“Wouldn’t change the course of fate, if cutting the grass just had to wait…” Toby Keith, “My List”

It is over. The season at home ended for me just as it started, walking the familiar woods road alongside our son Dan. However, now the trees were green and full and the turkeys, once vocal throughout the day, were now tight-lipped or, more appropriately, tight-beaked.

“It smells so good,” Dan said, as we made our way down the hill toward what Pop had always called the “reed brake.” I had noticed the fragrant aroma of the blooming privet on our walk in earlier that morning and in the light of the full moon the white blooms on both sides of the road were like trail markers guiding our path.

As we walked out after our morning hunt, my mind was awash with memories of the season intermingled with thoughts of the things that I needed to accomplish prior to leaving town the next day.

Dan still had three days left in what had already been a phenomenal season. We kicked it off with our first double, and then he achieved a major milestone later in March by calling in his first solo longbeard. My hope was that Dan could get his third gobbler which would complete his first Mississippi limit.

Halfway down the hill, we stopped to admire tracks in a dusting bowl the turkeys create each year in the same spot of sandy soil. The tracks in the powdered dirt were fresh and looked big enough to be those of a gobbler. However, if he had been there earlier, he wasn’t talking.

Nearby, I could still see the indentions my boots had made a little over a week earlier when I walked in after a day of heavy rain to match wits with the “Thunder Gobbler.”

He had earned his nickname from a propensity to gobble at thunder. In fact, his gobbling at a distant storm had led me right to him. However, as luck would have it, just as I set up that day the rain set in. I vowed to be back the next morning, weather permitting.

Early the next morning, I stood in the gloaming waiting for “Thunder” to make his presence known. I didn’t have to wait long. As whippoorwill anthem transitioned to cardinal song, the raucous cawing of a nearby crow was met with a resounding gobble from the middle of the tract of timber that I was hunting.

The deluge of the prior day made moving through the woods silently an easy endeavor, and I soon found myself sitting with my back against a large pine. Faint yelps from an old Southland crystal pot call were met immediately with a fierce gobble.

I clicked off the safety and waited. Within minutes, the longbeard was standing at 25 yards looking for the hen that should have been where I was sitting. He was well within range, but a low-hanging sweet gum limb prevented me from taking the shot.

When he made his way up the ridge in search of the hen, I made a quick half circle around his position to get in front of him. My yelps were answered immediately and in what seemed like only seconds, I watched as the gobbler made his way toward me in full strut. When he stopped at 30 yards to survey his surroundings, I squeezed the trigger and dropped him.

The hunt had been a quick one, quick but memorable. I knelt over this monarch of spring and with my hands on him said a prayer of thanksgiving for his life and for what had been one of my most memorable turkey seasons in many years.

After stopping to study the dusting bowl, Dan and I resumed our walk out and I, once again, lost myself in thoughts about the season. It seems like only yesterday that I was standing in a South Florida swamp in early March waiting for the sun to rise and a longbeard to gobble and now it’s almost May.

Back at the truck, the lyrics to the Toby Keith song came to mind. I’ll never remember how tall the grass grew before I got around to mowing it this spring, but I’ll never forget those turkey hunts with Dan. “Focus on what’s important and you’ll never regret it” was the thought that I left the woods with that morning.

On that note, we’ve got an exciting summer planned here at the farm. On a recent trip to the farm supply store, we added five ducks to our critter list: Fred and George the Black Swedish ducks and Harry, Ron, and Neville II (in honor of a duck we had in Meridian) the Pekin ducks.

These boys (at least we think they’re boys) were quickly joined by Gertrude the Chinese goose, and two more geese are headed our way the second week of May. I’m hopeful that one of those geese becomes “Gandalf,” but it seems I always get vetoed on the critter names.

“My list,” much like the one in Keith’s song, is growing with projects for our new fowl as well as for the donkeys that G has her heart set on watching in the front pasture this summer. She’s talked about them since we moved to the farm, so it’s time to make it happen. Once again, a wonderful reminder — “focus on what’s important and you’ll never regret it.”

Until next time, here’s to focusing on the things on our “list” that really matter, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.