8 juni 2023 Just a Conversation

    My wife looked at me with that globally timeless “What the heck?” expression that partners have used since Passover when their spouses suddenly began painting their exterior doorways with lamb’s blood.

    “GOD SAID? LAMB'S BLOOD? DO YOU SEE SCREENS ON OUR WINDOWS? THAT’S GOIN’ TO DRAW FLIES FROM ALL OVER EGYPT!  CAN’T YOU JUST USE RED PAINT INSTEAD? SOME DAYS I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU! GOD SAID ... THAT'S RICH."

    All I started to say, was, “After I plant my food plots with buckwheat (a nationally-known smother-crop), and it has grown a couple feet high, about mid- August I’ll seed a blend of turnips and radishes into it on one side of the plot, and cereal rye on the other side, then kill the buckwheat with spray. It won’t hurt the seeds. Then I’ll crush the buckwheat down atop the seeds using a culti-packer, or drive it down using my four-wheeler or tractor. The dead buckwheat provides both cover and nutrients toward germination of the seeds, plus is an excellent soil builder.”

“WHO SOLD YOU ON THAT BRILLIANT GROW-IT-THEN-KILL-IT IDEA??” she fairly hissed, scrunching up her face to further emphasize its ridiculousness. “Your so-called whitetail foodplot guru?”

    She was referring to Jeff Sturgis, a whitetail deer hunting consultant I’ve followed for about three years and has an informative website: Whitetail Habitat Solutions: https://www.whitetailhabitatsolutions.com/ and a weekly blog; conducts on-line classes, and consults with individuals and groups across the country about creating and maintaining food plots and hunting environments.

    Just so I’m not the only naive/ignorant person taken in by Sturgis’s ideas, I found someone in Wisconsin trying to make this system work too, learning as he goes. I enjoyed his candidness about what he has done in the past, is trying now, and what he expects in the future. Many of the comment statements in his blog are things I’ve experienced myself so it makes me feel like what I’ve been experiencing others have. It’s kinda fun too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxXOneYtUdo

    Being used to such negative bias from a non-deer killer type person (not to be confused with anti-hunter type person), I shrugged off her remark and said as I typed away, “I’ll send you the link ... You should receive it pronto. It may deviate a little from what I said in brief, but you’ll grasp the wondrous propensity of this perfect food plot to hold deer here during deer season and into the winter with a little rye left over into spring. Your boys will thank me for it.” https://www.whitetailhabitatsolutions.com/blog/2020-ultimate-no-till-food-plot-prep

    “They’ll shoot their deer whether you have food plots or not. I’d think they’d rather see you paint the house so they don’t have to come and do it,” she said. “Just last weekend, they were talking about getting the fam together and do just that, the sooner better than later they were sayin’. All this stuff you’ve been doin’ like buildin’ deerstands and plantin’ these stinkin’ foodplots that don’t grow worth shit --like they need sufficient rain or something else to make them grow, why you could’ve painted the house six times over, since we re-roofed it, and, don’t get me started on these poor windows you put in here!”

    “They’re not Marvin windows for sure, but they keep the rain out eh?” I offered, knowing quite well she was right. I did sorely regret not purchasing Marvin windows, as I had originally planned, but allowed the contractor’s words ‘maintenance-free’ to enter my head and cave-in my best intentions, so alas I bought a southern Minnesota-based window brand instead.

    I knew she was swerving our conversation off course from the foodplot subject I wanted to talk about that makes her eyes glaze over. Sure, she was correct about me not painting the house in good time, after all I’ve had 30-some years to do it -- and it’s not like I didn’t do it only 28-years ago. So what if it was only as high as I could safely reach with brush and roller from a 12-foot ladder.

      One can still see the difference between what I painted back then and the chalky-white presumably-lead paint up towards the 2nd story peak and dormers. There’s but two colors of white and pale yellow paint on it, iffin’ you look close enough -- not to mention the dark natural cedar areas exposed by a total absence of paint. I started to think her sudden intensity about it was like she’d been talkin’ to Uncle Wayne recently ...

    “You better be getting your house painted before you lose your siding,” elder neighbor Uncle Wayne said, authoritatively, after giving me a ride home from Roseau the day before. "Lee’s Store sells house paint, you know.”

    “I’m meanin’ to," I said pulling my little bag of groceries off the backseat of his car. “Why just last night I was on-line checking out Alive Outdoor Services in Roseau for rental rates on a pressure washer. https://www.aliveos.com/ And (as if to emphasize my earnestness), I watched a Bob Vila video or two about doing it, after that.”

    “WHO?” Wayne, the elder asked.

     “BOB VEE-LA!” I answered ‘smiling’ loudly so he could hear me.

    “Who’s Bob Vee-la?” 

   “Uh, I’ll email you his name. Thanks for the ride!”

     So I’m a little suspicious that Facebook Messenger generates all kinds of conversations between neighbors that I’m not privy to, this being but one of them. If that’s the case, tell the boys to bring a manlift with them ... and some turnip and radish seed.