14. Chicken Hawks, Bears, and Bee Trees

Bob Zybach: Remember I was asking you about the Steels and you said you'd heard something about them but you couldn't remember what.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yes.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] But Mom used to tell me that they, when they lived up there on that place that she used to hear the coyotes up on the Steel Hill. But I never did see one, I never seen a fox out there, and you seen a deer about once or twice a year that would come through there.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] We see more deer here than there.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Oh, a heck of a lot more deer here. Well, now they're thick through Camp Adair, and have been, well, ever since Camp Adair. We started hunting then. But before, it was just -- I mean when somebody seen a deer, like in the 1930's, everybody hollered and called the others, "Look, look there's a deer!" I mean, it was really something to see.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever hear of any elk in thai area at all?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Never then. But there has been up on Merle's place since Camp Adair.

14. Chicken Hawks, Bears, and Bee Trees

Bob Zybach: Do you recall any eagles or hawks, or owls?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Hawks, there was a lot of hawks.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] We used to shoot them all the time, we called them chicken hawks. They'd catch the chickens.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Well they did pack our chickens off. The young ones.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And the chickens, boy they'd see a hawk and they'd really run for the chicken house to hide. So we always called them chicken hawks. And we'd shoot them every time we got a chance.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Dang right. Up on the Butte and around they'd pick them up and they'd go up there and eat them, and you could see piles of feathers where they'd pack the chickens off and eat the chickens. Of course rabbits they did the same way.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] See in those days every farmer had chickens. But now there's just chicken ranches once in a while, so they don't cause no problems for them. And I wouldn't shoot a hawk anymore on a bet. I cleared some land down there in the river bottom

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: one year, and noticed there was a hawk nest in one big cottonwood tree, and we worked down there for a month or more clearing the land, and we left that tree because of this hawk nest. We could see the hawks sitting up on the edge of the nest flapping their wings like this, practicing you see. So we got all done except that one tree, and we figured well those hawks could fly by now, so if we pull that tree over they'll fly out of the nest. So we rocked that tree back and forth and they just hung on the nest like this, you know. And finally the tree got loose and it come on over and they just hung on the nest until it hit the ground and the cottonwood limbs just disintegrated and they killed them you see. Well we found 11 or 12 gopher skulls in that nest. And I didn't realize they caught gophers. And so I wouldn't shoot one on a bet now. And there is no reason to shoot one now, nobody has chickens except the chicken ranchers. [MRS. J. ROHNER] I would have if my husband would let me. [JAKET They'd all get killed here on the highway, so.. [MRS. I. ROHNER] Not if they were fenced in.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I remember though, lake, that one time there was a bald eagle out there. Around Coffm Butte. I remember that, and dad had us look because it was an eagle. Maybe you was gone then, too. He was kind of a dang bum, he took off.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I used to shoot at 'em, I was kind of a poor shot!

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Boy, I loved pheasants, that was the best meat there was to eat.

Bob Zybach: How about bob whites, do you remember bob whites?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, yeah.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah. We had meadowlarks out there too.

Bob Zybach: What happened to them?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] I don't know, they just gradually disappeared.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] And we had pigeons, wild pigeons out there, big herds on our field all the time. Herds of wild pigeons. I used to go up and shoot them, all the time. And what else did we have. The only bear I ever seen, but that was after we'd come over here, was when Bud was in the service. I went back out there hunting deer, I mean the deer started coming in down at Camp Adair, I seen that darn bear and I wouldn't

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: tell anybody because I knew they wouldn't believe me. And then Ray Novak seen him too, so then I could tell my bear story. I thought it was a black angus calf there on our place, until it jumped over this. . . I seen this black and this critter that looked like a black angus. And I thought, God, I wonder whose got cattle up here? And then I went along a little further and the dumb thing took over a log, and then I realized it weren't a black angus and I got kind of chicken and I didn't hunt much longer. Come home and just kept my mouth shut until Ray Novak at church that night said that there had been a bear out there then I got to talk about it.

Bob Zybach: Did you ever see any bobcats, or cougars?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Not out there, not that I remember. But I heard stories about cougars, like I say further back than the Steel lull and stuff. They said, because I used to hear them tell how what an awful sound they make, if you heard one they'd make your hair stand up and I remember the people talking about it, but that was back the other way, west of us.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I don't know, about, just two or three years before we moved over. That's them flying squirrels. They glide, you know. We'd try to catch them all the time, and we caught one that bit me in the ankle. I stepped on him, part of him, his tail, and he whipped around. We was gonna pick him up, but found out we couldn't do that. The kids, the guys, well Ernie Kester I think and Bud, I don't remember who, they'd climb up a tree to get them to come down. They don't really fly, you know, they just glide down. So we'd run after them, we was supposed to catch one of them. But there was one tree there on the side there of Schulmericks Hill, an old dead maple that had them in it. So we did a lot of flying squirrel chasing. Only ones I ever seen out there.

Bob Zybach: When was that, about the 1930's?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, probably. Or might be '40. Just before Camp Adair come in a while. Yeah, it was probably around '39 or '40. Remember the flying squirrels and Schulmericks? Ernie Kester, and Bud and I and Patsy and a bunch of those kids, you know.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] It was before the '40's.