Magic is in the Air (or at least on the work table)

"All you need is trust and a little bit of pixie dust." - Peter Pan

"Or even better, some of that magic .223 dust." - Brigid

A Cold Wind Blows

The night is cold. And it is raw.

Wind blows off the plains, the low moving east, pulling the chill deep out of the ground and throwing it in your face, daring you to fight back.

The METAR said the wind was 240 degrees at 35 with gusts to the mid 40's most of the day. Now, sitting in my little study, the temperature outside plummeting like one of those rides at Cedar Point, not for the faint of heart, I feel it. It's not a safe place to be outside, I think, as the howl of the wind reaches in the window trying to grab me as I sit safely inside.

Trees here are few, taken down so that the soil may be tilled, only a few remaining as protection against the marauding wind that cuts through the land late at night with the studied choreography of a hockey game. The cold presses down, pressing deep, into layers of topsoil, and the bones of ancient buffalo, who bury themselves further down to get out of the wind, strataforms of bones and life and death, forming the coal that drives this state.

This close to the window, I can almost smell the cold, the odor of a whetted knife, carving shadows into the night. My body responds in a way as ancient as these lands, and I pull the green velvet bathrobe across my chest, tight and warm, and turn away from the glass.

"You ought to move back to the south", colleagues say. "How about California or Florida?" But I am not at home in such places, preferring these months of quiet cold, time to think, to dream broad dreams, icy fingers down my neck making me shiver, the fire, melting marshmallow against my skin, melting me.

The fire dances along the walls, my shadow following, Barkley asleep on his bed, exposing his
belly to an imagined sun of August, feet chasing dusk colored rabbits in his sleep. I think back to tales of my ancestors on my Dad's side, who came from this area from the East, starting in the land of the Celts. Of great grandpa, new to the country, moving a household across miles of land, risking all he had to form a new life out here, beating miles of ocean and illness and pain, only to lose most of his money, belongings and food as wind swept fire roared through where he lay sleeping one night. But he got out, accessed the damage, and gathered those small coins he had left to him, and moved on to safer ground.
The wind sings its siren song against the eaves, daring me to leave, to admit that moving out here, to the state of my ancestors, where I had no family our friends, was wrong. But I won't. The price that was exacted for learning my way alone out here left my heart an almost empty purse, with just a few scattered coins tinkling in the bottom. Yet I know it was a journey I had to make. You make decisions with what is in the heart at the time, and when the chill wind blows, you take stock of your life and your decisions and seek shelter elsewhere or you stand and fight for your life and heart, and what fuels it. To do otherwise is to wither and die. Out here near the windswept plains, the price of innocence is high.

I add some of that precious fuel to the fire, and curl up in an easy chair with a book, pistol nearby, a mug of tea and a warm cookie from the oven. I think I understand why my Dad's grandparents settled here and I find, more and more, that I am like them. Like the rabbit and fox, the small creatures of the night, we remain alert, we learn and live and if we are lucky, we love again. For as I hear the wind against my warm house, tapping the glass with the resonant sound of a few small coins that are left, I know that I'm where I need to be.

Pure and Simple Pleasures

I love vanilla ice cream. But most of the store brands taste like someone massacred a bunch of vanilla wafers to get the flavor. An artificial sort of vanilla taste, sans the crumbs. The texture more like half melted cool whip. Real vanilla ice cream when melted down a bit smells like cream, with a hint of egg and vanilla.

Of store Brands I like Blue Bell (from those years living down south with the annoying Texas Longhorns). It's not totally natural, but it is, in my opinion, one of the best store ice creams for the price, hands down.

Trader Joe's vanilla is pretty good. But Trader Joe's is an hour's drive away.

My brother always has some Tillamook in his freezer. The Marion berry flavor is my favorite. It has corn syrup but it doesn't feel like a visit back there if I don't eat some.There are others that have the little specks of vanilla bean, but specks don't always translate into flavor. Breyers at one time used to be really good, almost like a fresh gelato, but since they were taken over by Unilever, they removed the "pledge of purity" which used to be on every carton and added some gums and chemicals. The label now? MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, CORN SYRUP, EGG YOLKS, NATURAL FLAVOR, NATURAL GUAR GUM, SALT, ANNATTO (FOR COLOR), NATURAL CAROB BEAN GUM.

I don't care if it's "natural" I don't want "carob bean gum, guar gum and corn syrup in my ice cream. The taste? It shows.

Hagan Daz is good but still, for the price, has a strong alcohol and vanilla odor. If you take a sniff after it's melted it smells sour. They have a new one that is five ingredients only. The vanilla and coffee flavor of those are excellent.

Ben and Jerry's? There was one that I liked that was some chocolate brownie thing but it's off the shelf now, at least at my local store. For the most part I like my ice cream pretty simple That's strictly a personal thing. I want my ice cream plain not with chunks and monkeys and granola, gummy bears or ground up hippies in it. But Ben and Jerry's IS a high quality ice cream for those of you who like the add ins.

Everyone should gave a great recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream in their repertoire. Here's my favorite, which comes from The Perfect Scoop (Ten Speed Press)

It's not super quick to make and real vanilla beans and the pure extract aren't cheap, vanilla being most of the most labor-intensive of all crops, but it's worth it.

The three most common cooking vanillas are Bourbon, Tahitian, and Mexican. Bourbon vanilla, from Madagascar has a bold, very-pronounced flavor. Tahitian is more floral, and a rare find. Real Mexican is strong, yet creamy-tasting. But don't buy the cheap Mexican impostors. They can contain coumarin, which is toxic and banned in the U.S. True Mexican vanilla will be similarly priced to the best stuff (not cheap, and worth it).

I know it's winter, but take yourself back to summer with a bowl. What's the fun of being an adult if you can't be a kid every once in a while. - Brigid

Winter Food Stores

click to enlarge cartoon

It's winter time, and if the Jabba the Hut spider that crawled out from under my dresser the other morning was an indication, then little critters are trying to get inside where it's warm and there is food. You can't keep them ALL out (especially when they hear you made lasagna) but good storage containers are something you should always have on hand. But what about the issue of keeping food long term? Even the best of Tupperware won't keep some foods beyond a few weeks.

If you have a lot of freezer space, storing fresh and properly sealed food is easy. But what about if you don't have a huge or extra freezer? Sure there's peanut butter. I love peanut butter, but there's a lot of other more dubious cheap food products with a long shelf life.

There's canned food such as Spam or "Armour Potted Meat Food Product." What exactly is potted meat? According to the label it's: Beef Tripe, Beef Hearts, Cooked Fat Tissue Solids, and Partially Defatted Cooked Pork Fatty Tissue. . . mmmm, it's "America's favorite" the old label used to say - favorite what?.
I remember the first time I saw THAT on the shelf in the pantry and read the ingredients. "What's beef tripe" I asked my Mom. She said "it's in the middle of the cow". I got that same of vague answer when I asked how babies were made

The potted meat looked like something from Gross Anatomy 101 after running it through a wood chipper and closely resembled a can of "Mighty Dog". No thanks. In those days that pretty much just left the Spam and Beenie Weenies. But if you were snowbound with no food to eat for a month because you didn't think to store food properly, would you want your family only eating Beenie Weenies? In perhaps a small enclosed space? I think not. So you need to have some other food sources on hand. Fortunately there are a lot more choices now then there were in the late 60's.

Freeze Dried Foods - Not just for backpacking in to the campsite any more. A favorite brand among friends is Mountain House. They are airtight NITROGEN PACKED #10 cans or pouches. Up to 98% of the residual oxygen has been removed, according to their website. They advertise a 30 year shelf life. I can't say any have been purchased with that intent, but for backpacking they were found to be very good and worth the little bit of extra $$, less per serving that any fast food you'd eat in town.

Home Dried Foods

Jerky - Jerky is tasty, stores well, and can be flavored with other items for a little variety Just some basic rules here. Do not package until completely cool to the touch. Like all dried foods, store in small batches to minimize the change of contamination. Like dried vegetables, dried meat will keep up to six months; well dried and stored in a freezer, it can keep well for years. There's some jerky around here from an elk hunt LONG ago that's still good, kept in the freezer.

For vegetables dried in a dehydrator - see your unit's instructions for conditioning instructions prior to storage or refer to How to Dry Fruits and Vegetables with a Dehydrator. Use only air tight containers or freezer bags from which ALL air has been removed before closing it up.

Sulfured fruit - store in non-metal containers. Dried fruits will keep up to a year and longer in the freezer. Again - cool dry and dark, but they will keep well at temperatures up to 60 degrees, though slightly cooler than that is optimum. If you see condensation on the inside of any of the containers, you MUST re-dry it again.

Hickory Smoking - Bambi? Meet Mr. Smoker. (This is some of the recent hunt, mixed with an equal amount of fresh pork loin and spices and slow smoked in casings from Cabela's until it got to 160 degrees internally). The best part of this? Other than the taste, which is incredible, I actually know what went into this, the processing of the venison being done by one of the friends I hunted with, at home with some serious task specific knives and a grinder/sausage stuffer from Cabellas. The pork as well came from a local source. YUM. The smell? Oh my. Even though it was a low overcast and spitting rain (hence the picture quality) Barkley just sat on the deck in a puddle of drool while this smoked away, refusing to come inside.

With the multiple racks within the smoker, 15 pounds were made in one batch. It still needs to be frozen if not eaten pretty soon, but sealed well, it will keep a LONG time.

Root Cellers

Potatoes - Inspect all potatoes for soft spots, sprouts and mold. Only perfect potatoes are suitable for long-term storage, if you find soft spots. use them now. If yours are home grown, allow to dry thoroughly before storing. Do not wash potatoes first. Store in a cardboard box, or mesh bag to ensure enough ventilation. Store where it's cool, dry and dark (50-60 degrees is ideal). Check on them regularly and remove any that go soft, sprout or shrivel. Place the potatoes in a cardboard box, paper bag or mesh bag to ensure good ventilation.

Apples - Dried apples are a favorite of the dried fruits, but whole apples will keep a long while if stored properly. You want to store in a cool basement, garage, fruit cellar or refrigerator. The ideal storage temperature is 30-32°F with 90% humidity. If temp falls below 30 apples will be damaged and if it gets over 40 they will ripen too quickly.

Just the thing for a big apple pancake some cold winter morning. (recipe in the comments). What? You wanted SPAMbled eggs? Sorry.Onions - Inspect like you do for potatoes. For this use a couple of clean and dried ladies stockings (yes, on the exceedingly rare occasions wherein I don a dress, I wear real stockings as I HATE, hate, hate, pantyhose). Or if you use pantyhose, cut off the legs. Drop an onion into the leg and tie a knot, continue adding and knotting until the leg is full. Store where cool, dry and between 40-45 degrees. When you need an onion, simply get out your handy little knife and carefully cut a slit in the side of one of the knotted off sections. This will allow you to reinsert an onion and reuse the stocking.

Corn - I'll be honest. I've never stored corn other than in the freezer so I'm not sure about other ways to store it. Any suggestions readers? Here is some of Farmer Frank W. James corn, which he so graciously shared this year, prepared as he recommends in his blog and prepped for the winter freezer with the "food saver". Yum!But Brigid, I don't live out in the "burbs" or the country. I don't HAVE a root cellar, garage space or a basement?

Don't panic, if you have a bit of yard, and you have no other options, you can make your own in a pinch in many climates. If you rent, it takes up little space and can easily be returned to it's previous state before you move out so not to annoy your landlord. Simply dig a hole in the soil to accommodate a large sized plastic container. Think storage bin with lid, new garbage can or an old cooler. Put your container in the hole, making sure you leave an inch or two sticking out of the ground to prevent rainwater from entering the "cellar". Even better, dig a little drainage ditch around it. Remember to cover with insulating straw and plastic as well (which will also further protect it from run off.

Place your food items in the container. Don't store apples with potatoes by the way. Pack it with straw or other insulation quality material and pop the top on securely. (This should keep out the local bugs and smaller critters). Remember though - if it's below the frost line IT WILL FREEZE, unless adequately insulated. Check the food periodically and remove any immediately that is looking soft or discolored. Apples will keep (approximately as found in my climate) up to six months, carrots 5 months, potatoes 5 months,squash 5 months, beets 4 months (like that's going to happen, I HATE beets). If you see condensation there may well be mold which is a real hazard for consumption.

Note: This is NOT an ideal solution, but there may be a time in your life when it's necessary.

These are just some very basic hints and I won't be offended if some of you have more correct information, or advice in the comments. Home canning is a post all by itself so I'll put some information on that another time. If you would like more detailed, experienced information, go check out my sidebar for sites like Bushcraft USA or some of the blog links at "assortment of interest". I have several homesteaders and hunters and the like in that section of unique bloggers. People of reasoned mind and real world experience, nice folks and happy to help. Just don't ask about the tripe.

Meringue Lifejackets

"It has been said that crowds are stupid, but mostly they are simply confused, since as an eyewitness the average person is as reliable as a meringue lifejacket." -Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

If I personally were to have a choice of witnesses to a disaster to talk to, give me the child. Their view is simply what they have seen, normally unclouded by judgement, history and expectations. Certainly intelligence bears into it and the developmental differences of the child. The child also needs be of an age where they can remember and describe events, understanding the difference between the truth and a lie. But they often pick up on things that the adults miss even if, in and of itself, it might not be admissible in a legal setting. Sure the technical detail is not there and children can often mix reality with fantasy, but often the heart of what they experienced is ascertainable, containing details often lost to others.

Those that piece together such places, unfortunately, have had to use such recollections before. You can watch all the TV shows you want, but unless you are a first responder or LEO you don't really realize what it is like. Air laden with smells of fuel perhaps and smoke, stale sweat and the dense coppery smell of death close up. The frantic sounds, shouts and fluid movements of water or people, trickling down to a slow drip as the EMS vehicles move away. Sometimes in a hurry, too often not, the sound expanding away from the hollow rumbles of voices left behind to glean the concrete fields of evidence, searching for words and actions that explain.

Sometimes there is a crowd, sometimes in that crowd is a youngster, looking around, taking it all in, while the adults eyes are frantically forming words in their head while look for a TV camera, or swaying in shock, zombie-like, eyes closed in almost drugged immobility.

A child's recollection is simple, not so much words, but sounds, smell, movement, direction,things others might have missed. With a parents hands hovering near, those movements we all know of protection, it will be asked if the child could give their remembrance, just as was done with any adults that were present, letting them make a statement of what they remember, to define the things already known. Sometimes their statements, made with simple words and hands, are startling in their detail; details that confirm the tangibles that are known at that time. Tangiles that can become evidence. With that the search for truth continues.

For some adults do not do so well in recollection. An event to one person is seen in a totally different way than another. Both believe they are totally accurate and it's often hard to derive the reality from their truths. I've read accounts in the newspaper of events I actively participated in, only to shake my head in wonder at how very inaccurately it was portrayed, the words written for sensation and effect, not for accountability. I've seen it in a court room, a place where even in the scrubbed emptiness, the smell of spent violence, lust, graft and vengeance are discernible. Where even in the quiet you feel the reverberations of badgering and bitterness, sinners and saints, actors in a role, while we the public hope for that one legal expert that can see through all of that to do what is right based on reality, not motivation.

But getting to the heart of the matter is difficult. Look at the media, at some of the written chronicles on the Internet, and the variances in discussing the same person or event, the same bit of history. Some are honestly detailed yet succinct, while others, especially when they feel they or their cause have been wronged, are like listening to Joe Biden on Sodium thiopental.

Life is never easy, and finding out why things happen as they do remains something that haunts the edges of not just a crime scene, but our very lives. We want to know, desire it, yet unless we look at events with the clear eyes of a child, unmotivated by greed or prejudice, we may find that there is nothing there but sweet fluff and air.

Tales of the Outdoors

What do you do to renew your spirit? For the wives of my colleagues, they shop. For me, mall shopping reminds me of the running of the bulls at Pamplona. Something I'd rather not participate in. If it wears out or breaks I can usually find a replacement within 5 minutes of dashing into a non yuppified store.

For myself, I look outdoors to recharge. The woods, the open cornfields of the Midwest, the mountains. The smell of pine trees is my perfume, and the soft retort of a Marlin 1894, a symphony of wonder. There will be no hunting this weekend. It is cold and overcast, and I have a technical obligation out of state very early Monday morning, though that does allow me to have supper with Lawdog and Phlegmy, so life is good.

