occur on a hunter’s private property with no probable cause. Typical of this would be singling out a woman with a first time archery kill. (making her produce and shoot her bow) Probably none of these hunters are given their Miranda Rights before they are questioned. </span><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold";">They are routinely commanded to provide proof they killed the animal legally!!!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Some hunters are told to prove their proficiency with a gun or archery equipment. Agents often want to be taken to the site of the kill. The requests are more like demands, with hunters feeling they have no rights nor options other than to comply. Telecheck is the basis for what we call ‘audits’ These audits are encouraged by the supervisors, and amount to telecheck enforcement saturations. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> Agents saturate a county or region and spread out over that area, with one individual monitoring a laptop computer, directing other agents to individuals who have recently checked animals. The agents then confront that individual and try to find a violation. Most audits occur on private property with Miranda Rights optional. They intimidate people into compliance with what they want. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> The state statute that allows for agents to enter private property to check for some kind of violation is probably stretched. It is unclear whether a telecheck suspicion investigation is legal.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Our agents have no special search and seizure powers. They must adhere to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S.Constitution. They must have a search warrant or consent to search and they are required to give Miranda Rights before questioning. Agents must have probable cause before making an arrest. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Finally if you use the Mo Hunt App on your I-phone to buy permits there is something you need to do… You need to look in settings for the MO Hunt App and </span><span style="font-family: "Arial Black";">disable the “Use Specific Location”. Otherwise MDC agents can track your location!!!”</span> </span></p>Gloria Dablemonthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00170349371143321084noreply@blogger.com0