Spring has sprung and some gobblers are calling

A new metal roof was installed on our roof a few years ago. I was outside yesterday before last night's heavy rain, looking up at what little snow that remained, and watched the last of it come down.

Mind you, I understand fishing and hunting, but the mechanics of metal roofs isn't in my bag of tricks. I was standing there, looking up,  and heard a hen turkey nearby cut loose. She sounded as if she was scolding a gobbler that may have been pestering her.

There was a soft rumble, and about 10 pounds of snow landed out in front of my somewhat foolish head. Thankfully, the snow was loose and not loaded with ice as it was several days ago.

There is, I suspect, a short period of education about metal roofs as the thought dawned me. I'm not the sharpest knife in our drawer, and after scraping snow off my head a few times, pulling out my shirt-tail and shaking out the snow that snaked down my back, a light went off telling me that standing under the edge of the roof could be adangerous piece of business to my longtime health.

A flock of hens are kept in line by two gobblers.

I walked away from the roof, stood out of harm's way, and listened as a gobbler 100 yards away and out of sight, gobbled at the hen. It appeared on this bright, warm and sunny day, that he was trying his best to pull together a harem of hens.

It's probably still a bit too early for him to get very excited about breeding hens, but for me, spring fever has set in. I'm eager to go back outside after this is written, and soak up some of the warmth that has been missing from my life since early last fall.

It's about 50 degrees, and one must stretch their imagination a bit to say that 50 degrees is warm, but all things are relative. Fifty degrees is warm when compared to the teens and the 20s of a week ago.

It's a day for doing very little except trying to get accustomed to a bit of warmth in the air. I still had to shovel off the front deck to clean things up, but that is fine by me.

It is a trade-off. Warm weather makes snow slide off my roof. In places, it misses the deck and falls over the railing. In other places it lands with a dull thud on the deck, shakes the house, and just lays there making a mess of things. In open spot, there is a deck railing that was destroyed two weeks ago by falling ice and snow.

I could do, as I once did, and figure if the Good Lord wanted snow there, He put it there and could make it go away. It seems the going-away part gets lost in the translation of my thoughts, and it also means that it's time to go to work.

I'm no longer fond of snow.

Shoveling snow isn't one of my favorite winter chores, but it is a necessary evil. Last summer I reached the age of 70, and with the vision loss in one eye, meant crawling up on the roof to clean it off three or four times a year was foolhardy and stupid. I agreed with that.

My balance is bad on slanted surfaces, and even worse when those surfaces are snow and/or ice-covered. My depth perception is off a twitch or two, and my family could see me sliding off the roof. Even worse than falling to the deck would be to fall and spread-eagle myself on the deck railing. It would probably ruin not only a day but many days, and it seems an unnecessary risk I wouldn't take.

So ... the metal roof was installed. All I need to do now is get a hard hat to wear, start paying more attention when the roof snow starts to melt, and pay more attention to my roof than listening for turkeys gobbling.

Listening to gobbler music is more fun than almost anything.

Oops, there was another gobble. I must be learning, because I'd moved away from the edge of the roof in time to escape the last  little bit of wet snow.

I stood, listening to him rattle the woods and kept trying to spot him through the trees. I haven't seen a hen or gobbler today, but I'm about to start looking for birds.

Maybe a couple of birds will come to stand back in the woods and watch the foolish human as he listens to them. Those birds are smarter than me. They walk around, eat and I've yet to see one with a show shovel.

Whoever said turkeys are dumb have no clue. I know better.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors