Subtle, but sure, signs of Fall hunting -- What are yours?
My dogs and I are anxious for Fall and what it brings to us. We keep a constant vigil on the signs of its arrival here at 40.3470° N, 92.5691° W, as we have for nearly 40 years. These signs we look for mean hunting season is just about upon us, another season of activity here in the "middle-middle" as I like to call our part of the country. Locust sing, crickets chirp, and there are signs among the plants that it will soon be time to break out the guns and head to the fields.
What are your signs of Fall and the hunting to come?
Key to photos:
1. Cup Plant is one of the first of many sunflowers to bloom in the late Summer/early Fall. It is added to by many yellow blooming flowers here in the "Middle-Middle" of this wonderful country we call home.
2. There's always a sneak peak at the beautiful color of Fall previewed by Virginia Creeper (pictured here) and Poison Ivy.
3. About the 2nd week of August, we begin checking the local WMAs to see how the dove field plantings have managed the summer. This field looks like it should draw dove for our September 1st opener. I can't wait!
4. My sentimental favorite harbinger of Fall is the Golden Rod. Golden Rod gets a bad rap, many thinking it, like its brethren the rag weed, causes hay fever. Golden Rod does not polinate through the air, but by proximity, touching the plant next to it in order to procreate. There are 120 species of Golden Rod, and there are times I think that each one is present in our fields near home.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers )
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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