Kansas Quail

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Phil Yearout

They’re drill marks from cutting the stone.

Granite fence posts are fairly common in New England. New Hampshire and Vermont have many quarries still in operation.
Splitting a stone is pretty fascinating to watch. A row of holes are drilled, spacing dependent on the depth of the stone. Two steel 'fingers' are set in the hole, and one tapered pin, in between. The man would go down the line of holes, giving each taper pin one tap, then back again. The accumulated pressure along the line eventually split the stone.
I always said you could split ash darn near finished lumber, but granite fence posts are a close second.

[Rick Roemer]

We have hunted a lot near DeWitt and Searcy. Some around Marianna and Jonesboro. We will be west of Stuttgart near Tucker this coming weekend. You are fortunate to have a farmer friend. I have tried Bayou Meto - I never have enough time to figure that place out - very competitive. I hope birds are moving.

[Phil Yearout]

The plains Indians valued Osage Orange for bow making. As I said, most folks around here call them hedge trees, maybe because they’re often found in the fence lines between fields. And their thorns will flat tear you up!

[Stepmac]

Originally Posted by Kenny Graft

I have hunted Kansas for many years starting in 2008. When Ruby my Gordon setter was 10 months old, we had a great 6 full days in Hill City area Kansas. I got my first double on wild Quail over Ruby...I miss that girl. I lost her a month ago at 14 years and 9 months. Kansas is on track after the years long drought and I have joined a face book blog for Kansas hunting and folks are doing very well now out there. Its time to take my two young setter pups out this coming November....(-:

I was raised in western Kansas. Went to college in eastern Kansas. Bob white quail were thick, so were wild pheasant. Just wonderful. Today they hunt deer. None there in my day. Everyone in my family were raised out there, back several generations. It is indeed God's Country. The wind does blow. Freezing in Winter, boiling in Summer. Kansas is not a place for the weak of heart.

[Phil Yearout]

As they say...Anybody can love the mountains but it takes a soul to love the prairie.

[Ken Hill]

Phil,

Since this thread came back around, can you tell me why hedgerow (or bodark, or Osage orange) trees green fruit is called a horse apple? I didn’t know the tree is related to the mulberry tree.

Ken

[Phil Yearout]

Ken, ya got me. I've never heard it called a horse apple, but AI to the rescue. Apparently the trees were often planted to create natural fences to keep livestock in or out. And since one of the things to be controlled was horses, the fruit was called "horse apple" by some and the name stuck. We always just called them hedge apples, and my mom believed they kept boxelder bugs away, so she have me gather some to put around in the fall. I have no idea if they worked.

[Mike of the Mountain]

Originally Posted by Steve McCarty

I was raised in western Kansas. Went to college in eastern Kansas. Bob white quail were thick, so were wild pheasant. Just wonderful. Today they hunt deer. None there in my day. Everyone in my family were raised out there, back several generations. It is indeed God's Country. The wind does blow. Freezing in Winter, boiling in Summer. Kansas is not a place for the weak of heart.

Steve, I'm heading to Western Kansas in November for quail, prairie chicken and pheasant. We're hunting 5 days. My buddy there gets into birds all season and he's taking me out with his dogs all 5 days. Looking forward to it!

[Jeff K.]

I have always called them hedge apples . I have to collect some every fall for a friend who says they keep the spiders out of her house.

[Kevin McCormack]

On our wonderful waterfowl lease farm off the Wye East River just north of Easton, MD, we had 5 or 6 huge old Osage orange trees in the front and side yards. I never tried to find out how old they really were, but our farm properties dated back deeds to the 1700s. Occasionally one of them would lose one or more of the huge upper branches and we got the idea of free firewood. When we cut them up with chainsaws, you could see sparks coming out of the guard port, and when we tried to split cut sections with a sledge hammer and maul, the spiral growth habit would spin you around like a merry-go-round.

The dried wood was hard as a rock and gave off a tremendous amount of heat. In the morning after a roaring fire the night before you would come down and see the ash in the fireplace was as fine as cigarette ash, almost the consistency of sand. The fruits always fascinated me, they were bright green and the size of softballs. As they fell off the tree and rotted on the ground they gave off a putrid smell that really lingered in the summer heat and humidity.