My apologies, but I need to take a break from all of the depressing news, at least for a little while, for the sake of my sanity.
Winter is over. Spring is waxing. I need to get outdoors and into the bush, to do a bit of hiking and camping and fishing as well as a bit of Wild Turkey hunting, that is to say, to repair myself to some degree by pretending that reality extends to no more than the immediacies of what my senses can encompass, the sun, the sky, the streams and lakes, the smells and sounds and sights of forests, the kinds of things that as a child were a surcease from all troubles and an invitation to wonder and amazement.
Until I feel sturdy enough to return to what rightfully deserves any person’s attention and condemnation, then, do make yourself at home. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty to read and, perhaps, that’s worthy of your time and consideration.
I will, from time to time, check to see if comments are pending and attend to them.
In a couple of weeks, then, or maybe not until the beginning of June . . .
–N
Dear Norman, this is well understood! I´ll soon do the same thing in order to have more time for a research Project!
Weekend regards
Dear Norman, You couldn’t just swing by the UK and pick me and my dogs up on your way? Despite a UK General Election due 8th June, I’m not feeling as though my spirits have been lifted. We could get rid of the Tories, but that would usher in the right wing Labour Blairites who will ditch left leaning centrist Jeremy Corbyn as soon as they have power. Not a happy prospect, just more of the same. I wish I had a tow hitch and a caravan, I’d do exactly the same as you and Chantal – I assume your’e taking Les Messieurs? Enjoy your break any which way takes your fancy. Best to all.
:)Susan
If I could swing by the U.K. to pick all of you up, I would, Susan. Really. But I’m not planning to go all that far, and then there’d be the question of more money to be spent than I can spare just this moment. But it’s a thought . . .
And no, neither Les Messieurs nor Madame Chantal will be accompanying me on my excursions. Chantal must work for the both of us. She teaches. She won’t be free to travel until the very end of June this year, and nothing can be extended beyond the second week of August – sadly.
My jaunts will therefore be solitary with the exception of the Turkey hunt. Simon will be tagging along for a first. Opening day is Tuesday morning. I don’t know how lucky we will be. The rut has yet to begin, it seems — delayed by cold weather.
I’ve been out every evening this week, listening for gobbles. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except the spring peepers and the timber wolves.
Must have been a half-a-dozen of them around me tonight — I mean the wolves. They mistook my owl call for an interloper, I think. Or perhaps I’m the one mistaking my owl call for an owl call, and I’m really imitating a dog that shouldn’t be “there.”
It was a bit unsettling, to be honest. I didn’t have a light with me and it was quite dark, and I had about 2 kilometers to walk to get back to the car. Of course, they are skittish creatures, with a bark that is much worse than their bite. But the queer thing about it was that I’d “hoot” to try to shock a gobble or two out of some roosted gobbler, and the wolves would howl at a short distance. Then I’d move several hundred meters and try again. Then I’d hear them howl from roughly the spot where I’d howled just previously. This scenario was repeated twice. At which point it became clear to me that if all of that racket – my hooting and the howling of the wolves – didn’t shock-gobble anything, nothing could, and I started making my way back to the car, having to move directly toward and through that pack of dogs.
Didn’t hear anything more, however, nothing getting out of the way, nor was I able to make out any moving shadows, except for the flags of a few deer as I pushed on. Too bad Simon had to work and couldn’t be with me. I’m sure he would have been thrilled. Maybe tomorrow evening . . .
Yes. Be jealous of me. I’m really looking forward to this time for myself.
Do keep well.
(And I don’t really think it will matter one iota as to who wins the election come the 8th of June. It will be the same agenda going forward . . .)
Norman, Norman, Norman understood!
Tubularsock has often times thought about hanging up his holsters and letting the old swinging saloon doors hit his backside as he walked out into the light of day.
Walk out into the freedom of the littered lined asphalt streets and the graffitied buildings, park benches, and billboards.
Oh, the thrill and longing to cast Ye Olde line into the nearest storm drain and reeling back that old discarded boot, hub cap, or condemn. The thrill of it all!
Yes-Yes-YES!
To just lean on the old railroad crossing gate with its broken lights and ill sounding warning bell and belt down swigs of Wild Turkey from the open bottle singing old workmen songs with good cheer.
But that will not stand!
No, Tubularsock has been cast by the circumstances to march forward less accompanied by other defenders of the truth. Those defenders, Norman, have been drawn into the real world that appears right out the door everyday if one could only lift their eyes to see.
As you wander about in the wide open sane natural world do remember that one lone light will be beaming from Tubularsock’s top floor corner office in his underground bunker overlooking Washington, D.C. from Oakland, CA.
That light will remain a beacon shinning upon the insanity! A task that, as Tubularsock has always said, “brings joy only to one who enjoys beating one’s head against a concrete wall for hours on end”.
Oh, do remember ……… the problem with change is it usually is not the change you are looking for; the change you are looking for, you can’t get there from here!
Enjoy Norman ……… you’ll be missed by Tubularsock.
