Return to Turkey Camp, 2019

I made it to camp well before dark on Friday. Normally, I make the first trip back on a Saturday. In the past, I never knew what I would find. With the new security cameras, it takes a good deal of the suspense out of the process.

The big question has always been power. Yes, the cabin remains habitable without electricity. However, it is not at all pleasant. I’ve got a wood stove and kerosene and gasoline lanterns. However, you need electricity to run the pump for running water. Sometimes the power has been off for six weeks at a stretch due to ice storms.

The cameras had told me that the power was on. It had also shown me hints of the storm damage I would find. Greater Cincinnati had been pummeled by a severe storm on Thursday. Camp had been just grazed a bit. The biggest problem was the wind. A 50 MPH gust had picked up some of the porch furniture and sent it tumbling through the yard. It had also sent two cameras all catawampus.

On the whole, camp was pretty much as I had left it. The Curing Shed was looking a bit forlorn. A couple of sheet of roofing got torn off. That is fairly easy to repair. The main building was unfazed except for a couple of shingles.

I was just thinking about retiring to the Thoughtful Spot when I looked out and saw 4 deer out in the pasture. I snuck out with my binos and a cocktail and watched them for an hour in a light drizzle before they decided to bound off. They were replaced by six more. They were still out munching when I went in at dark.

I made my first trip out to record audio for one of my Podcasts. Nothing. Oh, I heard turkeys, but they were well off the property. It was cold, and I went in to warm up.

KYHillChick showed up mid-morning with an urge to clean. She’s been an infrequent visitor at camp for a while. She’s recycled herself into a massage therapist, and her practice often requires taking clients on nights and weekends. Last year, we had the whole dust-up with her breast cancer. She’s recovered remarkably well. However, there was little chance for her to be active. She had to go home on Saturday evening to be ready for a client on Sunday. By then, she had run me into the ground. I will say the bedroom and living room are the best they have been in a decade.

Sunday AM, I was up. Coffee got my eyes open. Ibuprofen got me moving. With the lackluster performance of the turkeys on the previous morning, I was not encouraged to go running out with my recording gear. I spent the first decade at camp, sitting on the front porch, coffee in hand, waiting for the first gobble of the season. With the cloudless air chilled to a brisk 28F, I decided to reenact that ritual. I was only partially disappointed.

Yes, there were gobbles, but they were a long, long way off. One hen got thoroughly honked off and putted loudly for several minutes about a hundred yards from the house. Outside of that, it was quiet– not even the crows, the dogs, and the rooster up the road could wake up the gobs.

It is kind of sad, in a way. This is the 10th anniversary of the season that Mister Moto came to us. Early spring had always been a quiet affair, Moto showed up in 2009 gobbling full-out all morning, every morning through May. You could still hear in ihim in August, September. . . Moto managed to gobble all year long. Within a couple of years, there were Baby Motos and despite the eventual passing of Moto Prime, the motor-mouthed gobbler, there were gobs gobbling all months of the year every year. They’ve moved on. I can hear the Sons of Moto even now, but they are a distant voice, just on the edge of my hearing. Why they left this ridge is unknown, but you figure Mister Moto, himself, came from somewhere else. The Moto-gene probably has been washing back and forth over these ridges like an ocean tide for decades.

I did finally have and encounter with Moto several years ago. I had gone out to the Honey Hole for an afternoon hunt. I was reading a thick history of the Eigth Air Force in WWII. Somewhere in all the horror, I drifted off. Moto woke me up. I was prone on the ground with my back to him. As I rolled over, I caught a brief glance of him standing by the road to Campground. He made one big cluck and disappeared.

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