SATURDAY SOLO TURKEY HUNT

   
    Early afternoon turkey hunting. Words can't show the beauty of Missouri woods. I saw two deer feeding in soybean fields. No birds, it's late in season but I WALKED nice n slow, happy after a broken ankle. A bit of drizzle didn't ruin my day- it smelled fresh. Wet alfalfa smells sweet. Usual crop fields are fallow this year.  







I found a licking branch above a scrape and fresh tracks walking along the tractor path mowed months before.  Usually prime turkey hunting if the weeds hadn't been so tall..  

     No other hunters bumped into my path, no dogs ran through to startle a flock of birds my way. I watched an eagle fly, squirrels running up and down trees and a hawk caught one.  The squirrel didn't let out a sound as the hawk swooped in and snatched it off the tree. 
     My foot got sore, I rested, drank cold coffee. Texted my husband I was headed home after one last hunt. Be safe he replied (from his tree stand).
      
     We'd seen six deer in the field below right two years earlier.  Unlike all the years we've hunted this bottom ground, due to an extremely wet spring, all the fields that normally produced corn and soybeans and held hundreds of deer were now fallow.  Those weeds and native grasses were over five feet high making for excellent deer bedding.  
     Some hunters would be successful here but most would be too discouraged by the new dense cover.  On a typical rifle season opener, deer have been everywhere, however it'll take very stout dudes to plow through all the tall weeds thanks to fertile soil after years of crops and deer and turkey rummaging. 
      I won't venture into those thick fields even with a good foot..  Not suitable for turkey or for quail either.  I gave up my search, movin' on...

Buttercup weed

     I thought to myself how folks who clamor about soil and natural grasses preservation should try to walk through these unruly fields now, so wild with "pigweed" and scrub and buckbrush (or common Cocklebur) that grows so thick a fully mature buck can hide in.  No lush "prairie tallgrass" or delicate Buttercup flowers depicting romance and children romping through these meadows.  It's Ozarks rough country.       Missouri's back country is beauty and gnarly.

creek bed

Collapsed bridge

view across the creek bottom

Spent more time driving than I like to but till my foot is totally healed, I must take care where I walk. The last field was too thorny and steep so I took his advice, turned the Jeep north. Home. Good day. These pics show where God is for me.