I took the dogs to the lake yesterday and today, but the two hikes were strangely different.
Hunting season appears to be in full swing. As we walked yesterday, what sounded like shotgun blasts rang out and rolled through the valley like ball bearings careening around a metal bowl. Some sounded so close it unnerved me a bit. I don’t know what’s in season or what they’re hunting, but they were definitely firing away.
After the shots died away, I could hear geese rising in the distance. I kept watching for them to come into view, and finally they emerged in the gray sky, but the flock was disheveled and splintered into several staggering groups. They clearly were rattled by the gunshots. Maybe they were the target of the gunshots.
And this morning, it was eerily quiet. The gun blasts were distant, muffled, and even the birds weren’t making noise. I looked up to see a flock of geese in perfect V formation floating silently overhead. Not a single honk to be heard.
One reply on “Hunting season …”
here in pennsyltucky, rifle deer season begins on monday. the high-powered blasts began on thursday as bear season ended and everyone wanted to re-sight their rifles for the next hunt. the advantage of an elderly, near-deaf dog is that she no longer spends the these several weeks of fall cowering in a corner. monday’s gunfire will surely rival the battle for fallujah, as it has in the past. i will not need an alarm clock on that day and may actually take my laptop to the relative safety of the basement to work. ahhhh… the joys of living in the peaceful countryside…