So for today, rather than hit the malls in the post Thanksgiving feeding frenzy, I can retire to my easy chair happily clutching a book, and let the rest of the world become background noise for a little while. Never spent any real time in the outdoors? Never hunted or fished? Then sit and read with me. Some of my favorites:
Call of the Wild (Aladdin Classics) by Jack London,

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition by Joel Snyder
The Yearling (50th Anniversary Edition) by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (yes a children's book but a classic)

True North (Harrison, Jim)

The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition by Dick Hill

The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane

Ordinary Wolves: A Novel by Seth Kantner

Don't have time to get to a bookstore?Then go to my sidebar and find some wonderful chronicles and photos of the outdoors.

Dan - Out on the Rock
Deer Passion -wife, conservationist, hunter.
My Hunting Spot
Pink Camo Gal
Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
Scent Free Lip Gloss -
Whitetail Woods - Rick K.
Whitetails for Women

Writers like these people were all my inspiration. All are masters at the art of weaving the outdoor world into the fabric of your life. Our world awaits you. You don't have to be a daring adventurer to experience those wondrous moments.

As the only sound in the room is that of the turn of a page and the gentle snore of a black lab by my side, I think back to my last little trek into the outdoors. There were only a couple more days before I'd have to go back to work, and there was still hunting to be done. The sun was already setting, leaving lavender ribbons across the sky, clouds thickening up, leaving just one large clear space above me through which I could just make out the beginning crescent of a new moon. The day was growing cold and I could smell the tang of leaves gone golden with fall's little death, the scent so dense I could barely breathe. I could hear the first stirrings of crickets and frogs and the evening became quiet except for the sound of a friend walking back in with me to the tune of our quickened breath. But the sky was darkening and the deer would soon be hunkered down for the night so we would have to head back to the truck, turning back towards the road while a tiny bit of light remained, utter silence now other than the song of night.

The only deer I'd seen that day had come in at dawn, downwind, and she scented us and bolted before I could even move my finger to trigger. Hunting involves a lot of sitting quietly, and patience, it's not for someone that can not do that. That is what patience is all about, being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, not pushing or demanding. That is what hunting is often about, not bringing anything home for supper, but simply a time with nature to be savored, when delight imbibes through every pore with the glint of a twilight sun off a polished barrel. I really don't care if I didn't get a deer today, there would be tomorrow. I just enjoyed the communion of my friends among the elemental trees, toasting our bounty, even if it came in a can, settling down in soft sleeping bags to dream of the next day.

My hunting is not something for an outdoor show, nor is it something modernized, sleeping in a hotel to drive my Hummer out into the woods. For me, hunting and camping was a fire built with magic and swear words, burned wienies and good beans, woodsmoke and bug spray, paper plates that fell apart. My outdoors was the sound of a hoot owl as the sun set, it's dying rays reflected in a cup of beer as a black lab snoozed happily by my feet. I'm here for those times when I don't wish to sacrifice the wonder of the present moment to work, society or noise. A loner mostly, I want a broad margin to my life. I can sit in the faded sunlight of a doorway between two trees, rifle at ready, from breakfast til dark fall, rapt in a revere in undisturbed stillness and solitude.

As dusk settled in, I wondered about the lapse of time, the evening seeming like a mere moment, time like a season in which I grew like flowers in the night. Philosophers talk about contemplation and the forsaking of work and out here I realize what they meant. The day advances as light comes into it, it's morning, and now it's evening, and nothing memorable is done. My days are not minced into deadlines of a ticking clock or the perusal of things no longer within my grasp. Let mornings be lazy, afternoons pass by in a haze of sunshine, or the a flip of a white tail. If the day becomes wasted in the warm rapture of a sunset as nature sings its song in my ear, what's the harm?

In A River Runs Through It, the author talks about "spots of time," but its only been in the outdoors where I've experienced eternity compressed into a moment. A moment where in an instant you can see your whole life and make a choice. No one can even explain to you what this "spot of time" is until your whole world is a large buck and then the buck vanishes. For an instant, just an instant, there was just the sun glinting off of his back, diamonds of light against the ground. I was so enthralled with the sight of him after waiting for hours, I couldn't even take a breath and in that instant before he was gone, time hitched to a stop. Only then did I realize what I had lost And what I had gained.

But for today, just that one little doe at dawn and now the deepening sky told me the hunt for today was at an end. As the last of the daylight seeped out of the sky, I thought back to work, but only briefly, for my mind now is rippled, not storm tossed. These small ripples of leaves on the ground raised by the evening's wind are the only hint of turmoil in the calm. As the day pulled out of the sky, taking the wind with it. I looked one last time out into the still center of the field, listening for the grunt of that big buck, still out there somewhere. There was nothing but utter and complete stillness, holding my breath, because even inhaling and exhaling was like a cacophony. The animals of day were hunkering down for rest, and the night creatures not quite yet stirring. Twas no breeze, no recognition of air even; it was the sound of nothing and everything, where for just a brief moment in the universe, the clock stopped ticking, and the world hushed.

This was our outdoors. Unidentifiable sounds in the darkness that made you hold your breath at the bottom of your sleeping bag. The laughter of friends as you shared stories of the day. A good book read with a dying flashlight, shadows dancing on the wall of a small canvas tent or a small farmhouse that provides you warm shelter, the dusty smell of freedom and adventure. A time when growth may not be on the surface but may be internal and the weekend quietly drifts by in the warm embrace of the woods. But even in the woods, any good day must end.

As we got back into the truck I realized something, looking at these three people that are like family to me. These are life's shining moments. Small minutes of time you can carry inside of you while the chaos of life hurries past.

So turn the page, peel away the tired layers of your life, the noise, the stress. The wild awaits you.

Light the flame

“Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness”
--Terry Pratchett

Brown butter is a flavor all its own. And you don't need a flamethrower to make it. Banana cake with brown butter frosting.

Reflections from a sphere spinning in space

photo from a U.K. newspaper, photographer unknownFate lies within some blades of grass,
the cosmos in the morning dew.
Tread infinity as you blindly pass,
and lose what you never knew.
Brigid 2009

I wasn't going to post for another day, work being incredibly busy this week, heading down to Dallas on business way too early in the morning. I also wanted some time to just sit and keep my thoughts to myself. But after reading Og's post this morning http://www.neanderpundit.com/ , I felt the urge to write. It's pretty hard to read such words and not be affected.

Many people would read such words and scoff, thinking that although times are tough, by just the sheer force of will, the future will be bright and sunny. The paycheck will keep coming, that credit card will continue to have just enough on it to cover an emergency and there will always be food in the house. In actuality, I do believe we are in for some incredibly difficult times, as people and as a nation. Though there will always be those that refuse to look at such things with a close eye.

We often do not look closely at things. Including the truth. Winston Churchill said. "The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."

The Bible also says "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" which has always been on of my favorite verses. It's also one I memorized in Bible class long before I really understood what it meant. I've since learned that some people can't grasp the truth until they are willing to know themselves, something some never do, some that others do, and not without pain. Knowing yourself is a lifelong process, with your biggest lessons often emerging from the personal mistakes many would just as soon turn a blind eye to.

I admit, the truth is not always easy to see, but there are some people just don't seem to want to see the truth - the threats from outside borders and within our own, where our tax money goes, what the true cost, as individuals or a nation, of making a momentous decision based on false hopes may be. But those are things we should know. For the knowledge of some things, no matter how hurtful to one's sense of peace, is absolutely essential to our well being, for only with truth do we have the resilience, the capacity to continue on, alive in the moment, unbound by regret. Only then can we pick up the tools to fight back.

In disaster, the nature of truth, and how we face it, asserts itself whether you want it to or not. Those who take charge do, those who choose to hide from it will, be it disaster, heartbreak, unemployment, crime or a terrorist attack. After 9-11, I had one acquaintance who refused to watch the news, heading out on a planned vacation and pretending it never happened. Another watched sitcom TV non stop, staying home from work with a bowl of popcorn. Both of these individuals were in denial, afraid to accept the truth. How easy to give the lie to petty small gods for the mere price of being temporarily awash in false hope.

We cannot ignore it, perhaps we can't change it, but we can change the way we live with it. The truth of the matter is, the world is a dangerous place and even sitting quietly at our desk at work or cruising along in the clouds while birds fly past the window, it may show its teeth. Maybe what I do each day may not make a difference, maybe it will. But sticking our collective heads in the sand won't keep us safe. Denying it won't make it not happen.

Part of what I do is being able to work in the absence of absolutely certainty. And lately, like many other things in life, events transpire to ensure I'm brought back to the reality that things change. Disaster strikes, and though my heart may be my own to give, my time is not. It's not just a job, it's a commitment I've made. I've learned that fate doesn't select only the stupid and the slow, it comes for all of us without a lot of preselection.

Or as the Tao Te Ching puts it: "Heaven and earth are inhumane; they view the myriad creatures as straw dogs".

Sit on your couch watching reality shows and ignore reality and there is a price. Fail to learn how to take care of yourself, your family, and you will soon find there will be a time when no one else will do it for you. Turn your nose up at hard, painstaking work because you are tired, cold, or not the type to get dirty, and you will soon know the meaning of "straw dogs".
One of the things I have learned hunting and hiking and clamoring around the side of a mountain in some foreign country when I might have preferred to be home with a coffee and a muffin, is that one of those things that kills us in the wild, is that we don't understand the forces we engage. The environment we have grown up in the U.S. to expect, is one of peace and sustenance. For the lucky ones, food appears often and in abundance. There's medical care for those of us lucky to have a job that provides it, and there's plenty of light and oxygen. It is like we are in big safe pen, a domestic den of civilization. Then we go into nature and the playing field is leveled and we are tested in ways that life or TV do not prepare us for.

Most of us sleep through the test and we come in and out of the experience never really knowing what we did or didn't do to survive, yet somehow believing that we are hardy, knowledgeable adventurers. As pilots say "been there - done that". It's smoke and mirrors.That's somewhat why spending so much time outdoors has made me more aware. Each day I'm reminded that several somethings are out to eat your crops, eat your pets, or eat you, simply because they are hungry. There is not a "let's all just get along" in nature, a fact that is oft lost on the urban dweller.

Most people don't think about it until they are thrust out into it. When they leave their predictable environment for something new, something that cares little for their outcome. Fate is nothing more than cold teeth gnashing against the soft underbelly of life. Some people may think about it once in a great while, the responsibility for their own survival something that only occasionally haunts the edge of their subconscious, thinking "Oh I could do it if I had to, no big deal".
I felt that way when I first learned to fly, gaining confidence, the foolish confidence that culls the weak out early. Then the day comes and I'm in the airplane alone over the mountains. Looking down, it looked so pristine and perfect. After a wind that lasted all night and morning, the snow had packed into what skiers called "breakable crust", the kind that holds your weight so very well, then suddenly doesn't.

As I flew westward, everything around me howled of the winds fluid past, the keening power not abated as forecast, winds sluicing downward from a day that still roared. Tossed about by a mountain waves indifference, having to make that split second decision that would lead me away to safety or give way completely beneath me, I looked up towards the other seat. It was a habit pattern from seeing my instructor for so long. All I saw was a reflection in the window. Mine.

It's a different way of looking at things, just as the panel you've stared at for months or years as a novice looked completely different when you were alone, how I looked at everything around me looked different as well. Every mistake, every decision, every movement, it all boiled down to the person in the glass. Nature didn't care.

I also recall being on a small but wild river back in my 20's; remember when my single-man raft flipped and I was trapped underneath the rushing water, bumping against rocks much bigger than I was. Many things could panic me - snakes, airport food, blind dates, but being upside down, under water in the cold and fading light, did not. If there was panic there, it quickly trailed on behind me in the water and I simply pushed my little raft off of me, not attempting to stand, but pointing my feet downstream and floated free. Pointing to to dancing light, to precious air, and water that calmed down to quiet pools further downstream, crickets chirping in encouragement. Did that mean that I got back into the water that day? No. Not alone. I may have had the current or the rocks figured out that time. Next time, I might not be so lucky.

Author Jon Krakauer wrote about mountaineer guide Scott Fisher, the one who encouraged him to climb Mt. Everest. "We got the 'big E' figured out" he told him" "We've got it totally wired". Yet, there on Everest, Scott Fisher died. The psychology of oblivion is not a new science, I've been studying it for years. Making someone else into a believer, coming to terms with the unfamiliar forces of nature is hard. For we live in North America, where for the most part, we are safe. Few of us believe in our own mortality until we're faced with it, and then, even then, after the threat passes, we forget. So we have no way to prepare for what seems too removed a possibility. As Christopher Burney, who was a prisoner of war at Buchenwald said "Death is a word which presents no real target to the minds eyes".

I agree, the surest way we can become a believer in mortality, short of dying, is to sit and contemplate those things.The world we reason about isn't the one that we reside in, I thought this morning as a cold wind blows across plains scarred by time and the occasional tornado.How old is survival? It's as old as fear.

You can call me paranoid, a survivalist, or a litany of other words, that unless you really know me, do truly not fit what I really am, what I have become based on experience. But I know of one thing. I will go into the future with my firearm on my hip, my hands near my tools and my eyes wide open.

Life Lived Sharp

I'm taking a few days off from blogging folks. I'll be back Thursday with some posts on turning venison into smoked sausage (cough, YUM! cough, cough, YUM), some recipes (Brown Butter Banana Bundt Cake), and perhaps more of life with the Range friends.

Now life's sometimes a battle

You just try to get what you're after
A world full of stories
You won't live to tell
But going on is all we know
Like rivers always flow
It seems the years just fly right past
While the days go by so slow
-Lowen and Navarro

At the James farm, arrowheads have been found. In my state, one can find arrowheads made out of obsidian, which is one of the more common gemstones found in this state, as well as where much of my family lives now.

Obsidian is used in cardiac surgery, as well-crafted obsidian blades have a cutting edge many times sharper than high-quality steel surgical scalpels. Even the sharpest metal knife has a jagged, irregular blade when viewed under a strong enough microscope. When examined under an electron microscope an obsidian blade is still smooth and even. A obsidian knife is one of the most ancient of weapons, with a blade as dark as death, and as sharp as life.

As a gemstone it possesses the peculiar property of presenting a different appearance according to the manner in which it is cut. When cut in one direction it is a beautiful jet black; when cut across another direction it is glistening gray.

Sharpened, obsidian, like words, can be an instrument of hurt or healing. Polished smooth it is a thing of rare beauty. How obsidian is cut reveals its use. How our souls are cut, shapes ours. Everything we experience in our life, in some way, chisels and shapes what is left, making it sharper, or grinding it to bits.

I had family visit a few months ago and we went through some old photo albums, memories to share. The comment was made that I had saved so many pieces of things of the past, of my family. I'm not sure why. I think it's because the past has been such a tumbling series of changes that having the artifacts of memory helps me remember how each piece shaped my life. The grade cards from school, a picture of a model rocket built in junior high. My Mom's badge from the Sheriff's department. A petal from a wedding bouquet, that unwittingly survived every other keepsake of that decade being burned up in a fire. A notice from my 20th high school reunion. Things that touch the memory.

I grew up in a small logging town, one of dozens nestled around beautiful, forested mountains in the West. Ever present was the noticeable rotten egg smell of the pulp mill that I never noticed as a child, but is as constant as death and taxes. There were no malls, simply a main street, a roller rink, a movie theater and only two fast food restaurants. It was a town where my best friend and I could ride our bikes over streets unconfined and unhurried, until darkness or hunger for family dinner around the table brought us home. It was a town where you could raise your family in relative comfort and safety. Life was routine, life was predictable. You graduated high school, married the first or second person you ever slept with. Had several kids, a mortgage, a dog, a cat. You retired and got a gold watch and watched the next generation take over the positions in the mills. The incredible open sky and mountains notwithstanding, it was a flat landscape of life, and one that I knew, probably by the age of 12, that I had to escape from.

I had never really fit in. I had skipped several grades, starting college at 14. I was outgoing, yet painfully shy, and though I usually had one or two girlfriends, the majority of painted, attention seeking girls hated me on sight, making cruel, catty remarks if ever I stumbled, when all I wanted to do was to go to organic chemistry unmolested.

I could not wait to leave.

At the time, and still today, the biggest employers was the factory and mills, and the majority of my graduating class, attracted by pay an 18 year old can only dream of, were working the green chain or in the pulp rooms right after high school. It's honest work, hard work, and dangerous work. It stole the youth from your bones and the hope from your horizon, for by the time you were 25, you have a modest home, kids, a bass boat and the prerequisite four wheel drive. College and a distant city are beyond thought and the pay that was incredible at 18, required more and more shift work and overtime to provide for your family.

