Chicken, of the woods

If I asked all my buddies if they wanted some sulfur shelf, they would more than likely ask me if I recently smoked some. I'd have to say no. So let's say one of my buddies has a slightly disturbed sense of humor and asks me if I'd like to go hunt the old chicken in the woods, and thinking it was a ruffed grouse, I said sure.

I got out my blaze orange vest, filled the pockets with a fresh box of number sixes, loaded a bag with some apples and I set off down the gun cased road. With all the falling leaves and warm temps I thought checking for grouse along some of the brookies streams seemed a good idea. I Would lay in my plan the second I saw him.

When I got to his house, his wife asked when I suddenly took a liken to mushrooms, I said I hadn't, she said why you going mushroom hunting, I said I aint wasting a perfectly good fall day chasing fungus, she said her hubby, who was just walking out of the house said, your going mushroom picking with him.

I asked him if he was serious about picking shrooms and he said we were gonna do both. So I relented, and went with. He thought he was pretty funny and had a good laugh, I just didn't know anything called sulfur shelf or chicken of the woods was a mushroom, and I put an end to all that laughing when I shot the first ruffed grouse, then the second and finally the third and final bird of the afternoon for both of us as we meandered the creek beds. Then he turned for some tall timber and I knew my day of bird shooting was over.

He didn't much care that I was elated about the trio of grouse I shot because he got a bunch of handfuls of what I thought looked like orange wavy rubber off some trees. He asked if I wanted to try some sometime and I politely refused not only him right there on the spot but when we got back to his house I told his wife no thanks, just to make sure I drove the point home.