On the Edge of the Field—A Future Teachers Dream

I am, according most of my friends and colleagues, a strange throwback because I subsistence hunt. Often when I am describing a weekend effort, people flinch, some visibly recoil. Subsistence hunting just isn’t how it’s done these days. And a combination academic and hunter is an exceedingly rare, almost unheard of.

But I am a child of the farm fields. Some of my earliest memories are of the orderly rows of corn that bordered our ranch-style home in Notus. Those cornfields were full of all kinds of surprises. Bullfrogs loved the cool, moist soil and I loved their bumpy, mottled skin and throaty croaking.  Red winged blackbirds often clung to the tasseled corn tops singing and swaying with the summer breezes. Small brown field mice scurried about in the maze of tall stalks and cat spiders spun great bicycle wheel shaped webs between rows.

 The canals that fed those fields were just as magical. I walked along those ditch banks with my father, serving as a makeshift bird dog. Together we hunted the ducks, pheasants and geese of the canals and fields.

Of course, those wonderful memories came before my father decided that his life would not be made in the country and we moved to the city far from the neat green rows.

As an adult, I found a way to return to those fields—I am a hunter, specifically a bird hunter. I now walk those same fields in search of brilliant, coppery pheasant and tiny, tasty quail. But nothing ever stays the same, even the fields of my childhood have changed. I too have changed, and I return to these fields as an adult and educator. I am different, my perspectives are different, and the world around me is different. What is not different is the fact that these fields have influenced the way I interact with the all of my worlds—the world of adulthood and the world of education. But, like substance hunting, education from the local is often not how it’s done these days.

As a child, the fields stretched end to end, from one side of the field straight as an arrow to the other side.  The fields were irrigated by setting a siphon tube in the ditch, creating a vacuum, pulling the water through the pipe to drain into the furrows. My father set siphon tubes as a teen on his father’s farm and on others for a little extra cash. Every country boy or girl has at one time or another helped with this chore.

Or at least, that’s the way it was once done.

Hopping out of my pick-up the other day, to visit a field we’ve neglected for a few years—graduate school has robbed me of more hunting time than my children and work—I immediately noticed the addition of central pivot irrigation. Deep wide tire tracks crisscrossed the neat furrows and lead to where the silver behemoths sat toward the back of the odd shaped field.  Though I hate this type of irrigation for its wastefulness and change from what once was, I also recognized a benefit--large swaths of brushy land untouched by the plow or irrigation made perfect habitat for my quarry.

My husband and I began walking along the tumbleweed covered fence line. Twenty feet into the hunt, a hen jumped from under my feet. I shouldered my gun and followed the bird’s flight path; I was woefully out of practice.  My husband moved to the outside of the fence hoping to flush birds my way. I am not as proficient a hunter as he and appreciated the sacrifice.

We moved in silence, watchful.

On the fringe of the field I took note of the number of mice tunnels amid the brush. The incredible number of them was a result of all the corn lying on the ground. The fat mice in turn would feed the red tail hawk resting on top of the powerline above my head.  I muscled my way through waist-high sagebrush clogged with tumbleweeds and a cottontail darted from the tangled mess, running for the tire tracks left by the irrigation system. It dropped into the ruts and ran down the bunny highway.

I pushed on, moving along the fence, alert and ready.

Weaving through the thick foliage, trying to scramble up a hillside, my foot slid into a hole. I yanked it out and stumbled backward. As I flailed about trying to stop myself from falling, I heard a strange growl. There, in the hole I just pulled my foot from, was a mouth full of long teeth attached to the angry face of a badger.  I took a step back. It took a step forward, teeth gnashing, and growling. I took another step back; it took two quick steps forward. I shouldered my shotgun and flipped off the safety. The badger flattened itself and scuttled toward me again.

I calculated my odds; I could yell for my husband but I was sure he wouldn’t make it in time, or I could dispatch the poor animal whose home I had just disturbed, or I could try to make a run for it though I doubted I could out run a badger…it was worth a try.