Life would have it's moments of fun, watching your kid play softball where you once played, watching the sun come up over the river. But, for many, it's not what you dreamed of when you were 12 and the spaces between your dreams, once lined up like pickets on a fence, get farther and further apart. And all you have to fill those spaces were a few lonely hours with a book or out hiking a walk path, striding further and further away from yourself. Simply existing, as the daily repetition of just breathing, eating and paying a growing pile of bills, hammered you into an attenuation of wasted hope and frustrated longings as dull and pale as spiritless ashes.

I visit every few years, to see my Dad who settled there, lured by the fishing and the cost of living. Usually my family meets at a siblings, at a central location we can all get to easily so I'm not there often. I enjoy seeing my Dad, but I don't look forward to revisiting what my future might have been had I not ever left.

For when I step away from his house, I don't really belong. After 7 years of college and a substantial career, I am a stranger in what many would call my home town. I'm one of the few who left, as soon as I was old enough to get to Seattle and fill my life with books and knowledge, travel and new mountains. I wasn't the only one that went, we heard about each other in bits and pieces, a scholarship notice here, a medical school graduation there. But those kids and myself soon drifted away from peoples thoughts and faded away, until we return for a visit and people look at us long and hard, as if they might remember us from a grainy photograph somewhere. No one knows exactly what to say. It's as we stepped over some invisible line in the sand when we left, and are never seen quite the same way.

Visiting Dad one summer I ran into someone at a grocers with whom I played with as a child. She's been working the register as long as I remember, and although she is as pretty as she always was, there's a roughness to her, like a piece of beautiful fabric that's become worn and frayed over time. "How have you been?" she asks, but the question doesn't reach her eyes - beautiful eyes fragile and the color of tea, the color only deepened by the wrinkles I already see around them. I don't think she recognized me either, age and life has its ways of changing us, but she saw the name on the credit card. She asks what I'm doing now and when I tell her, I might as well be telling her I was just abducted by aliens and returned, my life so foreign to the life she leads. "Well you have a nice day" she says and I nod and take the receipt for Dad, not knowing what else to say. We're strangers, and though as children we shared bike rides and ice cream, now we are looking at the world from completely different places.

I can't live my life that way, in a sepia toned existence of just eating and breathing and going to a job I hate to pay the bills for people who care as little for my dreams as I soon will myself. Waking up each and every day with tastes dulled by the grind of life with no flavor; skies cloudy with the dark reassurance that living life far back from the edge gives. Comfortable, safe, and as stale, bland and artificial as a Twinkie.

I left that life, as quickly as I could. Left in a trail of exhaust from a small airplane that would as soon kill me as carry me forward; leaving it perhaps a bit worse for wear, but alive. Flying out into a night as black as obsidian, senses sharp, and ready to jab at whatever life threw my way. Yes, it's been a life of changes, of mistakes, of tears, but it's brought me to this spot, here today.

Here where I keep small snippets of memory in a folder in my desk drawer to remember why it was all worth it. For memory feels before knowing remembers. It feels stronger than knowing recognizes. Memory feels with nerves sharpened by pain, and aged like wine, until every nuance of life is clear. Every choice you have made, laid out on a stainless steel table for your review.

In this small town in which I keep to myself, I am mostly a stranger but it doesn't bother me, as those who do include me in their circles do so for who I am now, and not what they expected me to be. Those that judge or prejudge aren't those I welcome in my life. My group of friends is small, but true; people like me, those that share that same elemental feeling of living that seems to have escaped so many. Last time I was back there I couldn't help but notice that the huge field back behind my Dad's home, where once we hunted for shiny black arrowheads, is now the parking lot of a Walgreens, and the forested hills behind me are crowded with homes, hills I could still see if not for the large Burger King sign that blocks the view. As I walked back from the store to my Dad's house I searched the once familiar sky for the clouds that fueled my dreams and strained my ears to hear the beloved sound of a log train. But the train no longer runs along that route and I only hear the clatter of traffic.I don't really belong here any more. Somehow today, I don't belong anywhere but here in this place, now, but here, I am at home.

Would I change my past, even the most profoundly painful parts of it, knowing I would not be the person I am today, in this moment of time, in this place? A past that, had it been less stressful, might only have ended diminished and foreshortened in it's outcome. For without all of those tears and struggles and changes in landscapes, I would not have ended up in just this one spot, in just this one moment, breath teeming with promise. Alongside me in the truck, the touch of soft black fur against me, my lab Barkley, my companion. Like me, he is ready for today's play as we head out into the countryside, resting up against my own arm, my skin smooth as obsidian, yet strong as steel, muscles taut with the excitement of just being alive.

It's not Saturday without malt, brass and an old English Poet or two.

It's Saturday which means there's some cleaning to be done before time to play.
Now for breakfast.

And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
A.E. Housman
English classical scholar, poet, & satirist (1859 - 1936)

My favorite outdoor range is very close to a tiny little town well north of the city. In that little town, there's a Dairy Queen right across the small street from a gun store . Can it get better than that? Dairy Queen AND a gun store right next to each other? Liberals are still aghast that no one has shot up the little town after a brain freeze from a Mr. Misty.

It's a great way to spend a Saturday. though. Go to the range, have some Dairy Queen and then wander across the street to see what is new in stock. I tend to order the same thing each time at DQ though. A small chocolate malt. I love malt. Malt is what is often used in "diner" type pancakes and waffles in place of sugar and gives it that unique "can't get at home" flavor.

Malting is a process applied to grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying and heating.

The term "malt" refers to several products of the process, the most common we know and love in this household as beer, whisky, malted milk balls, malted vinegar and of course malt powder.

Malt powder, also known as diastactic malt powder, is pure maltose, the sugar achieved when you ferment barley. Malted milk powder is maltose plus powdered milk and other ingredients. The two are not interchangeable, so be sure to use what the recipe calls for. Malted Milk Waffles. This one calls for the malted milk powder and makes light, delicious waffles with a nice undertone of vanilla and barley. I like my beer very hoppy and my waffles very malty.

Throw in some fresh .223 and temps in the low 50's and it could just be a perfect day.

Attention burglars

Ask not for whom the dog barks,

it barks for thee.

Thanks

It is a day to give thanks. For my parents, who took me in at an age when they should have retired. Took me in and raised me, giving me food and warmth. Caring for not just my physical body but my spiritual one, teaching me to be honorable to my friends, gentle with the underdogs, respectful to the aged and courteous and brave always. People who gave me, the frightened and parentless, unconditional love, without expectation of reward.

I give thanks for a successful hunt which put food on this table. Thanks for the ability to walk this land free, land that we can own and till and shape to our destiny. I am blessed to be able to walk such places, striding between impenetrable corn stalks which give a golden halo to the twilight, the sounds of my friend's voices up ahead. There's comfort in those voices, lost in the field's infinitude, my shadow and theirs, skimming along the rows, the deep panting in our chests as we move far into the cropland, air moving freely in and out, as do we.

I am thankful for a job that challenges and abilities that God has given me, and only ask that I continue to use them in ways that help and protect even if the vagrancies of this current climate do not allow me to speak of them freely.
And lastly, I give thanks for freedom. To be able to carry a weapon, to defend my life and my home, or to hunt the land that I love. I'm aware of the responsibility, for that is one of the many things my parents taught me. When I lift up my firearm, be it to protect or to provide, I feel the lift of this heart, as pristine as the first time it's walls expanded in pride, aware of the weight of my weapon, and it's history. Aware of how very lucky I am to live in this country, in this place, among these people that I love.

Not for the faint of heart.

I sold my .22 pistol. I know it's cheap to plink with, practice the site picture and all of that, but I just got bored shooting it. I want to shoot something that I can feel all the way down my arm. I want to ACHE when I get done shooting, not go home and polish my nails and feed my toy poodle.

It's like that with cooking. I love good, simple home cooking. Chicken and dumplings, roast beef and potatoes. But when I've been traveling, and all I've seen that's even remotely spicy is those airport hotdogs that have been rotating on those little grills since Lindbergh landed, I want something good. Not take out. Not fast food; but some food with some taste to it. This is a favorite. It is very easy to make and depending on your hand with the red pepper in the wing sauce, ranging from "gee, that's zippy" to "&*# Brigid, I can't feel my mouth !!" (Another satisfied customer).

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas
Start with a roasted chicken, skin removed and shredded, and pour on a cup or so of homemade hot wing sauce (just enough to moisten the meat). Drizzle with a creamy sour cream/ ranch type sauce and two types of cheese. Roll up, and cover with more sauce and the rest of the cheese. Bake at 350 until hot and creamy.

Go ahead, click on the pictures. Unless you're full from an airport hot dog I know you want to.

Four Things Greater Than All Things Are

Four things greater than all things are, -Women and Horses and Power and War.

~Rudyard Kipling, "The Ballad of the King's Jest"

Memories of a landscape of snow. As I ventured briefly out back with Barkley, there was nothing else braving the elements but some poor, cold creatures trying to seek shelter as best they could. If you looked out onto the snow, beyond it, trying to see past the grass and the water and horizon, it appeared to come down ever so fast, frantic, furious. Your life. . these years, can seem to hurry past that way if you let the vision of it trick you. Too fast, too hurried.

Way back in, behind where I lived and across the road south, there are horses. My home has a lot of art picturing wild horses. I love to watch wild horses run free. High desert snowflakes at home in their mane, hooves barely touching the ground, running to one accord, mighty free forms cleaving the air.

If I was out on a long walk, I just loved watching them, even domesticated. Standing out there just briefly in the snow, enjoying a couple minutes freedom before being brought into their owners warm barn for the night. Despite the bitter, bitter cold, I stayed outside for just a moment with Barkley, looking at my life as I looked as the snow as a child. As children, growing up where we did "Snow days" were infrequent. The world didn't stop for snow where snow was the norm. When we got one, we'd be outside the door before the breakfast dishes were even put away. Grabbing an inner tube to ride down cleared foothills, shoving a couple Archway cookies in our pockets and heading out into the dazzling white, waiting to where I could sit and just look up at it.

That's the snow I wish to remember. Looking up into the heavens trying to see where it originates, then the slow fall of it, parachutes of white dropping down, slower and slower. This is how I wished to view my life, at that slower wondrous state of snow, one where you live twice as long, and see twice as much wonder, and love twice as hard.

As pilots, flying through snow is unique, and we cry out like birds as we enter its first bands. surprised by how suddenly it envelopes us, one second a peaceful gunmetal sky, and in the next, snow emptying out the pool of grey, colour tumbling down til nothing is left but a bare canvas of heaven, pushing your craft through a cotton blanket at subsonic speeds. Flakes as big as an apple strike the window, sheets of snow and sleet pasting against the glass like discarded newspaper. When you fly through the snow, despite the chatter of the controllers, you feel totally alone, with an underwater hush, that cotton stuffed in your ears silence of snow falling, and you can't imagine that there is anyone else out there. Anyone else that feels as you do at this moment.

As the horses headed back inside that night, I saw a flock of geese above, trailing in their wake, trying to fly through the white. That touched parts of me, the sureness of them, the determination, as their gray and black shapes winged through the white, the world trying to tumble them upside down, trying to bury them. But their force and speed, flying through all that cold brightness, held true and onward they headed to the dark waters, to safety, falling at that last moment like planes crashing, but landing silently in a sheltered cove. For just that time there was nothing in my world but the sound of their mournful cry, black against white, and nothing in my mind but the sureness of wings, and the echo of sanctuary. The comforting stillness in which my head felt ever so clear, ever so empty of worry.

I walked back to the house, I could see the outline of it, and all in it that would be my life, the shape of it, the touch of it, through the heavy falling snow, but just barely, an outline of my future, filled with love and promise, perhaps sanctuary. Like a horse looking for the golden glow of the barn door and comfort of dinner, I headed towards the light, my feet barely touching the ground, seeing my future through the diffused light.

For there was the door, and soon I would fall in, landing safely, my mind at peace, flakes of cold in my hair.

The hunters return

The hunters and their four Marlins return from the hunt

Something old,

Something new

Something borrowed

Something blued.

--Mycroft Holmes

We were staying in an old farmhouse that belongs to a friend, empty of furniture and appliances, but clean and warm. Roughing it? No, but after last years season of public hunting ground, tents and rain, this was heaven. Plenty of room to lay out the sleeping bags.

I survived the Camp Cocktails. Propane, Coke, Dried Fruit and Rum! MMMM. I'm just kidding, we left out the dried fruit.

We ate well, with coolers and ice, and a little camp stove, taking turns cooking. The pie didn't last long.

Og made this cheesy beef, Rotel dip in a crockpot that didn't last long either. It was incredible. For breakfast, Rangebuddy made us ham and egg sandwiches and and since someone made the remark LAST hunting trip about being tired of corned beef hash I couldn't resist throwing this in the box of food. (We didn't open it.)

There was some technical difficulties. What do you mean no one brought duct tape? And I somehow got the elastic from my face mask completely tangled in my hair and had to be rescued by RB. One of a couple "blond moments" I had on the trip (wow Og, you can really see the detail in this soil close up:-). But still, we got out in time for the late day hunt on day one, Og bringing down a nice buck 5 minutes after he walked into the fields. That night, good food, some board games (yes that WAS an actual board game from the 80's that MyCroft Holmes brought. Just the board itself would be a whole post). Hilarious.

(click on the picture to read the box)

Day two, we were up at 5, getting ready to head out. There was a lot of laughter. As we all piled into my king cab truck, half way to the field someone starts in with the theme song to the A Team and off we went.

Where we were hunting was a pretty good section of land. No trees of the owner to put blinds on, but some slight rises on the edges where a few of the neighbors trees were, from which we could look down into rows that had been cut a day or two before. As the farmer worked the field, a couple of deer moved out and away, popping up into these lanes when you least expected it. Sit motionless for hours in the cold. Nothing. Stand up for 5 minutes to tell a joke? Look Deer!

I can honestly say it was the most fun I've had hunting in years, Staying out dawn to dusk as a hunter you see things few do, and think thoughts that come unbidden, there in the quiet. Good times, whether you bring home a trophy or not. My grandparents and great-grandparents were farmers, ranchers or lumberjacks. My Dad's parents, were originally from this area, moving West. Hard stock. Good people. As people of the land they understand the checks of nature, the culling of a herd to keep it healthy, the sacrifices of both the land and the beasts to feed us, to keep us healthy.

I write of the farmer often here, though it's been years since I lived on anything more than a hobby farm. Seeing it out here, watching these men work such long hours, literally sun up to sun down, I came home with a renewed respect for the single family farmer, for all of those who make their living from the soil, or tend to its bounty, providing sustenance to their family with the stores of God's earth.

We were asleep by 9 and up much before the sunrise. With tags allowing us more than one deer, and a farmer with some prize corn that was happy to see the deer population gleaned a bit, we headed back out each day for new adventure. I learned how to better wield a knife to field dress and got to see a squirrel pee on Og on day two. Day three, after a lot of the corn was taken down, leaving just a small area in which there were tracks going in we decided to flush them out, if there was one or two in there still. as though we had a couple of deer, we still could get more. Two of us walked the edges of that area while the other two guys went through the middle trying to make noise to flush them out towards us. It was deathly silent, then from inside the corn rows, I hear the vocal strains of "Ode to Joy" which then segued into Back Home in Indiana, in an incredibly rich, clear tenor that blew me away. I couldn't see who was singing but I broke out in a wide smile. Then the same voice broke into a rousing chorus of The Scrotum Song. Ahhh. Hunting with the guys. You never know what to expect.

But you will expect a wonderful time. There's nothing like hunting the small hills and rows of an Indiana cornfield with people you like and trust. For our host, there is not enough thanks. We appreciate it more than you know, and look forward to returning again. For now, the rounds have been removed from our Marlins, and we're ready to load up the truck for the day.
A neighboring farm still had 650 acres up in corn, backed by a nature preserve, so a good portion of the deer were still in there. But we all got to try our hand and came home with more than one deer, with memories of a great time. There will be more, with muzzleloader and archery season around the corner, and some more deer still hiding out there in the corn, waiting for the A-team.

