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You
can’t tell it from the weather and you’ve got to look at the
calendar to know it, but food plot planting time is on us. Hunters from
all over the South are plotting (pardon the pun) and planning what, how
and when they are going to plant.
If
it doesn’t rain here in Alabama, it ain’t going to get planted.
I
have a feeling crummy food plots are going to be as productive as great
food plots this year. There is a shortage of acorns in the woods; the
natural browse has been grazed all summer with little or no rainfall for
re-growth.
Typically,
everyone assumes I have some of the best food plots around because I
work at the Co-op. The truth is, mine are the worst if they even exist.
By the time I get a chance to plant, I don’t want to see another seed
or tote another bag of fertilizer. Usually I can come up with some sort
of excuse for having the sorriest plots around.
One
year, before I was a tractor owner, I had one weekend when things calmed
down enough that I would plant what passed for food plots.
My
implement was a riding lawn mower.
I
would decide what I was going to plant and one Saturday afternoon I
would bring the old lawn mower home from the store, fire it up and off
we would go - me, my daughter and the dogs.
My
usual approach was to mow my pasture as close as I could get it. I would
start from the middle of the plot and run the mower so it would blow the
clippings from the middle to the edge, removing it from the area I
wanted to plant. I would then spread out my seed of choice (usually
whatever we had left at the store after everyone else had planted their
plots) and pray for rain. My theory was that I didn’t want to cut up
the sod in my pasture, which now that I have a tractor at my command
doesn’t seem to bother me as much.
One
year on the way to work one morning, I had what I thought was a
brilliant idea. Instead of spending hours mowing the plots, I would let
Mother Nature work for me. I would mow the perimeter of my food plots so
close that the grass didn’t exist and then set the middle on fire.
Brilliant!
I
got home from work, fired up the lawn mower, grabbed my shovel and my
daughter, and off we went to the back forty to get the food plots ready.
I
mowed about a six to eight feet wide "fire break" and tossed a
match into the twelve to eighteen inches of dry bahia grass. Just about
the time it got too big to put out, I remembered we were having a dry
period and I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained. Too late
now. Of course, when the flames were really burning, the wind changed.
Then I worried about my little girl getting burned up, so I told her to
go sit on the lawn mower and not to move until I came and got her.
Feverishly I fought the fire and then noticed it was heading toward the
mower that was obscured by some of the thickest smoke I had ever seen. I
ran around the flames, snatched her off of the mower, got her upwind of
the fire and went back to my battle. My little fire lane would have
worked had the flames not been two or three stories high. My daughter
observed all this as calmly and coolly as a cucumber. Almost in a panic,
I fought the fire thinking the whole time if I didn’t beat it, there
was nothing but 40 acres of dry grass between it and about 100 acres of
pine trees that didn’t belong to me! And my house was somewhere out
there as well!
Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity, the fire was out.
We
moved on to the next one and, like an idiot, I did it again. This time,
however, I mowed several of my "mini-fire breaks" through the
plot and it didn’t get quite so out of hand and I never got close to
panicking. Mercifully, my wife was not at home.
My
daughter and I waited for a while to be sure that nothing flared back up
and headed for the house. I looked and felt like a smoke jumper —- my
eyes were red, I had a cough from all of the smoke, I smelled like a
pile of burning leaves and I was very tired. We got back to the house, I
got cleaned up, fed Savannah and collapsed into my chair just as my wife
rolled up the driveway.
She
came in and, as we were all settling down for some "family
time," my daughter finally decided to comment on the day’s
activities. She just had to brag on what a good firefighter her daddy
was and had to tell mamma all about the fire, how smoky it was and how
big the flames were. All the while, my wife’s eyes got bigger and
bigger. When my daughter got to the point of describing the sound of the
flames, I got "the look" from my wife. (Guys, you know what
"the look" is!)
She
asked my daughter if she was scared, Savannah calmly told Mom, in her
best patronizing way, "Of course not, Daddy was there, so I wasn’t
worried."
I
saved myself by telling my daughter this afternoon’s activities were
not the best example of her daddy using his best judgment, but it was
good that everything turned out fine and sent her to bed. Now, after all
these years, I just wish the knot on my head would go down.
Ralph
Ricks is the manager of Quality Cooperative, Inc. in Greenville. |
