Ol’ Dutch comes from a long history of time on the road as my father took us all over the country not only on vacations but also weekly jaunts to grandmother’s house some 80 miles today.
During those forays into the big world there is one thing that seems plenteous in Kansas and that is road killed animals.
No one soon forgets the wafting aroma of a roadside dead skunk as it comes in the vents to the car and has been known to awaken the dead. Well, maybe not dead, but even Aunt Edna who sleeps through a rolling thunderstorm would start awake and issue the obligatory PEE -EWW upon passing an odiferous rodent’s spot of demise.
As hard as it is to believe it seems that the plains States have a higher density of small animals lying along the roadways than I ever see in Colorado or other Western States.
I often wondered to myself about such statistics but never could put a finger on the cause until my sojourn down to South Texas last winter. While there I found evidence as to the lack of roadkill along the highways in even that massive state.
 It all started out innocent enough when Miss Trixie decided she wanted to go to a flea market over in Brownsville. I tried to convince her that we didn’t need any fleas currently and poor Cooper sure didn’t want some. But away we went to about 2 miles of booths of “stuff.” Now for the uninitiated, “stuff” is things you think you cannot live without and purchase for $10 and then sell for $1 in the next garage sale you have.
This is what is known as a capital loss to you accountant types otherwise called “money down the drain” to us common folks.
Having satisfied the “itch” that Trixie had for perusing piles of junk, I mean treasures, we were wheeling along the highway when off to the side I noticed a truck stopped and two men out in the ditch near the right of way fence.
Always the good Samaritan or what Trixie calls nosey, I slowed to ascertain what was the cause of their troubles.
But what to my wandering eye should appear but two southern gentlemen bent over a very stiff Nilgai cutting it up for meat.
Now a Nilgai is an African antelope that got loose from the ranches down there and now is quite a plague on the landscape. This one had evidently met its doom on the grill of a passing auto and was swelled up like a circus elephant on green hay.
And it appeared that from exposure to the South Texas sun, this Nilgai was past prime rib stage and mostly likely into the ptomaine poisoning pottage variety.
I guess I had overlooked the obvious for many years as to the lack of roadkill in some places but this gave me reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, there were calories to be counted even along the ditches of America.
I was reminded of this strange turn of events the other day driving toward Creede when I noticed a set of deer antlers peering at me from the adjacent ditch.
Always one with a curiosity for the strange, Ol’ Dutch found a turn around spot and was soon staring down at the carcass of a nice buck deer.
Disappointment soon flooded my soul when I saw that someone had already beaten me to the choice cuts of meat along the tenderloins and rib eyes leaving the rest to rot in the hot of the day.
Further investigation led me to believe that not only did someone take the choices cuts leaving the rest to rot but left their footprints clean as day in the surrounding dirt.
It didn’t take Ol’ Dutch long to figure out that said meat connoisseur had four legs but that also it was pretty darn fresh evidence meaning he was probably still close by.
There are some things you learn in life as you go along. One is that no bear will ever take lunch away from my dad at a picnic and the other is its best not to take the bears lunch away at his picnic either.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.