Thanks for all your well wishes folks. I didn't come home empty handed, though none of us got a chance at the big buck whose prints we saw in and around when the sun came up. With a lot of corn still up due to the cold summer and late harvest, the deer, bucks and does, were scarce. But, with the genorisity of a landowner and the support of friends. I got a nice doe. Not a trophy, but fat and healthy, with tenderloins which now, are resting in my fridge after processing in the kitchen. Tomorrow, some of the remainder will be mixed with beef and pork and spice to make sausage in a new grinder purchased for the future. All in all, enough meat for a couple of months for this small household. To be eaten with thankful respect.

Revisiting Dad's Favorite Casserole

We start with leftover ham. A couple cups of it. Add a few inexpensive ingredients and you've got Home on the Range Rustler Russets. (also known in various forms as church supper potatoes in many, many cookbooks).

It's beyond simple, Take a 2 pound bag of hash brown potatoes. Stir in two cups of cheese of choice (I used a smoky cheddar) two cups of chopped veggies sauteed in butter until they are caramelized (all that butter they are cooked in goes in there too), a cup of sour cream, salt and pepper, a dash of garlic powder and a can of creamed soup.
Stir it up and put in a 13 x 9 pan. This will easily feed 6-8 hungry people. Even finicky kids LOVE this. Top with a generous cup of crushed corn flakes which were mixed with two tablespoons of melted butter. The buttery corn flakes add a really nice little crunch to the top.

Bake at 350 for an hour while you plan the next day's activities.
Time to eat!

If you shop wisely you can make this dish for about $1.50 per serving. An economical little treat.

Oh Deer.

The Hunt Begins. If all goes well, by the time you read this I will be on my way to camp, set to hunt starting Saturday while friends watch my house. 5 days off, 4 close friends, 750 acres of land Between all of us, (MyCroft Holmes ran a spreadsheet to plan it out), we've got a camp stove, a hibachi, coolers, fuel, paper products, garbage bags, ravioli, Brigid's canned green beans, peanut butter, beer, cashews, stuff to make hash and eggs, lunch meat, guns, ammo, gear, more beer, dark chocolate (shhh), water, coffee, deer transport material,towels, homemade bread, mustard, cookies, apples and bananas, this month's issue of "The Rifleman", oh and I baked this pecan pie thing (yes that's pie crust from scratch)There's light sources, unscented soap and shampoo, bandages, knives, books, stew, pillows, sleeping bags, a deck of cards, matches and board games. (Scrabble with Og, this could get interesting).

There will be a post or two up while I'm gone though I'm not taking anything more technical than a phone and a compass. Hopefully in a few days, there will also be some venison in the freezer and jerky drying in the oven.

Road Warrior

I went and applied for a new passport Friday as my old had expired. I have one of the "red" ones for work, but I can't use that if part of the trip is for vacation/personal travel. So I got the standard blue one. No smiling, as I was told, as they took my picture. That's fine, that will be my expression after spending 10 hours on an airplane anyway.

I'm going overseas after the first of the year. A conference in London. Then a short flight, small car, a map of Ireland and I'll be all set. Though it would be interesting to go be up in Devon in England in time for Christmas as a local article on the Woolacombe Bay Hotel said "their three night Christmas break includes a packed program of entertainment, a Crèche , excellent cuisine and a visit from Satan". And to think all I'm going to offer is ham and homemade rolls at my house.

I travel for work a lot, so actually going somewhere where I can sleep in a real bed, at my own schedule for a few days is going to be a treat. But I'll miss Barkley. Like all labs, Barkley is bred to hunt so when he gets bored sitting next to me when I write, he's turning his keen seek-and-destroy instincts, not on pheasants, but on dishtowels. If the edge of one nears the end of the counter he grabs it like a relay runner taking the baton and runs off with his prey. It's sort of been an emotionally brutal week and I'm too tired to chase him, so for today, I will sacrifice those small pieces of fabric to his primal urges.

Tonight as I do some housekeeping, I sorted out some photos from my last trip overseas. The older I get the more I enjoy these few nights at home, but the photos brought back memories of all the travel I've done in my career. By choice or not, it was part of the job. But travel brings something to you that people who live in the insular world of their home town their whole lives miss. That's not necessarily bad, some of the best adventures are on your own doorstep, in small places right around the block. But their is something about traveling far away, where the words that roll off the tongue carry a lilt of past lives. Where you are looking at things that have been in view for hundreds and hundreds of years. You look through new, but ancient eyes. It pushes your boundaries.

When you travel, you can become invisible, if that is what you choose. That is what I do, no podcast, no live feed of what I do each day while I travel. I like that. I like to be the quiet observer. Walking alone along the edge of another ocean, as it stretches away into space with it's illusion of freedom. Strolling through the celestial hush of a 500 year old square, the sun glinting off marble where the monotonous rain has washed it bright. What stories would that old building tell, what makes these people who they are? Could I live this life if I stayed here?You don't have to understand the language that is spoken, only the language of the streets, the scents, the stone. Without understanding a word around you the language becomes simply a musical background for watching the water flow onto the shore or a leaf blowing in the wind, calling nothing from you. Travel eases restrictions and expectations. No one cares if you have that document reviewed by Monday, or if you put on lipstick or checked your voice mail. You become a godlike creature of choice, free to visit stately churches, make love in the morning late, if just in your dreams, or sketch a church tower. You're open, if only for a short time, as if a child, to receive all of the world, not just your own. It is all there for the taking, multicolored flowers in bright density, the smell of fresh bread baking. You are a hunter free to explore and seek and find, and then return home bringing memories to lay on your doorstep.

My big suitcase is in the closet. There is no telling what stories it might bring back,

Gran Turino

If you haven't seen the movie Grand Turino get thee to the video store. I think it's probably the best movie I've seen in the last 5 years.

Many of you have already seen it and I won't give away the ending. But the film is much less a story than a formidable testament to a man's character, as Eastwood's aging character Walt, struggles to come to terms with a changing world and his inner demons, formed in the Korean War. Living in the house he's been in most of his life, quiet after his wife dies, his kids want to put him in a "home" (while the young ones brazenly eye his beloved car and his possessions). Making things harder for him is his issue with the way his blue collar Detroit neighborhood is now overrun by other cultures and increasingly, gangs.

His new neighbors are Hmongs who at first he stereotypically despises, and then befriends, helping the two young people of the family defend themselves against local gangs. This comes to a head when Thao, the family's young son, is blackmailed by a viscous outlaw band, cousins, to try and steal Walt's Gran Torino and is caught in the act. Ashamed, he agrees to work for Walt to pay off his dishonor to him. The car is a key element in the film, more than a vehicle to the man, but a large symbol of a vanished past of men's craftsmanship, hard work ethic, community and values.

As Walt deals with his old family, and this strange new family, for that is what they have become to him, the film quietly turns down a somber path. The ending reminded me, in spirit and subtle detail, of High Noon and The Shootist.

Of course, Walt has an M1 Garand, which I had the opportunity to shoot recently. Awesome weapon. Awesome movie - get your hands on both of them if you can.

Predator Hunting - Down on the Farm

This one is dedicated to my Indiana hunting buddies.. And of course, Farmer Frank, without whom we'd be sleeping in the soggy rain on public land again. You guys are the best!

My first night time predator hunt. 1996. A small farm in the Southern Plains where I lived with my husband. Coyotes were increasing in numbers, I'd found small fragments of remains of more than one small fawn, a cat or two, close to the house. When some killed a neighbors small dog after they had chased the terrified animal to the front porch in broad daylight, where his kids watched it being torn apart from inside the house, it was time to do something. Eradicate the coyotes and you are over run with mice; I am well aware of the checks and balances in nature. Yet there were more coyotes around than there was small prey for and they were hungry enough to do it too close in for comfort.

I'd seen them close to the farm house. Down in the south, we had predators, though none large. Though you more often hear a coyote than ever see one, they get bolder as they get used to living alongside we humans. I'd seen them trotting along the edge of the fields, through snow that clutched at their empty bellies, heads cocked, eyes forward, using instinct, tooth and sinew to find that one small morsel there breathing under the snow, trying to hide for its life, a small shivering rabbit, wishing as desperately not to be eaten alive as the coyote desperately wishes to consume.

I'd even seen them right at the edge of my yard, Just one, a scout looking at me from a tree line far away, and then leaving with a quiet yip of warning to his fellows. On his face, a canine smile of mockery. Not a smile that hints of internal laughter, but a laughter as mirthless as the smile of the Spinx, amusement as cold and hard as the ground. Was he alone? I was not to know. Only one had made itself known. Then one morning, right off the driveway as I opened the back door to take the mail out, a blurred commotion, a high pitched pleading scream that broke the lie of safety. A cry that caused me to run towards the sound as for just a moment it sounded like a child. I ran towards the brush lining the road on which kids wait for the rural school bus. I saw something darting quickly, a dark shape, too small to be human, too quick for me to catch a good glimpse. There, in the ditch, a small white form, a jagged tear in it's furry throat, rabbity legs twitching in the remembrance of life.

After getting the supplies I needed, I got my Remington and alerted my neighbors as to my intent so there would no wanderers on my land that night, except for the four legged kind. I checked my local and state laws. The regulations for night predator hunting, and using spotlights vary. My husband was off crop dusting over in Arkansas, working the rice for a few months. Like most things on the farm, I'd need to take care of it myself, not knowing when he'd return. I had a husband, but I fought my own battles and cleaned my own weapons. I had to, out here away from the comforts of city life.

I had hunted in the past as darkness fell, during whitetail season, the sun setting just as I finished up in my stand, but I had never set out before to purposely hunt at night. This was a different type of hunt for other reasons as well. Not to put food on the table but to purposely take the life of something that took life from this land without remorse.

The sun was completely gone at this point, that slow sun of this area, reluctant to leave. I readied my gun in a land gone dreamlike, familiar yet strange, like dreams of falling by the surefooted. The field I had walked through many times was shadowed, darkness seeping into the corners of the small patch of land, as water into a lifeboat. When the first yips of the coyote echoed, I drew my jacket close around me and eyed the distance to my truck cab.

Now I knew I was in no danger from the coyote or his brethren, but I was in his world. To my eyes, his world was dark, every noise I make a threat or a promise. Where he could see, I was blind, where he could smell, my senses were mute. What he could hear eluded me completely. What drew him in, was as old as time and as uncaring. While I had intellect and size he had the grimness of infallibility, instincts honed through generations of survival in an ever dangerous land. Despite the scientific part of my brain telling me that logically I was in no danger there are primal forebodings that stir softly in our blood. Times, despite logic, that cause a less than subliminal sense of something lurking, watching. Something that stalks quietly, closer to our world than we want.

I'm aware of predators and prey. During a whitetail hunt way out in the wilderness, I got my buck right at darkfall. Even with a shot straight through the heart, he bounded out deep into the woods. I went to track him, knowing that those I hunted with would hear the shot and come to help. We'd have to haul him out with all terrain vehicles as I was near a mile from my fellow hunters and much more than that to the cabin.

When I finally got to where he lay, the white tail a small sign in the deepening pool of blackness, I stood, hairs rising up along my forearms, my breath hot in my chest, despite the snow and the cold. I wasn't alone. Something instinctual kicked in and I stopped in my tracks. There, crouching over the remains of that magnificent 12 point buck was a dark shadow, merged onto my kill, hunched over the ribcage, dark on darkness where I couldn't tell where one shadow began and another ended. Something uttered a deep throated growl at me. A warning. This was not some cute woodland creature from a television cartoon. The stench of something primordial was in the air, more than blood, less than my suddenly dry mouth, and I knew that I had somehow in that moment slipped a rung on the food chain.

Shooting at it in near total darkness would only have pissed it off, so I slowly backed away and let whichever predator had found my buck have its due. I'd taken something that, in the realm of his basic instincts, was not mine to take, therefore, with bigger teeth, he would take it from me. I carefully made my long way back to the safety of the house, the fear seeping out of me like the deer's blood onto the snow. For it was when I stared into the flat eyes of something wild, something bigger than a coyote, that I realized that this seemingly sturdy body, that serves me subtlety and so well, is only so much meat, and my thoughts and life history would only be a night's sustenance to some creature of the night. . . or to fate

So years later, in the darkness out in my farm field, those thoughts came back unbidden. But my state had no large predators of the four legged kind so I settled down to wait. I'd have preferred a stand, but from the ground in this landscape that sloped down towards the creek I could see pretty well.

I knew they were in the area, in addition to the sightings I'd seen scat and tracks, so I needed to get set up quickly. Always a pilot, I knew which way the wind was coming from. A coyote’s sense of smell is highly adapted and they are notorious for circling downwind to gain scent advantage. so I positioned myself with the wind directly in my face. My face was covered with camouflage cosmetics. Human skin is highly reflective and coyotes will pick up on this, especially at night. My porcelain skin would look like a lighthouse to them. My clothing dark, my face a shadow, the flame of my hair, unscented, tucked under a cap.

The lure would be a rabbit in distress call. A call is the best way to go, but you'll want to practice first. With lungs 10 times bigger than a large jack rabbit, in my first attempt to use one I ended up sounding like a pig being water boarded. A lure to a predator is a small animal and a coyote can hear a small cry from a long way off. They are hungry but they are not stupid. The call is not constant, a long, loud, drawn out incessant wail might work for a spoiled two year old at the grocery but it does not work on Canis Latrans. But since I was alone, juggling gear, I used a tape that played in a small battery operated player, a recording well crafted and not just a constant bleat of animal in trouble.

There's a soft opening call. Silence, then another, more urgent, silence. Distressed wails and cries,.silence. I knew it would just be a matter of time before they moved in. The night was warm, yet my fingers were cold on the grip of my gun, blue steeled cold of a .223 Remington. Hunting predators with shotguns can be fun, but coyotes are tougher than you think and tonight I wanted more than my little Browning to shoot at the distance that might be needed.
The stars were bright, yet the only real light was the red lens covered light on my rifle. If you hunt alone, there are lights that mount on the scope and others that mount on the rifle itself. I'm not one for a lot of stuff mounted on my guns. None of my pistols have scopes or laser dots or anything, so I wasn't too keen on mounting a light on it. But I would be hunting alone, and juggling a light, call and weapon, at night, was going to be as awkward as a blind date. Fortunately, I found one by in Texas that was light enough that it would not hurt the scope.

As I waited, the only sound was the the piercing whine of insects playing in accompaniment to the distant percussion of distant thunder. A peek through the scope revealed only blackness, mocking me as I slowly and surely swept my range. There, in mid sweep, about 200 yards out, a set of close-set red eyes burning out of the night. There! Another set, as I got behind the optics. But I waited. Other farm and domestic animals in the night could be mistaken for predators. Shooting my neighbors only cow would not be a good way to be re-invited for Sunday supper. During the daytime you can see your backdrop or what lies beyond the target. At night, this is normally not the case and I would not take off a shot until my target was clearly identified, though I was careful not to shine the line directly in their eyes, but just above.

There, a silhouette in moonlight, a third shadow emerging from the tall grass, along the creek line. I knew they would come in through there. Coyotes will cross an open field, but only if there are not better options. There, under the light of an almost full moon, he turns away, all but disappearing, then turns back, the plaintive pleading of a dying rabbit too great a lure. He's not much more than a shadow on the ground but he is most definitely a coyote.

I hesitate for just an instant. Like the coyote, I am a predator, taking what I need to sustain. Doing what I have to to stay alive. Like him, I am alone even when I'm in my pack, dispossessed except for those times I am in the outdoors, for it is only the outdoors that feeds and nourishes me. I haunt the shadows of the wilderness that my own race continues to destroy. Yet, like the small field rabbits that are his prey, I just want to go about my way, unmolested, free to travel in sunlight or darkness without fear.

As deep blue shadows linger softly on the landscape, and my finger moves from ready to fire, I can't help but empathize for just that moment with both the coyotes survival mechanisms and a tiny animals cowering fear in this perilous world. A world we all could be snatched from at any time, seized from quiet survival into an explosion of pain. Our primordial past is closer than we realize. Watching us and waiting to pounce.

So I hesitate for only for a second, I drew up and carefully accessed what I saw through the scope, watch the movement of the eyes, their directing telling me which way he is going, a telltale slow drift to tell me he is still stalking, getting bolder. When he was 150 yards away, without movement, I slowed, and silently hit pause on the call, simply making a lip squeaking noise, kissing sounds through the mouth, using the back of my hand against my mouth for more volume, to coax him in. The kiss of death. 100 yards away, I touched the trigger and the Remington spoke for all of the small creatures of the forest, one shot broadside behind the right shoulder. I started the call again. Gunshots don't spook them. I got two more that night, before coldness took me back to my quiet country home.