UNTIL THE COWS COME HOME …… STAY SAFE!
Your light shines a great distance, Tubes. We even catch glimmers of it, here, north of the 49th, where it is equally needed and dearly appreciated. For the joy you so eloquently speak of, known only to heads accustomed to rhythmically bouncing themselves off very hard walls for reasons only their hearts can know, is as much a part of our culture as it is American, well, at least for some if not the majority. But we have universal shrink care — a difference between your collective insanity and ours — so that shooting our Turkey, rather than drinking them, is slightly more of a thing here. As for the freedom achievable for most of the dwellers of the Canadian inner cities, the great outdoors is nothing less than as you have have put it. Oh, yes, “The thrill of it all!”
And now I must apologize for having neglected you these past few weeks. But be apprised that if I’ve been an infrequent visitor over at Tubes’ bunker, it is for the same reason that I’ve been avoiding everybody else’s blog, too. It’s nothing you did or said. It’s just this shitty little mood that I’ve been in. Something about kids dying and war and all of that. You’d think I’d be over it by now. It’s been going on for a long time, a great many centuries, I’m told, and there is so much of it about. But apparently, according to some, not quite nearly enough of it. And hearing and reading that kind of dross, I thinks to myself, “Really? More bloodshed is what we need? So as to stem more bloodshed?” “Fuck it!” thinks me in anger, “I really need to get away from you freaks and everything that reminds me of you! I really need to get out of here if only for a few minutes, away from the multitudes, from the shape of men.”
So there you have it. My confession. Yes, I’m weak. But only for the moment. For there are people like you. That I can hang on to. And I do.
Be thinking and been thinking about you, too! Keep the lone light beaming — from the top floor of the underground, overlooking Washington, miles below.
No need to apologies. A break is what all of us should take and forget about the rest of the world for now.
Hugs
Carole Ridley
1-506-758-2262
https://www.facebook.com/caroleridleycreation/
Where are you? I came back one week later, but you go, upps! Kidding aside, take some rest and turn back us with feeling more good my Earthling friend! By the way, don’t skip my last post on today before your break, I worked hard on it. 🙂
Good post, Migo, as always . . . and you do have my reply . . .
Yeah, I need to put all of this on the shelf for a little while. Before I cease entirely to be even the minimally functioning human that I have become . . .
“Upps,” it is, baby! Indeed.
Oh Norman. Whilst I envy the freedom you will soon be about to enjoy(despite the rest of the family toiling away back home- well Chantal at least))after reading your little adventure with timber wolves and remarkable conversation with delightful amorous frogs, I would probably have done a runner with a velocity that would undoubtedly leave Gracie my Greyhound lurcher standing(and she certainly knows how to leg it). In England the Tories and their toff friends are very preoccupied in killing off what little wildlife we have, so foxes are the UK’s only predators and they don’t actually evoke dread in me when I see them. Loved the link to the spring peepers, but the only thing I could shoot with, would be a camera. I don’t have a problem with hunters intending to eat what they can kill as long as they don’t leave them maimed to die a sad and painful death – there’s already enough cruelty in the world in the way we treat our animals and birds. I’m more Tubularsock inclined with a fishing rod and some tasty maggots or casters and even then I have to apolgise to the maggot or worm I’m dunking and using for bait. As for the fish I might catch(as opposed to the bushes I snag when ledgering, on the opposite bank) I tend to put them in the keep net before releasing them – what a wuss eh? I’d certainly have you laughing at me if I were to relate to you my spectacular skills with a rod and line.
I hope you and Chantal get to have a vacation during the summer break if she can find someone to tend her beautiful plants, but until then, upon your return, you must give us all the dirt on your walkabout/hunting experiences. Turkeys are simple minded birds who will follow a trail of corn right into a cage trap, so if all else fails you can show up back home with a brace of gobblers beaming with pride and she won’t be any the wiser!
Be safe and don’t let the wolves eat you. LOL
🙂 Susan
I do agree. There is certainly enough cruelty in the world. We don’t need to be adding any more to the tally.
I really should quit the hunting. But it’s something that I’ve been doing all my life. It’s part of who and what I am. I like my venison. Turkey is delicious. Wild meat is healthier than anything bought at the store. Fish is succulent. I’m not a vegetarian regardless of whether I hunt or not. And animals do have hard and cruel deaths regardless of whether I’m directly involved or not: they die of disease or starvation or are taken down by carnivores, such as the wolves that were howling all around me tonight. There is nothing good about a “natural” death. It’s rarely less than a protracted torment.
None of this justifies my actions as a hunter, I know. I don’t need to hunt to feed myself. And whatever I save by fetching my own, so to speak, is actually negligible. So there is no economic argument to be made in favor of it.
And yet I like to hunt. I know that for many who do not hunt, they imagine that “the pleasure” in hunting is something “sadistic.” I can assure you that for most of the people I know who are hunters and including myself, there is no “sadistic” impulse behind the so called “pleasure.” “We” aim to make the kill painless and humane, and more often than not, that is the very real result.
