Brilliant stars chipped out of the black crystal sky glittered overhead as I slowly walked through the woods to the bottom of the hill and my deer stand Saturday morning. My breath came out in frozen clouds of ice in the 0-degree-Fahrenheit air, and the snow – what little of it there was – squeaked under my boots if I stepped the wrong way.
And that was the beautiful – and cold! – beginning of the 2008 deer gun season up here in Wistucky. I sat for almost two hours, watched the sun come up over my shoulder annd slowly light up the woods, then wobbled, shivering and unsteady, back up to the “hunting shack” to try and restore feeling to my fingers and toes, with nary a deer sighted.
An hour or so later, I went back down to the stand for a couple more hours of watching some of the fattest squirrels this side of Highway 8 frolic through the corn in my bait pile. They ate. I watched. They ate a little more. I shivered a little, then sent my work buddy a text message on his stand about a mile away: “All quiet on the northern front; U?” His answer came back a few minutes later: “Nutin.” So I watched the squirrels pack my bait away in their bellies, considered the merits of bringing home a couple field-dressed squirrel carcasses vs. one (admittedly invisible) deer, and left the rifle safed in the corner of the stand.
My buddy, the landowner we were hunting with, and I had some sausage and sauerkraut fro lunch, and I got the recipe for the kraut. I think the secret ingredient is the 2×4 used for smashing the cabbage into the container.
Since there were no traces of deer at all at my friend’s stand, and the bait at my stand was at least dissapearing each night, we decided to go back down and sit together, and maybe try a team shot, assuming the deer would cooperate. (Have I mentioned lately how Wistucky’s deer population seems to be particularly uncooperative lately?) We sat, watched some squirrels, had bouts of whispered conversation, made a couple goofy videos (coming soon to a blog near you), watched the squirrels some more, watched a flock of maybe 50 canada geese fly low overhead and land in the field at our backs, and waited for the Deer That Didn’t Show.
And that’s pretty much the story for my time in the woods so far this season: Lots of beautiful things to watch, lots of time to think and play (quietly!) with some of my toys, but no deer. I’m not even seeing deer along the road while I drive, which is pretty damn unusual. And the deer drought isn’t just a local (read: my stand) phenomenon, either. A lot of hunters in the area, pretty much all of whom are much better at this than I am, are saying that they’re not seeing deer out there either.
And where the hell are all those pesky whitetails, you may ask. Good question! Maybe they got tired of being shot and decided to go have a drink at the pub. Maybe I’ll run into them there on my way home from the stand tomorrow night. Maybe they’ll buy me a drink and we’ll commiserate together and never look at each other the same way when we cross paths in the woods. Or maybe I’ll light off my deer canon, get a double lung shot, then get my hands a little stained and stinky while doing a serviceable job of field-dressing that thing. Maybe…
I’m back at it this fall: trying to put Bambi in my chest freezer. Yesterday, my buddy from work and I went back to the farm (of skinned pig fame) and ran through a couple boxes of ammo.
I’m borrowing a .270 Winchester with a basic low-power scope this season from another farmer friend. I’m happy (and a little proud) to say that I was shooting inch-and-a-half groups at 100 yards from our bench. Of course, the groups were off, but that’s cake.
Today, I visited the blind I’m going to use on opening weekend and scoped out the lay of that bit of land a little. I also spread a little corn around in the middle o fmy primary shooting lane. I’m a little ambivalent about baiting. On one hand, it feels kind of like cheating, what with the bait and scent and blind and gun. On the other hand, the point is to fill the freezer with good meat. And anyhow, I’ll get my fill of stalking (read: “stepping on *yet another* twig and getting laughed at by the pine squirrels”) on closing weekend when I’ll go into the national forest with Dangerous Dan.
I’m feeling pretty good about my shooting this fall, and about putting the hammer down on a gentle, unsuspecting, big-brown-eyed, oh-so-tasty doe. I just hope that I make a clean shot, then deal with the carcass well. It’d be a helluva shame to go to all this work, just to botch things in the end. But that’s what the guys I’m hunting with are for: to laugh at me when I fuck up, then show me how it’s supposed to be done.