Now, I no longer live on that farm, but alone on a small piece of land in a small town to which the city grows ever closer around me. Some say we are safer out here in the country, in these small towns of America. Despite the country setting, Mayberry-like town, and red white and blue speckled mailboxes, there is no truly safe place anymore, especially for a woman. Though there are certainly more crimes where more people live or where the the law-abiding are disarmed, the heart of evil roams equally at will through asphalt and country roads, through the bayous and in the blogosphere. Predators are among us, watching from a line at the corner market, waiting in the darkness of a rural parking lot, waiting for us to be human and make a mistake. Waiting for that sign, that manner, that tells them that you are un-toothed and un-fanged, a soft and tiny target for their cruel nature.

We think, as humans, we have dominion over the wild, especially when we are young and think we are immortal. But when we are in the wild places, be it a forest or the streets of a city, we are on the edge, an edge that is neither a humanitarian or lenient. The slow, the infirm, the trusting . . . perish. Those without sharp tooth or claw, those trusting of form, will always be prey.

On that night long ago, at least, there would a few less predators, on other days and evenings more would be hunted, until they moved back from our yards, away from our homes and pets. . . . but only for now. For they will come back. Predators will roam the roads and quiet plains of our earth as long as there is darkness, the derisive echoes of their voices carried on the harsh wind.

I looked around me, to make sure I am alone before heading back to the truck, the darkness cooling the blood, the field empty and quiet, except for the steady sound of a small wounded wounded rabbit, a ceaseless and unemphatic cry into the night.

Breaking the Rules

The fashion experts says you should not wear white after labor day. . . .
Some rules I've broken and paid dearly for. But fashion is not one I worry about. When I'm trying to think of "what to wear", somehow the fashion experts don't come to mind.

Just a note - Unfortunately I'm not longer leaving comments open to anonymous and non bloggers. I will dearly miss hearing from some regulars here but I seem to have attracted a large troll.

King of Casseroles

Casseroles. Being half Scandahoovian I have my soft spot for them, having helped my Mom carry one off to the Lutheran church suppers many, many times. Some casseroles are mundane, nothing more than the bastardized offspring of a can of cream of cluck and some leftover meat (and often with some peas, but for the sake of my friend Old NFO, I won't go into detail about those). Some casseroles have become legend. At least in this household.

King Ranch Chicken. It's not particularly photogenic, most casseroles aren't, but I just had to share it. The origin of the name of this casserole is shrouded in a bit of mystery as the famous Texas ranch, famous for beef, not chicken, claims no relationship to the recipe.

The King Ranch, the largest that I know of in the United states, covers four Texas counties and is as large as the entire state of Rhode Island. Founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King, a steamboat pilot, it is still a working ranch today producing cattle and thoroughbred horses.

Though the origin of the name King Ranch chicken is a bit vague this simple casserole delivers Texas sized flavor that will make it a favorite no matter how gourmet your palate. It doesn't photograph real well but coming out of the oven. . . . .you will have folks lined up for a heaping plate of cheesy, gooey, tomato-y, chili and spice mixture that travels real well to a potluck (or a church supper).Pair it up some some veggies or salad with ranch dressing (no pun intended) and some cornbread and you have yourself a dinner that would do any table proud.

When it Gets Close to Home

I wasn't going to post this. It happens a lot I thought, no big deal, but then the thought, that it happens more and more now, hit me, and I changed my mind.

I have a small pistol with me whenever I'm home. Either next to me by the computer, or in my holster if I'm in the shop or the yard where someone could approach me, there under my t shirt or denim jacket. Out and about I carry heavier caliber, but at home, just puttering around, I always felt comfortable with just a "pocket pistol" or something slightly bigger in a .380.

Then a few days ago someone kicked in my back door. In broad daylight. I had only minutes before gone out the front door to walk down and get the mail before driving off to the office. Barkley was napping in one of the front bedrooms where he can watch me as I get the mail and then leave (oh, did someone send us milk bones??) So I was already out the drive and on my way when it happened. Apparently Barkley scared them off, he likely rushing barking towards the back of the house when he heard the noise. The phone was ripped out of the wall and a coffee table was tipped over. (Probably as they crapped their drawers trying to get away from upset 100 pound black haired dog with big teeth.)

None of the neighbors came to check on things. The police were summoned by the call from the alarm company, the sound of which was still blaring. You do not want to know how long it took them to get there. It was expected given the relative sense of how long those things usually take today. But whoever did it was LONG gone by then and had they caught me alone and unarmed, they would have had plenty of time to hurt me before an officer arrived.

Barkley was frantic, and after it was all clear I got him calmed down and got the broken door bits replaced. Other than a coworker and Rangebuddy I didn't tell anyone. It had only been a couple of days prior that a girlfriend of mine and I were talking over Pomme Frites and Hangar Steak about how there were more and more houses out where I live (and more crime with it).

For all of you who think that home invasions don't happen because you live (1) in a nice neighborhood or (2) outside of the city or (3) have an alarm. Think again.

Think and consider these common misconceptions.

The police are going to be there to protect you, especially if that expensive little alarm DOES go off. I have the greatest admiration for our police officers, including our locals who have to cover an ever increasing crime rate. I can't say enough about Bloggers who are or were LEO's, people like Cowtown Cop, Expert Witness, Lawdog and Sean from I Aim to Misbehave, and others. People that exemplify all that is right with the men and women in that profession. My Mom was a Sheriff, my Dad was Military Police. But with budgets everywhere dropping, police departments are understaffed. They do what they can, but the law, and the budget, only allows so much.

Don't sit back, unarmed and wait for the police to protect you. The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. D.C. the court stated "courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community." (1)

Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities. Smith was asked why so many citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well better, they've got to protect themselves."(2)

The Department of Justice found that in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence which were not responded to by police within 1 hour.(3)

It's not a matter of commitment folks, the numbers clearly show that the police can not protect each and every individual. Ten years ago there were about 150,00- officers on duty at any given time to protect a population of 260 million Americans. (4) You don't want to know what it is now.

Do the math and keep your skills up. You may not have any warning, no ringing of the doorbell to see if someone is home. Or they just think, "woman, alone, even better".

2. That little pocket pistol or granddad's old dusty shotgun is enough, I don't need anything bigger in my own home, for Pete's sake.

.22? A carefully placed and/or lucky shot might put someone down. I've also seen MANY a bad guy in the emergency room full of assorted rounds of .22 and still pissed as hell.
The .380 that's in my little Bersa I carried? (The second one from the left above.) As the folks over at Buffalo Bore recently stated, when it comes to the standard .380 ammo as a reliable means of self defense, especially against a drugged up/pain free, and/or mentally unstable attacker you're asking for trouble.

The current 380 auto frangible ammo delivers a large amount of surface trauma, but lacks serious penetration. Shoot the average sane person in the face with the .380 ammo I have in my drawer and it might take off a portion of their cheek and send a few teeth down their throat, putting him to the ground in shock and pain. But that frangible bullet, though doing some serious hurt, would not likely make it to his brain. Try that same shot with someone insane or on drugs, and he may slow but he won't stop, because only a CNS (central nervous system) hit with a 380 is going to stop him. Likewise, a torso hit to the sternum needs to penetrate deep enough to the spine to bring him down fast. If you fail to shut him down instantly, you better hope you can keep his hands off you or your family while you wait for him to bleed out and pass out.

Myself, after this, .40 or .45 (that's the third bullet from the left in the picture). Whether I'm playing sitting here typing away or out for a walk in the woods.And finally.

3. If someone comes through my door, desperate or high, I can handle it,

Someone said "would you have shot them if I'd been in the house when it happened?" Yes. Without hesitation. I'm trained for that, with that mindset. But not everyone who has a gun in their home is either capable or ready for that. You think you are, you think your partner or spouse is, but you're not. It's got to be more than buy the gun, plink with it a few times, then when the cost of ammo goes up, put it away in a drawer. You have to practice, whether it's warm and nice out or the icicles are forming on your nose.
I think Don Gwinn said it best "Because it's not about the fun and excitement of killing people. It's about the willingness to go through the ordeal of shooting someone if that's what it takes to keep yourself and other innocents safe". Yes.

My female coworker (admin type) said "well, if they'd come in while you were still inside you could have just shot them in the arm to stop them, without killing them".

Look. Shooting someone in the arm is still using lethal force in the eyes of the law, and under which you MUST be in immediate danger of grave bodily injury or death. If you are not, then you are not authorized to shoot them all. That's pointed out in CCW classes I've participated in, but some states do not require any training for CCW and the legal aspects may NOT be known to some folks. If you pull your gun, as Caleb had to do recently, and they drop their weapon and run, let them. If they run off of your property with your finest flat screen let them run. The law is specific. But if someone is approaching me and is of the size or threat where I am in danger, I'm going for center mass, not the arm. Why? I'll give you several reasons.

(1) During an event when the life is, or is perceived as being mortally threatened, the body enters fight or flight mode. The brain dumps hormones including adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol into the body to prepare our itself to survive. The downside, these same hormones that, increase our alertness and strength and endurance also decrease our reaction time. Why? Blood is diverted from our extremities and from the surface of the skin to decrease bleeding if we were to be injured, functions not necessary for survival including digestion are slowed or completely shutdown. ( I personally believe my metabolism entered the fight or flight mode at age 40 but that's another post)
That in turn, greatly diminishes our fine motor skills, tunnel vision may occur, and many people begin shaking, not out of fear but as a response to the hormones being released into the body.

In this state some people have lost the ability to unlock doors, operate phones, or other actions that require fine motor skills. Being accurate with a handgun is exceedingly difficult, that ability is greatly reduced. In this state, even the best of shooters may not be able to get that one shot to the shoulder, arm or elsewhere. Or you miss. And they are upon you.

#2 The bad guy probably is probably mobile. Shooting at a moving target is far different than a stationery one. Just shooting at a target that's offset, when you are used to practice shooting straight ahead is hard. The head, arms and legs all naturally move when the body moves, sometimes a lot, making them much harder to hit.

Even highly trained shooters see a considerable drop in success in hitting the target when it is moving.

#3 The bad guy is intent on harming you or killing you. Shooting at that paper target is far different than shooting him. There is less time, he's not standing still like Mr. Paper Bad Guy, and he may be armed and moving, as intent on hurting you as you, him.

#4 The human body is extremely sturdy. Trust me on this one; when someone is shot, it's not like TV where they get flung across the room, crumple up in a little dead heap on there floor. There are exceptions, a head shot will drop them pronto, but the vast majority of shots are center mass. My friends at the FBI did a study some years ago on Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness in which they state that even after the heart is hit hard a person MAY have 10-15 seconds of willful control. That's 10-15 seconds in which they will do all they can to kill you. I've shot a deer multiple times, through the heart and watched it leap yards and yards and yards before it drops.

And if you miss the heart, remember the body is capable of pretty much continuing to operate until about 20% of the blood supply is drained and far longer with a likely lethal wound to them that hasn't caused immediate blood loss. Shots to the stomach? Serious on the OUCH factor, but recently a criminal in Idaho was been shot over 20 times in that area and survived. Face it, shots to the arms or legs or shoulder aren't going to result in a blood loss that's going to stop someone, with some small ammos, they don't even REALIZE they've been shot until it's all over, what with the adrenalin going.

Shooting to kill is just that, hitting a vital organs such as the heart/lungs, in areas that will bring rapid and uncontrollable bleeding, or to the head.

Once they are dead you stop, and if they run away, you stop. Whether your life was in immediate and grave danger, if there's a bullet in the back or buttocks of the criminal YOU are now the criminal in the eyes of the court.

Just some things to think about.

Not poetry, food or humor for a Sunday, I'm afraid, but just some things I felt I had to say. Not to make a big issue of it, but to get others who think they're safe where they are, to think a little more about their surroundings, what they have by way of defense, and who might be watching them. .

I'm fine. I was more worried about the dog then myself. I got a big hug from my friend RB and a new back door. I slept OK, but had the Winchester Silvertips handy. Being in the line of work I'm in, I know all about the world not being a safe place and I've grown accustomed to the idea. We are living in increasingly desperate times. But I used to think I could putter around my own property, off duty, out away from the big city, without bother. No more. The gun is nearby, it's bigger, and by God, I may never have to use it, but if I do, I will. I will be shooting to stop.
1. Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A. 2d 1 (1981). See also Richard W. Stevens, Dial 911 and Die (1999) which gives the laws and cases in all 50 states to support the statement that government (police) owes no duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack.
2. Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in U.S. Senate, "Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1987," Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary (16 June 1987):33.
3. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics—1990 (1991):257.
4. Interview with Brian A. Reaves, Ph.D., statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, D.C. (January 11, 2001). In 1996, the total number (estimated) of all law enforcement combined (federal, state and local) that were on duty and assigned to respond to calls at any one time—on the average—was approximately 146,395 officers. There were 265,463,000 people living in the United States in 1996 for an actual ratio of 1,813 citizens for every officer. .

IDLE HANDS. . .

Hmmmm. The cute little fridge magnet from vacation seems to have been. . . . . altered.

Disclaimer

click to enlarge photo

There's warnings on everything any more. When they have to stamp it on the barrel of a perfectly good revolver, that's just too much.

I have a girlfriend who is re-entering the dating field after quite a few years spent being a single Mom. For her (yes you know who you are :-) here are some popular disclaimers that can be applied to dating, as men and women have learned over time.

Disclaimer: dating is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. All models over 18 years of age. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. Use only as directed. No other warranty expressed or implied. No dogs or horses. Apply only to affected area. May be too intense for some viewers. Freshest if eaten before date on carton. Subject to change without notice. Times approximate. Simulated picture.

Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement.

One size fits all. Edited for television. Keep cool, process promptly. Return to sender. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Penalty for private use. See label for sequence. Add toner. Your canceled check is your receipt. Sanitized for your protection. Sign here without admitting guilt. Limited time offer, call now to ensure prompt delivery.

You must be present to win.

Approved for veterans. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes. Reproduction strictly prohibited. List at least two alternate dates. First pull up, then pull down. Call toll free before digging. Driver does not carry cash. No transfers issued until the ride comes to a complete stop. Package sold by weight, not volume. Ribbed for your pleasure. Your mileage may vary. Tumble dry on low heat. Do not spindle, fold or mutilate.

Safety goggles may be required during use.

Use only in a well-ventilated are. Keep away from fire or flames. Replace with same type. Not liable for damages arising from use or misuse. No substitutions allowed. For a limited time only. Action figures sold separately. If ingested, do not induce vomiting. Possible penalty for early withdrawal. Slightly higher west of the Rockies. Slippery when wet.
Disclaimer does not cover misuse, accident, lightning, flood, tornado, Acts of God, neglect, incorrect line voltage, electromagnetic radiation from nuclear blasts, sonic booms, customer adjustments that are not covered in this list, and incidents owing to vehicular accident, falling objects, snake bite, road closure, forest fire, flood or projectiles (including but not limited to bullets, arrows, BB's, lasers, sharks with lasers, shrapnel, napalm, torpedoes, X ray emissions, knives, rocks, paper, scissors, and Alpha, Beta or Gamma rays.) Other restrictions may apply.

and lastly . . . . Batteries not included.

Veteran's Day

After going ashore he went looking for Darby. Approaching one member in a Ranger uniform, he asked his usual question, 'Do you know where I can find Col. Darby?'

A slow grin crossed the face of the husky soldier as he answered, "You'll never find him this far back."
----We Led the Way: Darby's Rangers

Veteran's Day. So many blog posts about it, there's little that I could add, but I wish to. Words of comfort to the families of those that have fought and died, those on battlegrounds far, those on a battleground that came too close to home. Words, so they know their loved ones are not forgotten. To let them know that that their life was an honorable one, that a solder who loves his or her country is the one great certain in the uncertainty of this world. That whether we believe in the battle itself we believe in their commitment to serve and protect. And we are the better for them.

It has been some years since I went to a military cemetary, there to see pay respects for a colleague who had lost his life in service On seeing the bare ground at another grave site, I brought back flowers and laid them down for that unknown soldier, as the silence was broken by the sound of a C-130 flying low on a training mission overhead. For a few moments it stayed in view, visible among the trees, a bright blaze of military green in a wild blue sea. Doing its mission until it got fainter and smaller and smaller til it was gone, but not forgotten.

