Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Spring in Mr. Terry's Neighborhood


Spring comes slowly in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. But when color first pops from the ground, when life stretches out from the soft, soaked earth and the sun warms up; when the snow fades then disappears — the animals in Mr. Terry's Neighborhood are the first to notice.



The birds tell the deer when the unwanteds come. These deer have survived the hunted times, first in the fall, when sharp sticks that kill zing from the trees and from cross dressers hidden in hedgerows and amongst fallen trees. Then, when the cold arrives, men and woman in Dick's Sporting Goods' pumpkin suits come for the deer in large numbers. They push and drive through the woods, and the deer run frantically from ridge to ridge. In Mr. Terry's Neighborhood, it's what the deer call the 'genocide time.'



But it's the turkey that fear spring the most. Fake talkers fool the birds, and talk sexy to the proud male gobblers —  that the Blackfoot called, omahksipi kssii — meaning "big bird." The gobblers listen to the chattering of the fake hen, the 'yelp, yelp, yelp, cluck, cluck,' made by the hiding humans.The turkey inch closer, not sure, following the fake yammer, looking for a mate, their spring urges out of control. Then suddenly — fooled by the fake yakking — their life ends with a shotgun blast — most times a head shot, with the thick feathers and skin of a turkey making penetration difficult, even for 12 gauge double 0 buck shot.



Then the big  boys wake and stretch out. Spring means new life for Ursus americanus, the Pennsylvania black bear. They begin a search to quell a 400-plus pound appetite kept dormant over several months — when the ground is frozen with ice and snow. The big ones seek food, and plenty of it, scarce in the spring woods of Mr. Terry's Neighborhood. Sometimes they'll turn to unattended trash cans and bird feeders near the human populations. But later, the gunners will come for them, too. The bear will hide deep in the thickest part of the Pennsylvania woods, but the persistent human gunners will eventually find some of them.

Cousins to the grizzly, these short-faced animals have survived in Mr. Terry's Neighborhood since the ice age. Not hunted for their meat, but for the trophy of "bagging a bear," bragging rights within the human populations.

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