We’ve all heard a lot about “media bias” lately, and that’s a really tricky — and incredibly important — topic.
We can all agree that it’s good to know what’s going on in the world, and to base decisions on information that is as accurate as possible. We can also probably agree that by increasing the accuracy of our information, we inherently increase it’s complexity. Along the way, we each reach the point of information saturation and stop trying to drink directly from the fire hose. Instead, we start looking for someone else who’s willing to aggregate, analyze, and compress information for us. Enter the media.
Let’s face facts: there’s no such thing as “objective journalism.” Every camera is pointed in some direction. Every video is edited. Every reporter, editor, and producer acts as a filter for the information they pass along. There is, however, plenty of room for the ideas – and practices! – of fairness (give all sides of an issue equal opportunity to make their case) and accuracy (tell it like it is, without spin, and fer Pete’s sake, check the facts!) in the media.
So where does that leave us? With a whole lot of sources of information that each have a particular slant and “flavor.” Are these sources biased? Uh, yeah. Is that a bad thing? Not as long as they try to be fair and accurate.
We’re all big boys and girls and can deal with bias. The evil that we really need to guard against is two-faced: On one side is compromised journalism (media not being fair and accurate); on the other is external control of the press (via consolidation, legislation, or intimidation).
This morning, Will Bunch at Philly.com has this to say about journalistic objectivity and claims of bias in the press:
“…my personal belief that the greatest role for journalists is not to make sure that every story has 50 percent of one side and 50 percent of the other side – but that the vital function for reporters is to preserve democracy and the freedom of the press, because without those freedoms a valid media would cease to exist. Yes, they’re voicing outrage today inside the sacred sanctuary of the Temple of Objective Journalism , where the celebrants nervously fingered their rosaries rather than confront the Constitutional bonfire that was building outside.
“But for eight years now, there’s been an out-of-control fire raging outside of that temple – a fire that was built upon the USA Patriot Act and Guantanamo and rendition and torture and signing statements and 16 words in a State of the Union Address. Ultimately, saving the last fabric of democracy is more important than worrying about what contrived commandments of journalism were stepped on while the blaze was finally extinguished.
“I myself would call it truth-telling, and honest journalism, but now we have some who want to call it ‘media bias.’ That’s fine with me, but understand this.
I fired up the barbie last night after I got home with a cool-plus-some full of pig parts and roasted inch-and-a-quarter thick pork chops marinaded in red wine, garlic, and a couple choice herbs. Wow – was that just heavenly! Had one chop for dinner, and the other for lunch today, and OMFG was it a beautiful thing. The only way to improve it would have been to have a little wine in the ol’ office.
I spent about six hours yesterday getting acquainted with the subcutaneous fat of pigs.
One of my work buddies has a farmer friend who raises, slaughters, and sells pigs every year. The catch, or the best part, depending how you do the math, is that part of the purchase price is helping with the slaughter and butchering work.
We had 12 pigs to kill yesterday and by the time the second one was gutted, it was clear that I was going to be spending a lot of time skinning. It probably had something to do with the fact that I jumped in without being asked, and went kind of slowly so I didn’t waste as much meat as some of the other folks who tried it.
My buddy and I were joking about “experiential education” while working on one of the hogs. That’s one of the buzzwords from the local private college (of which he and I are both alumni) which charges kids about $25k a year for tuition. But jokes and snarky comments aside, yesterday was a big learning day for me.
The first thing I realized was that skinning pigs is slippery work. Pigs have a lot of fat on them, and that makes for questionable grips on everything; the hide, my knife, ladder rungs… The second thing I internalized is that the sharper my knife, the better. Fortunately, I tend to be a little obsessive about my blades, so that wasn’t a problem in the morning, but as the day went on, my knife’s edge went away. Next time, bring a stone! Finally, there a splotches of blood and tiny bits of pig all over the pants and shirt I wore, and ninety percent of them are from me wiping my knife. The lesson here is: Bring a blade cloth.
This morning I head back to the farm to cut the hanging carcasses into the actual cuts of meat, then I’ll bring home my half-a-pig-in-pieces, double wrap it in heavy paper and get it in the freezer. Then, maybe a beer.