Further away was a site for yet another funeral, the area site adorned with flags, small ones at grave site and larger ones near the folding chairs. Taps would be played, with one young soldier playing the echo. I imagined the grieving family hearing it and realizing that it meant distance. The dead were not sleeping, they were gone. Then later, the final taps were played, and there was no echo, yet they still remembered it, for the memory helps us hold on. After a while, an echo is enough.

Veterans Day is a thank you to those that serve, that still serve. But it's more than that, it's a remembrance of courage that sometimes brings with it the ultimate sacrifice, a remembrance of a death that brings us freedom. Of sacrifice, of knowing what you have done will not be forgotten. Of the hope that after darkness there is a brilliant light of freedom, radiant comfort in the unknown.

To those who have served and paid the price, the country can never fully thank you and your families for what you gave. For those of you who serve, and continue to honor this country - thank you, all of you. Veterans and Heroes that I have not met yet, and those that are family and friends.

Dad (WW II Army Air Corp, USAF Lt. Colonel - Retired, pictured here at age 89)

Rangebuddy (U.S. Army Rangers). Christina (U.S. Air Force)

Caleb (U.S.C.G. Diligence)

Lorimor (U.S. Navy)

(Mrs. Lorimor, who took the picture, had just caught this one's brother)

Ron, aka Warthog- (U.S. Navy)

Gales of November

Dan - Out on the Rock writes of his experience as a sailor and to the life it has brought him to, told to the strains of a song that never fails to move me, that of a ship lost this day, 34 years ago.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

I've been fascinated by the old sailing ships for years, because of one that's been a part of my memory since childhood, one that fueled my fascination with the archeology of accidents. A hundred years come and gone, yet the skeletal remains of that beautiful seagoing vessel still linger in a shallow grave, attesting to the passing parade of time and the long ago era of the sailing ship.

The 3 a.m. hour of October 25, 1906 was like many an Oregon night, dark, windy and cold. The 278 foot long Liverpool sailing ship, fashioned of steel plates on an iron frame, was laboring toward the mouth of the Columbia River on its way to Portland, Oregon. But its 25 crew and 2 stowaways, who were likely seriously reconsidering their decision, weren't destined to make it there.Thick mists obscured the beacons of the light houses and the Columbia River light ship. There, Captain H. Lawrence made the stalwart decision to stand, to await a Pilot. A heavy southwest wind was brewing into strength and the sail was shortened. Yet before the dawn flashed true from the east, the skipper found his ship caught in a churning mass of breakers and a fast rising northwest wind. Crunching over the bottom of the Clatsop Spit, the shock sent the mizzen top hamper crashing to the deck. The good men of the Peter Iredale scattered like buckshot. The ocean again slapped them in rage. More sections of the masts, rigging, blocks and tackle, thundered to the deck. Men scrambled to save her, to save themselves, amidst the tangle of wreckage, but soon the fated ship had run aground, breaking off it's top spars, the heavy rain squalls and gale force winds from the west pushing them ashore. The Captain ordered them to abandon the ship and fired rockets into the air to summon help.

The lifesaving station at Point Adams responded, sending a team of men to rescue the crew. It was a dangerous task, but the lifesavers managed to bring them safety to shore and shelter at nearby Fort Stevens. The maritime inquiry absolved the master and his mates in any wrong action in the loss of the ship, and there were hopes for salvage. The hull was, for the most part, intact undamaged and there was thought as to towing the vessel, stern first, into deepening water.

For a few more weeks, the shipmaster stood hopefully by, praying that the Peter Iredale would be restored, a pilots sheer love of his ship, but salvage operations were soon abandoned. The ship, now listing starboard like a wounded bird, half embedded in the sands, was abandoned, paid off by the insurance underwriters and remaining simply a visage of loss on the landscape that claimed it. Nature being, as usual, the superior foe. Captain Lawrence was commended by the British Naval Court for his actions to save his men, and his ship and he was remembered as well for his toast to the once proud vessel as he left her. The red-bearded Captain smartly saluted, and hoisting a bottle of whisky said "May God Bless you, and may your bones bleach in the sands."

The wreck languished for years, though a popular site for out of state tourists, and didn't make the news again until World War II, when a Japanese submarine off the Oregon coast logged some enemy shells directly over her remains, landing in the empty fields behind. The very next day the Army strung rolls of barbed-wire from Point Adams south, to thwart a would-be enemy invasion, entwined through the wreck where they remained until the end of the War.

My Mom spent part of her youth around the Portland and Oregon coastal area, before she married and we used to rent a little place there for holidays, on the beach south of the wreck of the Peter Iredale lay. As many times as we went back to visit, the wreck was as constant as the tide for me, each year, like my own life, presenting something new and undiscovered. In some years it was almost buried in the sand, and then the next, it would venture out boldly so that we could climb on its rusted hull and hunt for hermit crags in pools at its feet, digging among its remains for artifacts and buried treasure.
What about it fascinated me so? Still does. Archeology, from Late Latin archaeologia (antiquarian lore) and the Greek archaiologia, as stated in the dictionary to be - " the scientific study of material remains (as fossil relics, artifacts, and monuments) of past human life and activities".

So for me this wreck is archeology in the sense of touching, physically touching, past lives, past hardships. Yet its more than that, it's the wellspring of memories, of my generation and the one behind, and its lure comes from the comfort of continuity, the blending of the past with our futureFor me it is the lure of a rust-hued countenance of a ghost ship. Lighthouses have been built and abandoned, wars won, battles lost, two generations have lived and died, yet the wreck of the Peter Iredale lives on. I've climbed around it, waiting for it to speak to me. Except it would tell us nothing but that someone was there, someone with courage and spirit and adventure in their soul. Someone who would risk all to tend to their ship, to their comrades. A message that we can not fail to understand, for it is our message, it is what we as pilots of the air or the ocean, as explorers of a nation, uncover each day.

There has been many a night when I'd been on a recreational sailing vessel on that same river, on that same coastline. I was not the master, simply one of the mates, trying to learn my duties or simply keep a running tally of how much beer we had left. Yet on those nights, when the others were sleeping and I was up late, on deck with something to drink, I'd think back to the crew of the Peter Iredale and what they were doing before nature picked them as its play toy. They were likely gathered cheerily like we had been, eating and drinking, tending to their chores, sharing the resemblance of familiar duties. They were no different than the scholars turned sailors I was spending my weekend with. On the deck, holding a mug of hot tea, that knowledge came to me like the cool night breeze, yet it also brought to me the warmth, the comfort that I felt in my hands. When we look at the past, at people, events, when we study them, it is not so much that we wish to reconstruct their lives for the dead, but for the living. Our lives. This moment.

I still dig in the past, in the sun bleached remains of my day to day work or simply the earth. Digging in Dad's yard two years ago, while I was tending his vegetable garden for him, I unearthed a tiny plastic soldier, and that tiny battered warrior, recreated a flood of memory of childhood days when my younger brother and I played for world dominion out in the back yard. The touch of its small battered form brings back the scent of the earth in our back yard, the shade of the apple tree that sheltered us, the warmth of the sun.

Was this little figurine simply a forgotten toy or was he buried in some forgotten childhood military honor? Like anything long lost, he spoke to me of a demand for remembrance. Of recognition for the role he served.
We are all archaeologists of life. Coming back to my own home when I've only been away for a week or two, I'll open it up and explore its contents as if I was discovering it after a hundred years. For it is indeed the past. A receipt for a meal with my friends, a couple stray kernels of popcorn that escaped the flame, rolling around on the floor like ball bearings, a friends homemade calender on the refrigerator marking days of history of their own. In the fireplace, logs from ancient trees gathered from land where Indians once roamed. A Japanese float, off of a net that floated three thousand miles to be tossed up by the Peter Iredale and snatched up by a little redheaded girl. It is my home and like any true home it always holds within its walls the artifacts of those it believes will return to it.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

It makes us human, these artifacts of our past, these shifting layers of sand, shifting layers of history. We sort through the remains of our life, as we look, eyes squinting into the glare, west into a sunset that also glinted through the rusty hull of a shipwreck. Bit by bit, like us all, it imperceptibly succumbs to the ravages of time. It struggles to keep from being washed away and forgotten. Remember us. Remember me, in this place, time but small grains trickling through my hands, from century to century, hours and minutes, miles and footsteps.

From not so far away I hear the faint tolling of a bell. From the bones of a sailing ship to my own life, the span of distance is small.

Chef Boyar-WHO?

I admit, I keep a few cans of the canned ravioli in the bug out pantry. It's one of only a few canned foods I can happily scarf down cold when I'm tight on time and cooking means.

But if I have a few hours, why not Homemade Ravioli with Ricotta Cheese Filling. Homemade Pasta is NOT as hard as you think. You just need a mixer with a dough hook and a crimper for the edges.

Go on, click to enlarge, I know you want to.

Serve it up with some Garlic Bread. Add some roasted veggies and top with fresh marinara, or even better some Venison Meat Sauce.

Hmmmm, where would I get venison??

My first bow kill. Not that big, but I was proud of it.

Harvesting a Life

There in the corn was the remains of a very small rabbit, its lower body cut clean away, vacant eyes still open to the world. The expression, that of a prehistoric beast caught in a tar pit, an exclamation of shock and surprise, carried into history only as a rough sketch on a cave wall viewed thousands of years later, fighting or stopped in the trying.

The killing wound was clean, likely from a fox. The rest of the tiny creature, long gone, nourishment for a scavenger of the night. All that remains, this one small piece, will soon decompose to its most natural element, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen. Blending into the earth, a land that is both dangerous and embracive.
Looking out onto the field, you don't see the animals, you don't notice the predators. But we are here. For it's only a week to opening day.

I love the Northern part of this state where I have whitetail hunted for the last 13 years, though the last 7 I was only able to go once in Indiana, with demands of work and the land I once hunted on being sold. The soil here is rich, dark and welcoming, unlike the clay laden soil that is around my home. The people, sturdy stock that have tended these miles for generation after generation. Families passing on stories of the land, as the land itself claims little bits of us, taking us back into the soil, tending us under our heavenly Father's eyes.
My grandparents on my Dad's side are from this area, and though the land should be foreign to one who was raised in the mountains of the West, I feel completely at home here. Walking among the stalks of corn, I look out on horizon flat scraped clean by glaciation, the mirage of a barn there in the distance beckoning. For although I've lived many, many places, their towns and shores offering me changes in scenery and sky, placed before my like gifts, I always came back here to hunt, and later to live, for in this land are my roots, thirsty roots sunk deep.
I arrive up Farmer Frank's, who has graciously offered up the use of some of his property for us to hunt. Around us are the dormant farm machines, stopped for only a short period, looming like prehistoric skeletons, frozen in time. Around us the smell of grain, the smoke from fires burning near, a shadow passing through the grass. Coyote, fox, or the ghosts who follow our lives? The land is teeming with life, seen and unseen, deer hiding like shy schoolgirls amidst the corn, a young six point buck, flirting in and out, a shimmering form that flashes briefly as the gleaner stops, melting into the russet tones of earth and grain, as day stars melt in blue.

It was a glorious day, riding in the farm van to another spot a few miles away, where late afternoon four legged traffic in that area may present an opportunity not found in the morning, The windows open to the unusually warm air, a semi truck following us closely, gaining on us. The phone rings. Frank answers it and we hear the caller say "lead, follow or get out of the way", and Frank starts laughing, the semi truck, full of popcorn, being driven by a friend of his. We wave and turn off towards the next area that will be scouted as the red truck speeds past us, against a diorama of grain and sky.
There are several spots that will be hunted, and I've planned out mine, against a ditch line, which deer love, in a small blind that sits year round so the deer get used to it. I can see the property line, and know their paths, surprising two large does even as I checked out the condition of the rough blind. I'm hunting with friends, more fun as a group, plus I won't have to wrestle my deer into the truck 'Weekend at Bernie's' fashion. MycroftHolmes will be in a corner deer crossing against a nice tree line. Rangebuddy, a former Army Ranger, gets to occupy the grassy knoll out in the open, where the deer make a long range drive past towards the woods about 4:30. Og will be north, in another corner against thick corn where the deer are overpopulated. But he may have to take one down with a bowie knife or a gun sighted at five feet if all the corn isn't down by then. The cold, cold summer has taken a toll on the harvesting plans.The wind was brisk, drying out my contact lenses, making me blink into the glare of a sun so bright I found it hard to see past the glare outside of the vehicle. We bustled out, like kids after a long trip, finally arriving at their destination, hurry, hurry, we're here! Tumbling from the vehicle we head out into another field where possibilities exist, Frank showing us the best spots for deer.
We walk the land sharing stories of our families, of grandparents from whom we inherited our strength, of losses keen, of laughter shared. Tales of strong settlers, who did not so much til the earth as rough it up and render it humbled. People stood on these very spots fifty years ago and smelled the land, and knew as we do, that no matter how much you love it, it is no sheltered world. Thunderstorms rear up and fight isolated battles of rain and hail, along with wind and erosion and fate. All curl up over the land, sometimes depositing richness, sometimes stealing our hearts. We give and we take and so does the land.
As we talk, we walk, pointing out a spot, a knoll, places where the deer stream through, into the veined complexity of trees. Those areas between open plains of corn where sky and woods interface, so close, the heaven of blue above, interwoven into the heaven of gold below. Pointing, watching the wandering rules of property lines, planning, taking measurement of the land, and what it contains. Not for I the boisterous hunt of ATV's and four wheels. I will walk in to my solitary spot, in silent darkness, far downwind. No GPS, no lanterns, just the light of the moon, a compass, and the unwavering row of corn that will take me from road to refuge, to set up before the sun rolls over with a yawn. Hunting as ours fathers and grandfathers hunted, just a shotgun, some jerky and an apple for lunch. Waiting as the land gives forth it's bounty.

Waiting there in the early morning darkness, as the farms around me stir. Sitting in the lengthening shadow of a small country cemetery across the road, humbled by the measure of the people that once walked these fields, where I visit as a guest at the table of their land.
I will sit with patience and thanks, to bring home meat to the table and stories someday for my own grandchild. Wait there in a rough-hewn ground blind, my feet among tangled roots that thread the rich soil beneath me. I rest above them, above the land that feeds me, the smell of gentle smoke on the wind, watching, and tending us all, until I am too, called home.

Zombieland Rule No. 4

DoubletapTallahassee - "God Bless Rednecks"

The movie was awesome! I'm off to Farmer Frank's to scout out my whitetail hunting site. If you haven't seen the movie - go now, but check the back seat.

Love - Brigid

Battle Walls

It's been a week. That's all I can say. Dealing with the past. Dealing with the present. Work mostly, but I'm absolutely wiped out from a writing standpoint. If a zombie attempted to access my brain tonight it would be the Weight Watcher meal of cerebral activity. I'm mentally and emotionally done. The wall is up and I just want to hunker down with my best friends.

Let's just say - picture me, picture large opposing attorney type person that's going to grill me as an expert witness. Picture said attorney spying Barkley's picture on my laptop screen saver and saying "I don't like dogs, I like cats!" Picture said attorney looking at me and my black skirt and long hair like I was the spitting image of the dog loving floozy their ex-husband left their short haired visage and cats for. Blood ensued. We won the battle, but not without some scars.

Then the news tonight. I can't even talk about it without anger and tears.

So, I can only leave you with a dinner photo. Smothered Steak. Almost rare, but not quite, with a gravy made of red wine, beef gravy stock, horseradish cream, pepper and fresh mushrooms. Recipe is in the sidebar, it's beyond easy to make.


I'm off until Monday. Armed with that, I'm going to go meet Rangebuddy at the theater to watch Zombieland tomorrow and call it a week.

Into the blue

It was beautiful Fall day today, clear, almost cloudless, with just enough breeze to kick up a little whitecap on the lake at Eagle Creek. The water was a surprisingly clear blue, similar to much of the water I've seen in one of my favorite countries, Ireland. Barkley had stayed at a friends for a couple of nights while some work was done on the Range and there were photos being taken today for the "virtual tour". So I drove into the city after work to bring him home, listening to him pant behind me like a demented air compressor on the drive West. Passing the large reservoir on 56th street, I thought, it would be a good day to be out on a boat, if many of the boats weren't already put up for the winter that will be tapping at our door early some morning. Calling with portents of the coming cold, a Jehovah's Witness of chilly repentance for summer frolic.