 I slowly lowered my gun and took a few more steps backward. The badger continued to growl and stare me down. I turned and ran, my legs flying over the uneven ground, toward the canal. I slipped and slid down the steep bank before stopping to see if my attacker had followed. It was nowhere in sight, just as I figured.  It hadn’t wanted to hurt me at all but was defending its sett that most likely contained cubs and its feeding grounds—badgers feed on the mice and rabbits that feed on the corn.

I scrambled back up the canal and resumed my path. I headed toward the one corner of the field that remained completely untouched by the plow or irrigation—a small stand of trees in a gulley with a tiny spring. In those tree branches I found two heart-shaped faces with dark black eyes watching my every move. I guessed the larger bird to be the mother barn owl and the smaller to be a recently fledged baby. Neither bird seemed startled by my presence.

I ducked under a branch and pushed through a clump of thick bunch grass, a rooster shot up right from under my feet and turned to the right. I shoulder my gun and took aim but by the time I had a bead on him he was too near the irrigation pump to fire. He crossed the canal to safety in a pasture near the farm house.

Having worked our way around half the field I reunited with my husband. Thick mud was accumulating on my boots, making the walking more difficult and me more tired and contemplative.  My husband, ever the thoughtful one noticed my dilemma and offered to lessen my workload. I would walk the canal road above the field on the edge of the brush while he walked the edge of the furrows. Hopefully, my position above the narrow strip of weeds would encourage the birds to fly into the center of the field rather than over the canal.

In a matter of a few minutes, my husband had taken down his first rooster of the day. I’ve always admired the intricate patterns and the vibrant red, blues, and greens of the pheasant’s feathers. And this bird was magnificent—the red around the eye was as red as any rose I’ve ever seen and blue on the neck as deep as any midnight sky. Though I love pheasant meat. . . killing such a beautiful bird always makes me cringe a bit.

We resumed our trajectory. Positioned as I was above my husband and the field, and right next to the irrigation equipment, my hunt was over. I shuffled along knocking the mud off my boots with the gravel from the road. I spotted a fox den, just below the road and slightly above the waterline of the canal. The muddy bottom of the canal was stamped with its footprints. The soft cooing of doves could be heard in a small patch of willows nearby. I stopped to admire their song.

My husband hollered at me, “Hey, look!”

I turned his direction. Running up the hillside toward the farmhouse was a large, 2x3 buck.  I shook my head in wonder.

“I scared him up out of that drainage pond,” he said pointing with his gun to a shallow, mostly empty pond. “You doing ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You still looking for one more for dinner?”

He nodded at me. “Let’s finish the loop, in these same positions, and see what happens.”

I nodded back. I was done with the hunt but enjoying the walk, the scenery and the animals. I found it amazing that in that narrow, uncultivated space such a completely ecosystem could exist and thrive. And, I marveled at the thought that it was the farmers corn—essentially his cast off—that fueled the whole system.  The mice, rabbits, pheasants, quail and others came for the corn. The predators like the fox, badger, owls, hawks and I came for the prey. 

Questions and thoughts about all I’d seen and felt that morning niggled at and tickled my mind. Was that functioning system and all the life it contained beautiful because of the small space it was crammed into or in spite of it?  Was the farmer’s cast-off product a gift to this system or reparation for the destruction of the natural environment? And, did the answers to those questions matter?

The resounding boom of my husband’s shotgun interrupted my train of thought—he’d taken another bird. I rushed to his side. Tonight, we’d have roast pheasant for dinner. Thrilled, I hugged my husband. Pheasant would be a nice change of pace from meal after meal of venison. I tucked the pheasant’s feet under my belt and together we headed home to eat the gift we found at the edge of the field.

As I slogged my way through the thick mud, I wondered how many children and teens knew about the gifts to be found in the field. Could they name all the animals? Could they describe the ecosystem and how it functioned? Would a comparison of a truly wild place and a cultivated farm field be worthy of exploration? Surely, my future students would have their own special places to look into and explore, as well. I tried to imagine what my future students would write about and where that writing would take them. . . .  at the edge of the field the possibilities seem endless.