Squirrel (hunting) season opened yesterday. The Grandson (age 14) called, wanting to know if he and a friend could come over to our house to go hunting. I picked him up before dinner. His plan was to get up before sunrise to be in the woods when the squirrels woke up.
It was daylight when I woke up. On my way to the coffee pot, I noticed that his bedroom door was closed and figured he was probably still asleep. Two hours later, when the aroma of bacon wafted through the house, he emerged from the bedroom. He'd decided to hunt at sundown instead of sunrise.
He waited all day for his friend to come over, but late in the afternoon he learned that his friend's father wouldn't let him come. The Grandson was disappointed (I was sort of relieved, for I don't know how much hunting experience/training his friend had), but planned on going to the woods by himself.
About sundown, The Grandson suited up and headed to the woods. I was nervous. Earlier in the day, in broad daylight, I'd heard coyotes yipping in the bottom. Also, The Grandson doesn't know these woods very well. I was afraid he'd goof around in the woods until dark and get lost. We'd told him to take a flashlight, but he'd walked off without it. We sat on the back porch, listening.
Just before dark, we heard a shotgun blast. A few seconds later, another shot. "Missed it the first time," I said, to which The Husband replied, "If he got it that time, he probably won't be able to find it in the dark."
To my great relief, The Grandson came walking into the yard a few minutes later. He hadn't got a squirrel, but he did get an armadillo.
Good work, Grandson.
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Thursday evening, I went to the garden to get a couple of tomatoes for dinner. While I was there, I checked on the butterbeans. They were covered in lice and choked with morning glories. The leaves looked like lace, victims of grasshoppers that were happily munching during my inspection. Friday evening, I went back to spray for bugs. Nanny saw me crossing the yard and came out to the porch to warn me that it was too hot to work in the garden. I swore I wouldn't be long. The sprayer was already full of bug spray; all I had to do was grab it from the shed and get busy.
It took longer than I expected, for I tried to pull out some of the morning glories as I moved down the row. Every few minutes, Nanny would holler from the back porch, "Are you allright?" and I'd holler back, "Yeah."
The new purple hull peas were being bug-eaten, too, and morning glories were coming up in the rows. I sprayed and pulled weeds, sprayed and pulled weeds, with Nanny periodically hollering, "All you allright?" and me hollering back, "Yeah."
The butterbeans needed watering, but it was getting too dark to see by the time I finished spraying and weeding. I intended to go back to do some watering yesterday, but never got around to it. There's a hurricane brewing down south, and we may get some rain from it today or tomorrow, so maybe I won't do any watering today, either.
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The Grandson spent the night again last night, said he was going to go squirrel hunting this morning.
His bedroom door is still closed. :)
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