Dove Season

When I was a kid these were the three harbingers of fall: Uncle Pat started picking corn, we had the annual Harvest Sale at my church (shameless plug the harvest sale is at Providence UMC in Mar Mac on Sat. Sept. 9 from 4:30-7:30, eat in or take out, BBQ and turkey, the best you’ll ever eat at a church function.  Uncle Pat’s in charge of the pigs and that sauce is to-die-for.  See me for tickets 😊), and on Labor Day weekend dove season came in.

I grew up on an almost mile long state-maintained dirt road with no other houses on it (except for the migrant workers Uncle Pat had when he raised tobacco).  All summer long we’d be surrounded by wheat, soybeans, and yes, corn.  It’s a bird paradise.  Hunting was a part of my life, my step-dad went, my step-brother, my uncle, my granddaddy, my cousin would even come from Chapel Hill and go…it was/is a big thing for my family.  We always had a dove hunt on my uncle’s farm, but when he became involved with Quail Unlimited it became massive.  He started planting sunflowers for them (and I fell in love with those beautiful yellow blooms of sunshine).  The fields around our house sounded like a war zone or something, all these men in camo shooting like crazy at these poor beautiful birds.  We couldn’t walk outside without orange on.  And for Sunday lunch my mama would fry them and smother them in gravy.  Those poor beautiful birds were pretty dang delicious. 

This is NOT my picture, but for those of you who aren't sure what a dove is, this is a great picture of them.

Ever since we started opening our farm to visitors we’ve had people ask about hunting it.  In the past, it’s always been a family thing.  The Husband and his three close cousins hunted it.  It’s always been a good place to hunt.  We have a swamp on the side favored by ducks.  We have a river that abuts the back of the property that the deer and such run down.  Anyone who’s come to the corn maze has seen evidence of their tracks through the maze.  The Husband’s always been turning over the idea of leasing out the hunting rights or hosting hunts on the farm to bring us in some additional revenue.  We have this amazing resource here that we have to make a payment on every year, why not use every opportunity to do it? 

They love hanging out on this fence.  The Girl says they want to play on the playground.

 Honestly, I’ve always been a little tentative to go the hunting route.  First off, I’m not a hunter.  I can understand the peace and solitude that people get from hunting and I enjoy the meat, but I think it has to be the most boring thing in the planet.  I went deer hunting a few times.  You get up at the crack before it’s light in the cold and go sit in a tree for hours being super quiet and still possibly to see nothing.  I just don’t see the appeal.  Second off, it’s a huge liability.  You’re going to let people with loaded guns ready to shoot them on your land.  What if there’s an accident?  Third, my plate is so full trying to organize and market our fall activities, plus my house, plus my kids, plus just life in general, I just don’t know how I can fit anything else on it (my wonderful CSA helper Melissa said to me yesterday, you need an assistant.  Yes, yes I do.  I just can’t afford one).  However, the birds have been CRAZY on the farm this year. Even I’ve noticed that every time I ride to the farm I scare up at least 20 dove if not more and that’s just by riding by on my truck.  The combination of the sunflowers and a wheat crop we weren’t able to harvest (don’t ask, it’s a sore subject) has made the perfect environment for a dove.  Not to mention since we’ve lived here (7 years) they’ve not been hunted on this farm, so they haven’t been conditioned to avoid it.  Sunday my husband counted fifty in fifteen minutes out of the back of the berry shed and 2 customers mentioned they saw 30 while they were standing there taking pictures. 

I felt like I was working for National Geographic trying to catch this one on my poor phone. 

So this year we’re hosting our first ever dove hunt.  If it goes well maybe we’ll open the farm up to duck and deer hunting.  Hopefully it will.  We’ve got a good lunch planned and a couple tickets sold so far we’re optimistic.  If you're interested in joining us, call JR at 919-738-2928 or shoot us an email at odomfarmingcoinc@gmail.com.  We'd love to have you out!

And I had to include a sunflower picture, just because!

Hello Again

I haven’t blogged in a really long time and I tell you, I’ve missed it.  I’ve had lots of stories but when I sit down to write I get stumped.  Maybe I’ve had writers block.  Well, all I can say is…I’m baaaack! (imagine me saying it in a sing-song voice and you’ll get the picture).

It’s spring break and we’re getting geared up for our CSA.  Yesterday we planted plants.  1000 bell pepper, broccoli, and pointed-head cabbage.  1000.  My legs are feeling it today.  I couldn’t get over the nostalgia as I did it though.  When I was little I used to stay with my grandparents when school was out.  My Uncle Pat raised tobacco back then and I remember being The Boy’s age and working in the greenhouse some during spring break wading through water an inch or two deep to help move trays of tobacco plants around so they could set them out (best job ever because I got to play in the water!).  Later, after I had a car, my sister and I helped with the setting out.  She was too young to be a super great setter, so her job was to wash the trays down with bleach.  My job was to walk behind the transplanter with a couple of plants and a peg and when the setters (my Aunt Patricia and Mrs. Brenda Scott) forgot one they’d holler to me that they missed and I’d plant that hole.  Sometimes when one of them would have something else to do I would take their place on the transplanter.  I liked that job way better for obvious reasons, until one of the last days we set.  It was cold and rainy and I sat on the back of that thing wrapped up in trash bags shaking with cold trying to set out with numb hands.  Even now I still say it was the coldest I’ve ever been.  We got a drink and a nab at 10 and 2, and an hour for lunch.  It was my first paying job and it was awesome…way better than taking it barns after the tobacco cured, which I also did, with much less success.  Hot weather and I have never gotten along well.

We didn’t ride on a transplanter yesterday.  The husband ran down the plastic with the water-wheel transplanter and punched holes in the plastic and once he went down a row he stopped and he and I and The Boy stuck plants by hand.  The Girl planted some too, because the plants were ‘so cute’ and needed homes.  But then she got distracted by lady bugs and asking constantly if she could go to grandma’s and would the ants sting her and a butterfly and picking strawberries.  Yes, we do have a few rows of strawberries.  No, unfortunately they’ll probably never produce enough for us to be open for picking.  We had to plant them so late because of The Flood that they didn’t get the root development they needed before they went into dormancy.  The way the weather was this winter (if you could call it that) didn’t help.  It was so up and down and then we had that horrible cold spell in March.  It’s turned into our personal strawberry patch, or The Girl’s strawberry buffet.  We wouldn’t have planted them at all but we didn’t plant the year before and while it was so nice to have the spring ‘off’, we missed having spring school tours.  We hoped we’d get enough to still do those and have some for the CSA, but it looks like that’s not going to happen so, Plan B.  Anyway, back to what I was talking about which was setting out plants.  While we were setting I kept thinking back to helping my Aunt and Uncle set out tobacco, and how great it was that my son was out there planting plants with us, and while we might not be taking some glamourous trip or something this spring break he was learning that hard work means something and if we work hard this spring and summer and fall maybe this winter we can take the glamourous trip.  Welcome to farm life.

I maintain that everyone ought to have to work a week on the farm.  If it does nothing else it will teach you the value of your education and an appreciation for those who choose to work with their hands (either because they have to or want too).  One of the best things it teaches is teamwork.  If we all work together towards a common goal there’s no telling what we can achieve. I can think of another place or two that concept might work…

Our poor strawberry plants.

She said "they taste like fruit punch."

The Boy is picky like me.  He said "they'd be good without the sesame seeds on them."  Bless his heart.

The sunset we were rewarded with as we prayed for rain.