When the last
cutting of hay was stacked and the wheat was safely stored in the granaries;
the next order of business was securing the property against an onslaught of
pheasant hunters.
Mom came
up with a great way to get their attention. We made a scarecrow dummy out of old clothes
and straw and hung it on a rope from a tree along the road with a big sign
around his neck that read, “I TRESSPASSED.”
The area where
my childhood farm home was located, Dietrich ,
Idaho
To quote one of
his friends, a rancher named Bud Purdy,
“Hemingway stayed with his girlfriend,
writer and journalist Martha Gellhorn, in Suite 206 of the Sun Valley Lodge,
which he soon dubbed “Glamour House.” Hemingway worked diligently on “For Whom
the Bell Tolls,” and soon became enamored with duck hunting at Silver Creek,
near Picabo, and pheasant hunting at points south, near Shoshone, Dietrich and
Gooding.”
Pheasant hunters
actually did farmers a favor by thinning out the flocks of hungry birds that
could do a great deal of damage to a new grain crop. But there were always a few inconsiderate
guys who left gates open, wrecked fences and often shot cattle in their
eagerness to blow a bird out of the sky.
Californians (who had more gear than brains) and their big
idiot dogs, seemed to be the worst offenders.
They could be seen driving their vehicles with the black and yellow
license plates slowly by stubble fields looking for game. They’d jump from their automobiles and charge
through the fences to be the first to bag a bird.
Neighbors and
friends who came to the door and asked permission were usually allowed to hunt
on our property. They were given
information on the best places to hunt and told where the cows were grazing so
they could watch out for them.
My brother and I
were given the job of making the “No Hunting” signs. We used scrap lumber and old paint to label
our fields off limits. This was probably
one of my first lessons in the importance of planning ahead when doing a
lettering job. I discovered the word “hunting” was too long when painted in all
caps on a square board. The sign ended
up reading, YOU NO HUNT. On another one
I ran out of room and stuck on an apostrophe instead of the letter G. It read, NO HUNTIN’.
We had several
big fields a couple of miles from our house.
Hunters seemed to think they could get away with shooting pheasants
there even when it was posted.
Our “hangin’
victim” seemed to keep the hunters away.
Plus our neighbors reported back how the guy really gave them a shock
until they realized the joke. The hang-man
did his job well during that hunting season.
That is until Danny Larson, a teenage neighbor boy, blew away his whole
bottom torso with his shot gun.