Rather, the “pleasure” in hunting proper derives from the skill involved. The skill is not “in pulling the trigger” — nothing could be easier — but rather in achieving consistent results from one season to the next.
Hunter success rates are only about 10%. So obviously, if you fill your tags every year, you actually “know” what you are doing. Not many do. I’ve always had consistent results. I do know what I’m doing. It isn’t as easy as the uninitiated may imagine.
A lot of time and effort and actual knowledge goes into every hunt. The “pleasure” is in “having it all come together” by “design.” Really, it’s a challenge. And it can be and often is surprisingly both physically and mentally demanding. Inclement weather is often to be endured, and a hard-nosed patience, in terms of waiting and being able to sit still and quiet for long hours, is part and parcel of the endeavor.
And yet, and yet, there is no real justification for hunting. Did I mention that on the issue, I’m of two minds? Always have been. Always will be. The day may come when for purely ethical reasons I will quit. But not quite yet . . . For the meat is always good. On that, I’m single minded.
“None of this justifies my actions as a hunter, I know. I don’t need to hunt to feed myself. And whatever I save by fetching my own, so to speak, is actually negligible. So there is no economic argument to be made in favor of it.”
Actually Norman, a death by a hunter with a rifle, is often a far kinder way than being stunned in an abattoir and waking up screaming or bellowing in agony with a meat hook embedded in the groin. Nature is neither cruel nor kind, prey animals will always be picked off by predators and whether suffocating in the jaws of a lion or being eaten alive by canines is usually a given, old age is rarely a cause of death. You will no doubt hang your prizes for a suitable time or skin and butcher for the freezer without wasting too much, while the supermarket will waste so many lives of animals that will be discarded because we as a modern society kill far more than we actually consume(although the dogs and puddy tats probably do quite well).
If, however, you take up big game hunting to kill a beautiful bull giraffe or a well known and popular male lion just do a selfie, don’t tell me about it.
I am not averse to killing for food, it’s how we evolved as a species ourselves, but the quality of life is just as much an issue as the killing. To range freely as nature intended is the way of things and all life comes to an end as it should, you are not required to justify or try to validate actions or traditions that are not questionable. Leave that to the trophy hunters and other wasteful practices of our modern society. Sometimes, just being on a footing with the wild is a step towards a natural order. Would you question the genuine harmony that existed with the native Indian tribes and their food source, or the Inuits, who still hunt now, taking only what they need, not for sport, but to uphold a tradition of self sufficiency. Men and some women, want that intimate relationship that takes us back to what we were before we became consumers and cowards – letting others do our killing and butchering so we could all feel righteous, there’s nothing righteous about it.I know this and lament every time I buy meat – but I am too squeamish to do my own dirty work – that’s my disgrace, you at least have the courage of your convictions, while I do not.
Good Hunting and make your shots count.
My best, as always, 🙂 Susan.
Just a few points, and not that I’m trying to justify my practice ( — though rationally unjustifiable, I’m not yet quite at he point where I feel I need to apologize for it, for the reasons you’ve nicely enunciated on my behalf): nothing apart from the skin and entrails (or parts considered inedible) are wasted. And no, I don’t hang the deer carcasses. Aging meat is a delicate process, not something you can do in a garage, and butchers don’t like having your game hanging for too long in their freezers. In my experience, getting the meat out of the field and into the butcher’s freezer within a few hours, sometimes after hanging overnight out of logistical necessity, and then having it cut and wrapped within a day or two, this has always yielded a very fine and tender serving. Aging meat, at least where venison and moose are at issue, is quite unnecessary.
As for trophy hunting, I’ve never felt an urge in that direction. I shoot whatever comes along, big or small, antlered or not, if I have the tag for it. The yearlings, which are never “trophies,” are best for taste and texture. This doesn’t mean I haven’t shot my share of really big deer. I have. But that’s just because “that” is what showed up in the context, and the bruisers are also good tasting.
As for selfies, I must say that I’ve taken pictures of memorable “specimens,” not because that was the specific intent of the hunt, but because “that” is what fell into my lap, so to speak. And say what you will, some deer are rather impressive in the size and symmetry of their racks. Indeed, they are as you put it, “beautiful.” And “beautiful” is sometimes worth being photographed as an aid to memory.
But no. I’m not a trophy hunter. Just a hunter. A meat hunter. I would never pay someone to guide me to my quarry, and I do not consider “sniping” animals at hundreds and even thousands of yards as hunting. Twenty yards or so is my preference (especially if I’m out with the bow). Forty yards at the very most (with a rifle or shotgun). Close makes for a higher certainty of outcome. It’s also vastly more difficult than glassing for targets yonder, at distances your own eyes can barely sort out.
But “good hunting” it will be, whether it pans out or not. But I’ve a fair notion that it will. But the birds will have to get active, and they will, as warmer weather manifests.
Aye! I’ve things to do . . .
Best regards,
–N