ot to be. Fortunately, this year they've opened up most all of the Powder River Basin for general licenses, meaning you can buy a license over the counter at the hardware store rather than entering a lottery for a limited number of licenses.
This suggests that the turkey population is becoming large enough that it can sustain a considerable number of hunters. Of course, if the hunters are all as successful as I usually am the turkeys are pretty safe. There's also huge tracts of land that are inaccessible to the public, either due to terrain, to the Forest Service road closures, or to private landowners who don't allow access, so there are many de facto refuges for the critters.
Turkeys are interesting. A hen turkey lays a bunch of eggs, one a day pretty regularly just like a chicken, for over two months. I've heard of up to 75 eggs in a single nest. After an incubation period the eggs begin to hatch, also about one per day. At the right time of year you can walk through the woods and come on hatchlings at all stages of development, from peepers to near-adults fledging out. And all the coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and other predators are lying around with distended stomachs.
Some folks think turkeys are wily, smart critters, but they are just birds. There's not enough room in that cranium for much thinking apparatus. But of every 100 turkey eggs that hatch, only three or four make it to adulthood. The ones that survive are the ones that put their heads down and run at the first hint of danger and don't stop running until they're in the next county. They're not smart, they're paranoid.
An old friend of my sister's who's living in Kaycee found this. As usual with these things when they start circulating on the internet there's no attribution, but it's a variation on an old theme and it was to awful to resist:
Two attorneys boarded a flight out of Seattle, one sat in the window seat, the other sat in the middle seat. Just before takeoff, a physician got on and took the aisle seat next to the two attorneys. The physician kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the attorney in the window seat said, "I think I'll get up and get a Coke." "No problem," said the physician, "I'll get it for you." While he was gone, one of the attorneys picked up the physician's shoe and spat in it. When the physician returned with the Coke, the other attorney said, "That looks good, I think I'll have one too." Again, the physician obligingly went to fetch it and while he was gone, the other attorney picked up the other shoe and spat in it. The physician returned and they all sat back and enjoyed the flight.
As the plane was landing, the physician slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened. "How long must this go on?" he asked. "This fighting between our professions? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and peeing in Cokes?"
I got another 1.5 Mb antivirus download from Norton this morning. Actually it looks like most of it is an online registration of some sort. They'll want money of course and they do need it to keep churning out those virus definitions.
It's springtime in the Rockies!
I've finished the spring shearing and I'm pleased to report that the same good-looking young guy appeared from under the mass of facial foliage. I'm always a little afraid that I'll shave off my beard and find my father under there, but not this year.
I may have been a bit premature, as it's about 20°F outside and the weather channel is predicting snow and cold with high winds through the weekend. Given my usual luck we're sure to have a major spring blizzard now that I've been shorn. However, if I really thought it would tempt the weather gods to dump snow or rain on us I'd shave my head to boot, because we desperately need the moisture.
Update: Yes, I am this far behind in my blogging. I wrote this yesterday about this time Dreadfully busy right now, with 16-hour days in front of this infernal contraption. Makes me want to run away and become a hunter-gatherer. But the season doesn't start until April 1