There is part of me that likes the winter, the part that likes to hole up and cook casual dinners for friends, watching it snow while I watch old movies, curled up with Barkley on the couch. Mornings spent stalking an elusive whitetail, followed by an evening in front of the fire, lazing under a thick soft blanket with stories of the day and a couple fingers of Jameson's. But yet what I wanted today was just one more day of summer to get out on the water, with a boat. The free and clear call of running tides as the dawn breaks gray. A day to feel the sway and the splash, the kick of the wheel and the taut shake of the jib, the rhythm of the tasks that keep the wind in the sail, the choreography of brain and hands, wood and metal, that drive you towards the horizon.

During grad school I lived on the West Coast and seemed to divide my quality time between the sky, the mountains or the water. A vagrant gypsy life of the spray of laughter and sorrow, salt water, salt tears. After I had Brigid Jr, and handed her to her adoptive parents I sought solace in the blue, traveling from the the waters of the womb to the waters of the wild, as far out into it as I could. Flying, climbing, sailing. Environments so different, yet so essentially the same.

There is is probably a reason that many pilots are lovers of the outdoors, many owning boats. Boaters and pilots take great pride in their craft, and there is a sense of camaraderie amongst them, though they may not actively socialize when away from their favorite element. Many of my friends share this world and we all share one other thing, despite variances in gender, age or upbringing. We are people who just cannot thrive between clustered walls, walking asphalted trails to small offices, breathing in the fumes of yearning, working and dying earthbound, with nary a thought of the sky or the clouds or the sea. To stake us to a plot of earth, however shaded, safe and watered, is to watch us wither and die.

I lived for a time on a a tiny rented houseboat when I was a young student. Probably the best place I'd ever laid my head. The marina was small and I relished going to bed at night with the tremulous cadence of the water rocking me to sleep, the sounds of the cove, music to my empty heart. It was a quiet, sheltered place where no one locked their doors and people respected your things, and your privacy. Though I secretly smile when I think about the Simpsons' episode where Homer comes home with “Marge! Look at all this great stuff I found at the Marina. It was just sitting in some guy's boat !!"

In retrospect it was one of the more carefree times in my life, houseboat living between work and classes and flights with my students while tagging along with new friends and neighbors, one with a large Taiwanese ketch,; weekends of we pilots racing the locals up and down the waterways. The times were few and far between with our schedules, but the joy of those days still remains pooled in the backwaters of my mind, and I can take myself back there with just the sound of the wind filling a sail, testing it's seams.There is just something magical about the elements of water and sky, with their constant change in mood and shape, density and color. The great variances of their forms, like music, can either calm, uplift or excite; a power over the mind and thoughts of those who have the depth of soul to hear. But like the sky, the water too, has its dangers, its eddies, its currents. There are days where the whisper kiss of the wind turns into a whetted knife and you and your craft are simply a storm tossed play toy of the gods. As Sophocles's stated in Antigone: "Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. This power spans the sea, even when it surges white before the gales of the south-wind, and makes a path under swells that threaten to engulf him".

I've seen that power, caught out in a unexpected storm, on wing or sail; where my tiny craft pitched and rolled in weighed indecision as to stay pointy end forward or not, debating as to which way was up and which way was down, into final blackness, while I frantically went through the motions of piloting it, hoping to at least get the opportunity for one last "%&#^" shouted for immortality before I left nothing but a splash of debris against the surface. It's a mistake you don't make twice, and when you size up your sky, assess your horizon, you think and remember. It's similar in many ways to climbing. It's easy to lose yourself in the drifting quiet, mesmerized by the tranquil stillness of the blue, the brilliance of the elements, and forget the strong, wild heart that beats beneath the lacy spray of white.

Like anything that tests you against Mother Nature, if you don't learn, you die. If you do learn, the danger becomes part of the attraction; not in a reckless fashion, but rather with the confidence you gain in knowing that you have choices and strengths. That with the right choices, whatever the sky, the ocean, the wild or life in general can throw at you, is not enough to destroy you, as you have the power that Sophocles wrote of, of man over the wind.

That is why after a weekend and week that were both emotionally and physically draining, I wish I could get out into the blue again, be it water or sky. One last turn to test my mettle before this long dark winter, to put my hand into it, leaving a wake trail behind me of all the worries and want and desire, to wash my mind free of all but the grip of my hands on the wheel, the clouds anchored above, guided by the flutter of wind against fabric.

Guerilla baking

Sometimes you have all the time and equipment in the world to do something the right way. Sometimes you don't. Which is why, in an effort to stock my long term larder with more variety (oh boy. . barley stored in nitrogen again!), I'm trying out some different prepared mixes.

I love Jiffy brand general baking mix and their pancake/waffle mix. It's better than Bisquick and often half the price. Their corn muffin mix is a staple, I mix two boxes and bake it in a cast iron skillet. It's hard to beat at any price for a mix.

Yes, if you haven't figured out by now, I like bread products. But I like GOOD bread products. That's why I never did well on the Atkins diet. After a week of that I was so weak and shaky that I would have handed over my purse to a mugger armed only with a maple roll. But I'd rather do without than eat something called "wonder" bread, or most pre-made food. Yet I was thinking that there are times some dry food mixes might come in handy, either by circumstance or budget, even if their shelf life in the original packaging may not be all that great.

So it was that I bought a box of Jiffy blueberry muffin mix with these enticing words on the label - "Artificially flavored with imitation blueberries? Just what are "imitation blueberries"? Are they grown in a lab? From the size and shape they appeared to be tiny, dry ball bearings painted navy blue. They were small and tasteless but they made up for it by their being few in number. When baked, the result looked like this. I'm sure there's some little imitation blueberries in there somewhere.

Compared to my regular blueberry muffins they tasted like a Styrofoam coffee cup. An artificially flavored Styrofoam coffee cup, but I'm spoiled in the baking department. But I won't waste food so I'll freeze them. I'm sure some morning during a prolonged winter storm when I haven't been to the store in a week and I don't want to break into the "pantry", I'll eat them. Or use them as skeet.

Back to the drawing board. I always freeze and can lots of berries in the summer. So let's start over. From scratch. It's an old photo but just looking at it makes me hungry.

Now THIS is a blueberry muffin.

I guess there's a market for the tiny boxes of muffin mix with tiny fake blueberries and there are enough people that think those are adequate. They certainly were a popular item at the store.

But then again there's some female shoppers that think THIS is adequate self defense when they are out and about in town.

Look - there are times when you have to make do, be it homemaking or gunsmithing. But there are some things I won't sacrifice. Such as my safety and a real blueberry.

Quote for the Day

"A gun is a tool, Marion, no better or no worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that." ==- Shane

Happy Trails

The decision has been made and in front of the Range House is a big For Sale sign. I've spent most of the last two weeks cleaning, and tending to the property, with some help on the big yard projects, as well as getting rid of years of clutter and smaller, older furniture I will not need as I downsize. It's not going to happen overnight, the house could easily take a year to sell, but the market is only going to get worse so now's the time.

I'm having fun pouring over plans for cabin type homes online with a family friend from Wyoming, Malamute Bill, who builds them, and has been a wealth of knowledge. I know the whole project, start to finish, paying cash as I go, may take a few years. I am as excited as a kid. I already have the kitchen I like in mind, one room for cooking and eating, compact, yet with enough room to create while those I love gather round. One living area, not 3, and 1 or two small bedrooms, not 4. Of course a basement to use for food storage and root cellar and a place to hang up a saddle. The shop? Well it will probably be bigger than the house :-) It may just be a weekend home for a while, as I will likely continue to live near the city for work, but it's a plan. Something I can hope for now. When it's done it will be paid for, no mortgage, modest taxes. No cows, but a garden and perhaps enough room to whitetail hunt without getting in the truck. I've only had the Range a few years and it's much bigger than I need, with a "mother in law" set up that I'd thought my Dad would live in, and a kitchen big enough to hold a Summit Meeting in. Yes, it definitely is too large for one person, but at the time it was what I needed. Big enough for Dad to live with me, close enough to the city to get to work in 45 minutes. Walls stripped and dry walled over many a long evening (and several bottles of Guinness), my favorite art on the walls; the big Bev Doolittle painting I spent a small fortune on in my family room. Many evenings in which I enjoyed the spacious rooms, the corners filled with little things I love from places I've flown or lived.

There's been some great times here while my friends gathered round while I cooked an extravaganza of food and we talked and laughed. Evenings walking through the cornfields behind this little burg, Barkley going full point on a undetected bread crust I'd tossed out for the ducks, the sky a perfect prayer of blue that mirrors the blue of the pond.

But I should have bought more land, or further out, as the suburbs are all around me now, more and more fields of corn now full of cookie cutter homes. Crime is going up as are the taxes and the thought of what it will cost to heat and pay taxes on this old place if Cap and Trade passes is frightening.

I thought I'd stay here for years, perhaps after Dad was gone, sharing the home someday with someone I loved. But it wasn't meant to happen and I realized that most big dream houses, especially the ones we build later in life, are built on wonderful ideals but often without the dreams to fill those 30 foot walls. People walk in and say "wow. . it looks like a magazine home" but I realized what they didn't, that my home could often feel as empty as it was beautiful.

Dad, then battling cancer, and having a stroke, has fully recovered and thankfully, everyone's plans changed. He's back walking, driving and doing battle with the salesmen from Lowe's where he bought me a new riding lawn mower. He doesn't look 90, he doesn't act 90. Adopting two kids 20 years after his first child was born didn't phase him, why should a small stroke? So the plans for him to live with me are done. He said that if his health takes a downturn again he wants to stay out West with my brother who has since retired. That will be good for him. But I have this big house now, empty.

My Dad still lives in the same small ranch home he bought after leaving the Air Force. I still visit regularly though it's a 5 hour flight and a three hour drive to get there. I love my visits even as I cherish my independence. Driving from the airport in the rental car, down a road we used to run up and down, playing secret agent or soldiers when we were kids, I pull into the driveway and it's like going back 30 years. The giant motion detector spotlights are still in the driveway (thanks Dad, that went over real well with my dates in high school), the fence that my brother knocked over while getting the feel of his drivers license, and the tree my Dad planted after my Mom died. Everything's still there, still the same, and the big picture window, ablaze with light, greets me with the smile of a trusted friend.

Walking into the house I see the marks of our lives there; a lipstick "art" piece I drew on the inside of a cupboard when I was 3. The old tire that used to hang in the huge apple tree in the backyard, now in the flower bed, my Dad unable to throw it away. Walking through rooms full of so many mornings getting ready for school, shadows lingering on the walls from many a family dinner. I meet my brother R. at the house when I can, remembering the secret clubhouse we built in his big closet, the elaborate train landscapes we'd set up in the garage on a rainy day. We share the memories without even speaking of them, as they are woven into the fabric of our lives. I look at my Dad's dresser now on which lives a small well loved stuffed dog that was mine as a child, and I smile. Those things we loved as children remain in the domain of our memory, and will, until we cease to breathe. Wherever we are, wherever we live, our souls somehow always hover around the places where we remember mostly happiness.
I have a hard time picturing my Dad leaving his house, where he's lived since the 50's, yet leaving my own home? I can picture it. It may not have turned out to be the home I envisioned, but there is still a real satisfaction in it, certain things may never be realized but so all the more reason to try for them. I don't regret the hard work I put into this place, for trying to provide a place where my family could be cared for, any more than I will regret leaving it for reasons that are also now very important to me.

I'll remember with fondness the changing leaves against the tall Irish Cream colored walls, the animals that shared the cornfields, evenings with my best friends. The smell of homemade lasagna fresh from the oven while we laugh with stories from the shooting range and life. I really like this place. Yet I rattle around in it alone, looking out north towards the pond and beyond, up into the sky at the smoke trail of a plane that leads off to the open land of the north, searching for things I can not see. A life of self sufficiency. A life where I don't have to say "I shouldn't buy that revolver" because I have a $500 heating bill. A life honed down to just what is important to me and those around me. Beyond the horizon is another home, a smaller cozy little home, a new dream, or a contrail of a dream, leaving to a further defined life.

And in that life will come laughter and family and shadows on the wall of those that I love. Wherever they are, there I am at home.

It's Halloween at the Range

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.- - - H. P. Lovecraft

For you my readers . . a little tale for this Halloween night.

The story is "Phantom Bomber" of Longdendale, from which a story in Haunted Britain and Ireland, the details are crafted. On the high moors of England, such as Bleaklow, numerous wrecked airplanes litter the rugged terrain, remnants of more than fifty aircraft that have crashed into the peaks during and after WWII. One such pile of tortured debris is all that remains of a US B29 that crashed in 1948 taking with it the souls of it's 13 crew. It is said that the ghost of it's pilot, Captain Tanner, has been spotted casually looking around the wreckage.

There is the endless speculation that this and the other crashes were caused by the area's strangest phenomena, the "Longdendale Lights".These strange, ethereal, flickering balls of blue flame were known to the locals as the "devil's bonfires" and were attributed to either fairy folk or evil witches, with records of their appearing going back as far as the 16th century. Even today their source has managed to evade the sophisticated equipment of professional mountain rescue teams. In 1998 the residents of a youth hostel witnessed a brilliant blue light that illuminated the entire district and lasted for more than three minutes. Drivers on nearby highways have been known to swerve, mistaking the lights for an oncoming car. Others, thinking the lights were the distress flares of an injured hiker or climber, would frequently call out EMS services, all of whom have grown long accustomed to the flickering lights fading slowly away as they get closer to them. It has been suggested that the pilots of the crashed planes may have mistaken the lights for beacons meant to guide their planes and followed them into permanent stony, silence.

In late 1997 as the stories of Captain Tanner and his lost aircraft faded into local folklore, two women, out on the high moors for some star gazing, were surprised by the sudden emergence from a empty sky, of a low flying airplane in the sky that disappearing around one of the peaks. The same aircraft was witnessed by a farmer, as it flew so low over him he dove for the ground. Only moments later, several others heard the sound of a plane crashing and saw an orange glow light up the sky. A search party was quickly organized based on the many reports and a mountain rescue team plus a RAF helicopter, searched ever square inch of the moorland, for an airplane that was never reported as missing. Whatever the witnesses had seen had apparently vanished into the dark night - And the stores began anew. Had the "Phantom Bomber"of Longdendale returned?
The final words of two experienced crews in Sabres in 1954 only add to the mystery. The brand new aircraft were flying in the Peak District, the pilots flying in low cloud, with the latest in navigation gear. "Where are we?" asked one pilot". "I'm not sure" said the second. And then as they apparently spotted a third aircraft, the second pilot gave the order that would fly them into their fate. "Just follow the other jet through the cloud". Since no other planes were known to be flying in the area at the time, many people wonder if they were perhaps lured to their deaths by the appearance of the Phantom Bomber. Many will chalk it up to spatial disorientation, in the frequent and sometimes surprising low fog that is common to the area, and that would be easy to do. Hundreds, if not thousands, of scientific attempts have been made to explain such an event. The results are always inconclusive and distract us from what a ghost story really is.

Few people truly believe that headless ghosts haunt Celtic castles, that restless spirits chase the shadows in every abandoned old farmhouse. But sitting in a darkening country home, as the winds of a Autumn brew around curtained windows, and the lights are out but for the stove light and a couple of pumpkin and cinnamon candles in the kitchen, one can't help but summon up the genuine wonder for those things that are never truly explained. I believe that despite our outward desire for explanation and logic, most members of the public would rather tell stories of haunted hills and ghost airplanes then listen to a dry litany of special disorientation, ground fog and fuel starvation.
For despite our modern conveniences, our science and technology, can we not be surprised that modern man still feels that shadowed belief in spirits, haunting those places in which they were once so affected, when we ourselves scarcely separate ourselves from past lives and past longing, ever hovering over bygone times and all their emotions, in late night, darkened hours, lingering in the past places in which we were loved. Hoping in the dark misty hills of our hearts, we will remember and be remembered.

For despite our technology, we are still dreamers. Certainly I know one Celtic lady that is.

As Shakespeare said.: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Whether our dreams are that of coherent order and forensic logic or haunting memory of those places we wish we could revisit, I can't help but think just how small my being is. How infinitesimal within the world's workings, the grand chaotic design. As I pour another cup of tea, I'll light another candle, for suddenly I feel very insignificant. Insignificant and small, as moonlight flits among the corn and the wind taps on the window like a ghostly finger, the night but one last lamenting kiss.

Happy Halloween ! - Brigid and Barkley

(Hey Barkley - stay out of the Goblin Gorp!
That's for my friends!)

