Posted on 11/23/2001 5:30:37 AM PST by real saxophonist
Goose hunters rile Niwot neighbor
By Chris Barge
Camera Staff Writer
NIWOT — Donna Tucker jumped out of bed at 7 a.m. Saturday, jarred by the unwelcome sound of fall.
"Bang!"
Silence.
"Bang! Bang!"
For the second year running, it was apparently goose hunting season in the corn field next to her house.
Tucker got dressed, far earlier than she had planned to that day. She decided she would defend her right to a quiet neighborhood.
Next door, in the middle of his 90-acre field, Dave Hindman quietly took aim at a flock of geese with his son, his friend and his friend's son.
"Bang!"
Two geese. Not a bad morning.
Tucker met the four hunters in an irrigation ditch on their property.
They exchanged words.
Hindman told Tucker that he was within the private property rights granted to him by the state constitution.
Tucker left Hindman's property, determined to keep hunting out of her neighborhood this year.
According to both Tucker and Hindman, there was something wrong with this picture.
There, halfway between Boulder and Longmont, Tucker says, her quiet country life was being ripped apart by early morning gunfire. She said the gunshots also scared about 1,000 geese off nearby Dodd Lake.
But Hindman and his family, which homesteaded in the peaceful valley more than 100 years ago, say newcomers should learn to deal with the sounds of country life when they move there.
Tucker lives in a rural subdivision called Centennial Farms. Hindman does not live on his farm, but last year he began hunting there with friends for the first time in 15 years.
Both the subdivision and Hindman's property are next door to majestic Dodd Lake, which the Hindman-Dodd family sold to Boulder County for open space along with 200 other acres two years ago.
Sunday morning at 7 a.m., just hours after stargazers across Colorado saw an impressive Leonid meteor shower, the shots rang out again.
Tucker called the Sheriff's Office. Two hours later, a deputy paid her a visit. He told her Hindman's actions were within the law.
"It's not like he's in Blanca County," Tucker said this week. "What he is doing is legal. But it's busy out here. The issue is, whose rights are at the top of the pyramid?"
Tucker consulted Boulder County Commissioner Ron Stewart for advice.
Stewart, who represents Niwot, said there is nothing the county can legally do for Tucker.
"I think that as long as a person who is hunting does not pass the boundaries of their property, they are within the law," Stewart said.
Pat Hindman, Dave's father, said his family was upset that Tucker was bringing so much attention to an otherwise-private family.
"There's nothing we're doing that is illegal," Pat Hindman said. "We're trying to be neighbors, but people keep moving out to the country and wanting it to change."
Contact Chris Barge at (303) 473-1389 or bargec@thedailycamera.com.
Wonder if these people need help wiping their rear after going 'potty?
That's the whole problem. Similar crap goes on all the time over city people moving to farm country - and not liking the "burden" of having to drive five miles behind a combine, being awakened by the neighbor's roosters, or disliking normal farm odors.
These city people who choose to move to farm country should go back to Denver if they don't like what they chose. Nobody forced it on them.
This story is all about a bedwetting complainer. She should have checked out the neighborhood first before moving in.
Good post, shows where we are headed if the liberals have their way.
I love the people who build their Grand Estate next to a dairy farm, then complain about eau de manure. Or that someone may actually be hunting the deer that are munching their shrubs (which deer think of as browse) and the rest of their carefully manicured landscaping right to the ground--even digging up the tulip bulbs, which deer think of as gourmet treats. And where would the best hunting for geese be? Why, that'd be in a cornfield.
Same thing happens when people build houses next to an airport, then complain about the noise.
On our recent travels, we saw a development of some fairly pricy homes being built in an area bordered by railroad tracks on the east and the interstate on the west. You KNOW they're going to complain, as if they're surprised that trains use the tracks in the middle of the night and there's traffic on the I road.
Finally, someone put in print what we've known all along.
Assumed rights (privacy, that's why I moved to the Country!!!)
are expected to take priority over stated rights (2d Amendment, game laws, homestead laws).
Well, who died and left Tucker in charge?
No, they aren't. Incomming rifle and pistol rounds are dangerous, but I have been "rained" on by shotgun pellets many times. It's a common occurance in the country. I have never heard of anyone or anything being hurt or injured.
This is one of those things that is a part of country life. People who don't like it should try another country.
So9
Comparing the experiences, I'll take the cows over the frat boys any day. They're quieter and they smell better. And they almost never leave beer cans and used condoms on my lawn.
Well, one can only hope that a prissy little driver who would be upset by something like would lose control of her vehicle, crash, and die- thereby draining a little out of the shallow end of the gene pool.
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