The Cow and the Decoy

In the darkness I heard my dad moving about the camper. After a fitful night of sleep interrupted by coyote howls, weird dreams, and wind shaking the tin shelter, I guessed it was time to wake. I grumpily got up and started putting on layers of clothes. I then pulled the camouflaged leafy suit over my normal clothes. We trudged through the pre-dawn darkness to the location we had scoped out the night before. I quickly went ahead and tried to make myself comfortable under the fir tree as the sky was getting lighter by the minute and we needed the darkness. My dad put out the turkey decoys ‘Tomathena‘ and ‘Henrietta‘ and then joined me under the tree. We put on our leafy face masks and waited for the dawn and for the tom turkeys to wake and descend from the trees.  

I have learned much about turkeys on the two occasions I have been turkey hunting with my dad. Turkeys have ridiculously good vision, up to 10 times greater than a human. While hunting, it is necessary to sit as motionless as possible with the gun ready and aimed at all times. A quick motion, including that of a gun, will send a turkey running. It is also necessary to camouflage everything including the gun. Anything white, orange or bright yellow will keep turkeys away. Turning a head, moving a hand, positioning a gun must be done in infinitesimal amounts. Hunting techniques and methods are different for morning hunting and evening hunting.  

Our plan for that morning was to position the turkey decoys and wait for the dawn when the turkeys would begin waking and coming down from their lofty tree beds. Once we had given them time to disembark, my dad would do a hen call. Ideally a tom would hear the fake call and think there was a girl in the field pining after a tom turkey. If he was girl-crazy enough he would see the hen decoy in front of us and also see the tom decoy nearby and barrel straight ahead as quickly as possible to get to ‘Henrietta’ before ‘Tomathena.'  

As we waited, my dad said, “With the superior eyesight that turkeys have, I cannot figure out how they cannot see those decoys from a distance and recognize that they are fakes. I can tell they are fakes from 20 feet a way and my eyesight is poor compared to that of a turkey. One day I saw a male turkey come in at top speed and attacked the tom decoy.” My dad is right. The decoys are obviously plastic and the hen decoy looks like it needs to be inflated. The decoys are pitiful.     

"Henrietta"

"Tomathena"

Eventually a cow wandered through the field in front of us and saw the decoys. The cow stared and stared, obviously puzzled by the fake birds. It could tell they were not real but yet they looked on the outside like the birds that frequent the cow’s homestead. The cow mooed and I imagined him yelling out to all his buddies, “There’s some fake turkeys over here! Who could be fooled by this very cheap imitation?” The cow moved on but it gave me some things to ponder.  

How often am I fooled by decoys, cheap imitations? What are the things in my life that my friends look at and easily wonder why I am fooled or tempted by them? Why do I seek satisfaction from cheap imitations? And just like the fooled tom turkey, will I not also have to face a death of sorts because of my sin? Just like my dad knows that the tom turkeys will fall for the fake trap because it is prime breeding season and the turkeys are weak at this time of year, the enemy knows my weaknesses and when to place a decoy in front of me knowing I will not recognize it as a cheap impostor. These are thoughts I have been thinking about over the past week and month:   

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  -1 Peter 5:8

“...it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”  -C.S. Lewis

“There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.... But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by and infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”  -Blaise Pascal

“fighting the urges to fill Your place with imitations.” -Nikki Baker

“We lose our addiction to lesser affections by being captivated by a greater affection.” -Thomas Chalmers

May I be sober-minded and watchful. May I be captivated by the Greater Affection and let all lesser ones pale in comparison. May I fight the urges to fill God’s place with imitations. May I live in the wisdom God provides and thereby escape the temptations that lead to death.

For those curious readers, the tom turkeys were the wiser species that morning. All the scheming between me and my dad was futile as we did not see a single turkey while hunting. I do believe I heard some turkeys fly down from their roosts but they remained unseen. I would say we were the fools but in the end we got to see the sunrise and had quality father/daughter time. Both are quite priceless. Coincidentally, my dad went back home and a tom wandered into his path. The tom was so caught up in chasing a hen that my dad had time to grab his gun, load it, and shoot before the tom was any the wiser.