Storing Valuable things

I am amassing a fairly healthy amount of primers. I got a stash of Wolf Primers in recently which I'm going to share with a friend. I hate their ammo but I hear the primers are decent.

If you are new to reloading there is some basic information that you should consider before you start tucking them in your sock drawer. I would also strongly suggest you do some homework and check your local laws rather than just rely on info from someone like myself who just stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. Various state and national fire codes have minimum standards for storage regarding methods and quantities. That's what the insurance companies go with, for what it's worth.

I am still learning about primers but over the years I learned about smart, AND dumb things to do with explosives.

Just as I think many of you know about hazmat to some degree.

Due to their explosive nature it is recommended that only an absolute minimum should be kept in storage. The National Fire Protection Association' NFPA 495 says that not more than 10,000 primers should be stored in a private residence. This recommendation is law in most communities so you might wish to check your local laws.

But think of it, 1,000 each large rifle, large rifle magnum, small rifle, large pistol, large pistol magnum, small pistol, small pistol magnum, and shotshell primers. That's 8,000 primers folks so with care in replacing those supplies used most people should have plenty on hand.

The two biggest dangers for primers (outside of not being able to find any) is

(1) HEAT

(2) HUMIDITY.It goes without saying that you want to store primers in a remote location away from any source of ignition (that includes bullet impact). Watch for any potentials for high heat, spark, electrical percussion in your storage area. A general run through for potential dangers before setting up your reloading and storage area before you make your purchases is a good idea.Keep them away from from oxidizing agents, flammable liquids, and flammable solids (including handloading powders), children, pets or idiots (including those related to you). Always store primers in their original packaging, which is designed for safety. Never store primers in bulk, such as in a can or jar.

A gun safe is NOT the best place to keep them. A storage cabinet is strongly recommended, constructed of at least 1 inch thick lumber which will delay the transfer of heat to the contents in the event of a fire. The storage cabinet should be kept away from direct sun rays, open flames (well duh), trash or other combustibles, sources of heat, furnaces, solvents, flammable gasses (well you get the picture).

And yes, despite commenters warnings on my blog from fire marshal Bill and other friends, I do store some primers in an ammo can. Why? Long term storage. (Think future days of not being able to find primers as opposed to saving a few for a rainy day during the zombie apocalypse). I have primers stored this way that go back to the Clinton era that still work.

Yes, there are inherent dangers of this, frankly, in ANY storage of explosive bits and pieces. Primers are a primary explosive and just putting too many of them together in one place makes them "a bomb" whether they are contained or not. The metal box storage would be a concussion explosion and the shrapnel not as much as you think, but certainly is a risk. Anyone that reloads in any bulk has all kinds of stuff that will go "boom". Some do it in shops separate from the home, some do it in home with precautions, such as a magazine built in to the structure.

The hazard from the metal box is really almost as much about it creating an isothermal (uniform temperature) environment inside during a fire as it is about fragmentation. I would not want to be the fireman working near a hot metal box full of primers. Yes, the house could catch fire That's a risk I live with. I, for one, drive too fast to lose sleep over it. But if I plan on storing something for really long term, I'm not sure if there are any other options.

Stored in their original containers, packed in a can, I think the risk of them "cooking off" on their own is pretty slim. But NO, an ammo box WILL NOT "contain" them if they did cook off. But I wouldn't want something that strong anyway, because it would only increase the explosive release if it does go up (why I don't store them in a gun safe, among other reasons). For long term storage I think the sides of a GI box would blow out plenty fast enough to prevent excessive pressure build up and it protects your primers from humidity like nothing else if you want to store for years, not months.
Some of the primers around the Range have been stored for a very long time , and are still good. Had they been in plastic, even with desiccant they'd probably be duds now. (click to enlarge and look at the price on this box. Want to guess how old it is?) This box was stored in an ammo can, not the plastic can and they are as good as new. But I know there will be many that disagree with me and there's lots of discussion pro and con in the forums on storage. If you're worried about a fire, store your primers in a plastic ammo box, like you see pictured, still in their original packaging. The original packaging is designed to be non-static so you shouldn't have a problem with the plastic box. If a fire will causes the box to melt and if the primers cook off, when the first package pops it will probably help scatter the rest of them. A pack of 50-100 primers would make a decent bang but the flying bits are small and low powered. Plastic is fine for short term, but in my humble opinion if you want primers that will be useful 10 years from now, plastic is not going to cut it unless you own a desiccant factory.

My primers are stored in their original boxes, with several desiccant pouches and a humidity indicator. I have the primers I'm going to use soon in plastic containers, with desiccant, but I also have a couple ammo cans packed long term need, one for one for small rifle & pistol primers, the other for large & magnum primers. They're kept in a cool, dry environment until I might need them some day when times get tough, and I only keep the can in use long enough to select what I'm going to use, and occasionally replacing the desiccant.
I've never heard of primers, in their box, stored in an ammo can, going off on their own. In a reloader, yes, but the can no. Has anyone else? If my house burns I'm in a lot more danger from all the ammo then from two or three cans of primers stored in can in a carefully constructed magazine.

Powder is a whole other issue for long term storage. Powder stored in a pressure containing device (like a sealed ammo can) is NOT a good idea because powder is designed to burn and create a gas and if you put it in to a sealed container. . .well. . .

I don't keep my powder in any kind of a sealed or air-tight container, but I feel safe in putting some of the primers in an ammo can. I don't want anything to crush them and make them pop, and I don't want flame to get to them and make them pop. I also don't want humid air attacking them.
If you are going to store primers in some cabinet in your house there ARE some basic rules you wish to follow. Don't use your primer cabinet to store -

(a) your girlfriends Cosco purchase of 8 gallons of nail polish remover,

(b) your blow torch or

(c) your emergency bacon rations. (well just because).

(d) your powdersNaturally, never smoke around primers. If where you reload is frequented by guests or household members that may not be familiar with the process, No Smoking signs in the storage area and at the loading bench aren't a bad idea.

Again, these are just some basics and what I do. Others will have better info,, others will disagree. But on the issue of the ammo argument you might wish to reference

49 CFR, Subpart 173.62, packing instruction 133.

Boring yes, it's the federal requirements for packaging Primers, Cap Type, UN0044 (i.e., ALL small arms primers that we the public use). According to that reference, primers MUST be packaged in a certain way, but choices are allowed within certain parameters. For example:

It references inner packing consisting of "Trays, fitted with dividing partitions" as one option, (this is what some of you are used to seeing).

The reg above requires that if the primers are housed in trays, as mentioned in (1), then intermediate packagings are required. Follow the link above to page 11 of the PDF, look at the "Intermediate packagings" column for packing instruction 133, and see that we can store the tray of primers in a receptacle made of (our choice) fiberboard, wood, plastic, or METAL.

Finally, the regulation gives folks that fall under their guidelines a choice of outer packaging, noted in the 3rd column of the same page 11 of said PDF-- steel box, aluminum box, wooden box, plywood box, and plastic box, among others.

I know these regs don't apply to us the individual, but it's nice to read what they consider some safe choices for various purposes.

Use common sense, check out local laws if you are so inclined, and follow some standard safety practices of not just HOW you store them, but WHERE.

For frankly, given where I live, and what's on the radar, I worry more about Mother Nature than Mr. Primer.

Saving Time

Darkness falls earlier and earlier. Days that I leave home in the dark, and come home into the dark. I walk into a home bathed in darkness, a black dog, a shadow of warmth against the walls, the movement of his tail a tick against the time he waited for me.

Just a few more days we will turn our clocks back.

We'll stop saving our daylight. We'll stop saving time. My day here at 7 pm lies under a blanket of night, that began to thicken and bunch up at 6 o'clock, where just for a moment, light hovered in an orb over the pond, a UFO of brightness, that with a blink, vanished up into the heavens, leaving just black exhaust in its wake.

It comes back, in the early mornings, when the light creeps in too early, when I still want to sleep, bringing with it the alarm of things to do. Garbage to be taken out, shirt ironed, dog walked, leaving the house in his trail, the house a lonely echo in our wake.

When I was married, I lived on a small farm, raising some crops and a small belligerent group of Longhorns. I was alone so much of the time, my husband either crop dusting or disappearing for days on end, chasing his demons. Despite days out playing secret squirrel pilot, when I was home, I had my share of chores, often both his and mine. I had to rally myself up early to tend to the place, at the rooster's crow at first light, rising early as poets do. Lighting a fire from antique ashes, assembling my spirit from wounds and balm, from water pump to barn stall. Time beginning with measured intent, and from seeds and the dry bones of the land, I grew, I tended. Whatever the hand of circumstance had brought, it was my duty, to be there on time. To reconcile hot and cold, dark and bright, richly expanding a much bruised heart, to nourish the land or the trusting beast in the stall.

That was all before, when everything rose early, when time slowed to a crawl of duty and need and long nights crying for something I didn't know until too late that I needed. When everything seemed looming, demanding, large and unchanging. I heard a cow moan low for her calf in the distance. Or was that me?

Dawn over the plains of a rural home. Thirteen years later. A thousand miles away. I see the sun rise. You can't really see the corn in the distance until about 8 o'clock, everything is soft and filtered as if through a lens of fog. I had but a moment to enjoy it, to pick up time like a clock and put it in my pocket. To savor the day as far lights fringe unto the pleasant sheen of day, as fragmentary whispers of sound and scent blows from understalks of silent corn, of leafless souls unknown. A walk cut short. Short on time, for I had to be at work soon.

Two hundred years ago, the days had their own slow cycle, full and round, curved as a woman's breast. No one could have imagined today's electronic dislocation, when on advent of the Industrial age, time was taken from us and slaved to a time clock. Time suddenly belonged to someone else. Time changed from that of a fellow worker to a disciplinarian, a nun's whack on the back of the hand, doctrinal and unyielding.

People no longer walked the land, we went in cars, faster and faster, as roads got longer and days got shorter, driving to the market for our dinner, instead of walking the land in search of game. The game itself has moved further inward as had we.

In the dimming light I look through some photos. My father on a duck hunt in Arkansas, just the two of us and a black lab. My Dad was in his 70's, yet he took to the event like a young lad, a gun swinging by his side as we worked our way out to the blind. Walking through measures of wild land that remain as unchanged as it had been 200 years ago. Wilderness as he remembered it, tangled brush and clear sky, tremendous soarings of oak and ash, which knew no axe but the occasional hunter.

We were out all day, heading in, not by any clock, but by the rhythmic cadence of breath and the measure of bone and muscle. The dog was reluctant to come in, one more, one more!, he seemed to speak to us. But our stomachs signaled dinner and with a whistle we called him in, panting and trembling with the excitement of the day, up the bank, to unraised voice and gentle hand, seeking his pack.
Back to the camp we settled to clean our birds and prepare our supper, hot coals lighting our work. Dad said grace to the communion of a small glass of whisky and water, giving thanks for slightly burnt roast meat, canned beans and some bread that once actually resembled bread, mushed flat in our packs and tasting of the outdoors. It was the best meal we could remember eating in a long time, tasting of our labor and tinged with the smoke of our wildness. The dog settled into sleep by the dying fire, as in the darkness we prepared our beds, small cots in a tent. As the world would slowly down, stars beginning to spin their stories in space, we talked. My father told tales of hunting as a boy in Montana, myself lying quiet as a child, listening to bedtime stories that knew no age limit, looking up at the quiet belly of canvas, hearing not a clock, but only the measured breath of content as sleep brushed up the remaining crumbs of the day.

When was the last time you spent a day like that? With no clock. Now, too often, we rush and we scurry and we do not take the time to stop and think of the times we gave up, the times spent rushing after something we didn't really want, wasted minutes, wasted days. Until suddenly, years have passed and the second hand poises in mid second as the phone rings. A call with news of my Dad who had a heart procedure and did not tell me in time to be there, not wanting to worry me. With that call, with any call like that, time comes to a complete stop. And in that moment all you register is the sound of breath and heartbeat, the tone of the phone held away from your ear, outside, the rush of the wind, and the bark of a far away dog. One bark, short and syncopated. Then a couple more. . Then nothing. Simply the sound of your heart beating.

Then you hear it. The laugh of your father as carefree as that evening in the tent, the pacemaker in, he feels better than he's felt in years, he says. But as you listen to him you hear something else. The proverbial clock in your pocket. . and it's still ticking, slower, with a sound you never noticed before. Then with the sunlight reflecting off a tear that's forming, when you least expect it, when the sound of emptiness is all you expect, you hear the bark again. Faint but insistent. And you breathe in deep as the bark fills the world with bright articulate tone, dreaming of life slowed down, time ticking in your pocket. Time you both still have.

You can not take time back, like conjured memory. But you can listen carefully to the slow precious ticks of what you still have. Take it and hold on to it, saving it til it's full and dense and strong, like a house around you. A structure that will shelter you and those you love. For no matter what the change of clocks may bring, the stolen minutes of warmth, the hours of distance, the chime of mortality, you'll still have it, for you've saved it for just this purpose . . .time.

Get Smart

Dear NRA:

If you really value my opinion on your telephone survey, it would be helpful if . . . .

(1) You don't call someone during mealtime on a SUNDAY, on a holiday weekend.

(2) You actually direct your people to listen, so when you call while I'm wrestling a roast from the oven and I try to politely say, as a dedicated member, "can you call back?" you don't plow right over me before I can get two words out and immediately cut off live communication to launch into a recording, admonishing me like a wayward child to listen as you need my feedback.

(3) You have callers that actually sound like something other than a bored robot reading a script. If they obviously don't believe in your message, but are just reading it for X dollars per hour, and obviously are hating to do so by their tone, then why should I?

No, I'm not going to cancel my membership. Rudeness or not, you do some great good out there and I would like to continue to be a supporter. But yes, I will treat you like any other rude telemarketer and just hang up if you do this again. As Jay G. would say. That is all.
- Brigid

GENTLEMEN - DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ

h/t http://www.savagechickens.com/

Well maybe for some . . . .

But Paintball Deathmatch sounds like a good time to me!


My colleagues at work, who I also shoot with, are all married. I count among my "single" friends only a small handful.

But Brigid Jr, laughing, once mentioned with her friends, an article on "great date night ideas". She's married now, to her high school sweetie, a shooter and absolutely the coolest guy on the planet. (Picture a gun range. . "your mother in law is Brigid??? Cool!!! My mother in law is a bitch!")

I think every one of us that's single has read articles like that, or had friends tell us the same thing.

So I bring you "Brigid's Date Night's for the Clueless".

(1) Rent a uber-fancy car and drive around like you actually own it. (a) If you look like you spent $80,000 on your wheels but your only gun is a .22 rimfire you are SO not getting a second date. and (b) Think of all the ammo you could have bought with the $1000 you spent on the Ferrari that so did NOT impress me. Think about it while you go home alone.

(2) Rent a chick flick and buy chocolate. Yes I like chocolate, but I'd rather watch "Donnie Darko". Unless you have PMS and/or are gay, this is NOT going to work. Here's the conversations I have with MY female friends about "girly things".

Brigid - Try this new herbal body lotion, it warms the skin and relaxes you.

Best Girl Friend - if I wanted a "warming sensation" I'd blow something up.

See what I mean?

(3) Sample International Cuisine at a Street Fair - have you SEEN the food at a street fair? Unless you have a large dose of Pepto in your purse, this is one to miss.

(4) Pick up two snack packs of KFC and go to the funny car trials. In a word no. The snack packs do NOT have enough biscuits.

(5) Drive out to a country setting and snuggle with your date under the stars. Watch your date carried off by pitchfork wielding lunatics.

(6) Cook for your date. If you can cook, great. If you can't, do NOT attempt to heat up two "Lean Cuisine" entrees and serve on two plates or your date WILL ask for seconds. Or your head on a platter.

(7) One word. Yatzee. No.

(8) Find a quaint old bridge and walk across it late at night. Picture downtown Indy late at night. Canal. Meeting that crackhead who wants to toss you into the water after steeling your wallet. Viva la romance!

(9). Bring your date over to your home to meet your family. Watch videos of the woman who dumped you. Cry. (yes, this was an actual date).

(10). Hit a hiking trail near you. You're getting warmer.

(11). Invite her to your gun range. Introduce her to your friends as a fellow shooter, not "babe", "honey" or "your name was??" Offer to help with the shoulder piece to keep the SASS from knocking her on her butt. Buy her a chocolate malt afterwards at the local Dairy Queen. Take her home and try and get into her old brass, which you will take home and polish for her to reload to bring back to date #2.

Being old fashioned never hurts gentlemen. :-)