Soy rolled into my driveway some time Monday evening last...I was still at work. We sat up and told "outrageous truths" until pretty late. I let him help feed our little American kestrel and he thought it was pretty cool stuff. Nest morning, long before the chickens had even settled in to sleep, much less gotten up, we were out of the house and out to the One Two Eight Roost where we set up and talked to some gobblers on the roost. Somehow, they left the roost silently and we never had so much as a sniff of their butts disappearing! Oh, the joy of getting humiliated by a bird with a brain the size of a shelled pecan! He and I drove off a few miles to another place and tried working some other gobblers, but they were pretty henned up. Plus, we had gotten a lot of snow the weekend before and we were soaked to the skin and went home.
On Tuesday afternoon I got a call on an injured great horned owl and Soy was 'voluntold' to come along. We found her next to a road construction cone, likely had been hit by a car. He got to see one of our largest and fiercest avian apex predators up close and personal! Being a real lover of the outdoors and wildlife in general, he was soaking it in pretty fast. I was glad to have the help along.
He helped me pack and we headed out to camp north of Custer, SD and a few miles straight west from the Crazy Horse Monument. We were busy setting things up when we looked over and saw a sight that was frightening. It was a flatlander out of his natural environment! A genuine abo rock knocker by the moniker of Iowabow. Apparently I had failed to be vague enough with the directions to the camp and he found it with no problem. Shortly after that, my friend and tattoo artist, Mikey showed up. With many hands, the camp was set up in record time. I fried up some steaks and red potatoes in order to save them from having their bellies rub a blister on their backbones. Based on the belching and sighs, they were not dissatisfied.
Next morning kyle_wayne (a very infrequent poster, but frequent lurker on here) showed up with a buddy he and I know from the Rendezvous scene. A bit later, we looked up to see the skinniest, funniest looking sasquatch cub staring thru the pines at us with a bemused look on his mug. Apparently this was not only a cub 'squatch, but one that was just beginning to become an adult. I could tell, because he was obviously out searching for new territory to call his own. His big hairy feet had dried gumbo clay from the Badlands clinging to them all the way to his knees. We invited him in and fed him. Young 'squatches will eat about anything, I am here to tell you! After a few thousand calories into the youngin, we got his story out of him. He had left Florida weeks ago and had wandered thru the Tennessee Classic, Indiana, Iowa, and into South Dakota. He looked a lot like Primitive Tim.
The gang was all there, the weather was pure, unmitigated crap most of the time with wind and rain chasing our butts up and down the ridgelines. Any chance the sun came out, we were slinging gear out to dry on any handy bush or stump. We stayed up far too late, got up far too early, and failed to take afternoon naps. The turkeys were as uncooperative as a 3 yr old throwing a fit in a candy store! Primitive Tim got shot in the knee with an arrow, but that is his story to tell. Many of the folks had never met before, but were fast friends by the time camp broke up. It was a rare pleasure to be camp wrangler and cookie for this bunch of guys.
I want to thank each and every one of them for coming out and pitching in to making this a memorable week in the woods. Now I am gonna let those that are willing to tell their stories.
