Friday, March 9, 2012
My, how the standards for old women have slipped in Michigan since I was a child.
My Grandma Vanderboegh would have ridiculed this woman. Godzilla the wild turkey stalks Commerce Township woman. Once upon a time in my youth, there was a summer my Michigan farmer grandparents drained a boggy area to add to their berry fields in Baroda Township, Berrien County. It happened to be infested with water moccasins. Previously we had all been warned to stay away from the bog and the poisonous snakes. But if the land was going to be put into cultivation, the moccasins, needless to say, had to go along with the muck. The solution? My little bitty barely-five-foot grandma waded into the muck and, barefoot as I remember, because the mud sucked her shoes off, killed 9 of the serpents with her hoe. Single combat. Just her and the snakes. The moccasins lost. Grandpa ran over another two from the safety of his tractor seat after she flushed them out up onto the road. I'll never forget the scene. The idea of being fearfully stalked by a turkey would have been as alien to her as a socialist in the White House.
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8 comments:
Every Thanksgiving, 45 million roasted turkeys offer mute testimony that man is placed well up the food chain.
A stout hiking staff or long, sharp stick can repulse an attack from the most aggressive turkey who ever strutted the barnyard and the toughest tom can be quickly dispatched with a center-fire revolver or fighting knife, such as the USMC Ka-Bar.
Would you guess Ms. Geisler is a toothless vegetarian?
MALTHUS
And, yet, there's never been anything other than a socialist in the White House.
That sucker would be dinner.
I liked the part where the Michigan Wildlife guy said to use an open umbrella to push the tom off of your property and show him who is boss. Do you use one of the ubiquitous black ones or one of those alternating color panel golf umbrellas?
Indeed... even armed only with a stick, that turkey would very soon be dinner. It would, of course, be a sad "accident" that it died that way. Can't quite make that claim with a gun.
Unfortunately, none of the wild turkeys around here are willing to let me get that close with a stick. :(
Yeah, my grandmother-in-law was a garden hoe snake assassin too. Bread-baking, baby coddling, apron-wearing snake assassin. My wife has followed suit. She's not even close to being an old woman yet so don't give up on those grannies, Dutchman. They're out there.
The "water moccasins" in Michigan are not venomous.
Venom
The venom of rattlesnakes contains specialized digestive enzymes that disrupt blood flow and prevent blood clotting. Severe internal bleeding causes the death of the small animals that this snake eats. After envenomation, the rattlesnake is able to withdraw from the dangers of sharp toothed prey animals until they are subdued and even partially digested by the action of the venom.
S. c. catenatus is rather shy and avoids humans when it can. Most massasauga snakebites in Ontario have occurred after people deliberately handled or accidentally stepped on one of these animals.[citation needed] Both of these scenarios are preventable by avoiding hiking through areas of low visibility (in rattlesnake country) when not wearing shoes and long pants, and by leaving the massasaugas alone when they are found. There are only two recorded incidents of people dying from massasauga rattlesnake bites in Ontario and in both cases they did not receive proper treatment.[12]
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