Good News

I'd like to take a minute to let you all know about a what is destined to be a great blog, CountryBornCityMade. It's brand new so how do I know it'll be so good? Because it is my wifes! She's decided to start a blog, write more interesting articles and steal all my readers. Well, not really, she just thought it'd be a great way to get writing and share what she cares about, but I can see it going that way. She's a great writer, prolific reader, and certainly has her opinions. I hope you'll check in on her and say hi!
P~

The Hunt / Selling America

Well as I said, I didn't get a deer this year. But as I also said, it wasn't for lack of trying. the photo to the left is a picture from near the apex of my hike last friday while I was trying to track my quarry. If you enlarge it you'll see the arrow that seems to point to the side of a hill, it's actually pointing to the valley beyond it. This is where I started my hike that day. All told it came out to be about 6 miles and a little over 1000 verticle feet, and still nothing. I can't say it was for nothing though, there's really not a better way of seeing this part of the country. I do have a little bitch though. While I was out hunting and walking my legs off, I came across a few others and learned that most of the area I was hunting had been recently sold off to a developer who was planning to divide it and sell it off into 10-20 acre "Ranchettes". I'm torn on this to a certain degree. On the one hand I believe that if a person works hard and can afford the luxuries that life affords then it is up to them to decide which of those they want to have. I am a strong believer in personal freedom and rights, and typically a very staunch opponent of governmental regulation. I can't however, get myself to a point where I think that it is OK for the goverment to sell off our country into ranchettes. My son in all his 12 yr old wisdom asked me, "What's the difference between that and where our house was built? It used to be farms right?" Yeah it did, and although that land was purchased from an individual, it originally was a possession to some degree of the government, probably homesteaded and claimed sometime along the way. So what is the difference? I guess time, and perspective. We are in a different time; we've moved beyond the point where we merely took and claimed land. As for perspective, the land that we live in is far less uncommon than the mountain lands that I'm talking about. I guess I see them as national treasures, things to be kept and maintained for posterity and shared by all. While spending time in the mountains over the last few years I see more and more private property areas. No trespassing signs are becoming the norm, and more and more the "common" man is being relegated to strips of land here and there where logging is common and hunting is scarce. It's a sad fact I guess. This being said, I would still like to have a small cabin of my own some day, not a Ranchette mind you but a small place where my family and I can be in and enjoy the woods, not necesarily own them. I learned to share when I was a kid and I don't have a problem with it today, but how do you justify selling just small portions and not large ones without regulation? See my quandry? What's your opinion?

P~

Getting caught up.

I’m back. It was another one of those busy weeks that we get from time to time. I managed to get out for a couple more days of hunting last week; more to come on that. I didn’t get one, but it was not for lack of effort. Also, A~ and I finally got out into the yard to start on the winterizing and get caught up on the yard chores. What a task. We’ve moved perennials and trees, weeded, thinned, pruned and chopped up bags full of stuff for the last big compost push of the year. More to come on that as well (you know I love to talk about my composting). We still haven’t touched the garden yet though. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with winter cover crops, I’ve been mulling the idea over of planting one, but an unsure as to what to plant, and what it does. I will read up on it, but I’d love any personal anecdotes.

We’ve been enjoying a wonderful Indian summer this last week. After the bitter cold hunting a week ago it was nice to be in the yard in shorts this weekend. I was pruning up some of the honeysuckle on Sunday and was sweating like mad, I had to get some shorts on and break out with the shade hat. It was great. We decided this summer to remove the perennial shrubs that we had planted in the beds along the back of our yard in favor of expanding the veggie garden. Doing this will effectively double the amount of space that I have available and will give me a place to plant some of my hardier perennial edibles. My Rhubarb for instance did really well this spring, and is scheduled to be dug and split this fall. I currently have it in one of my raised beds, and although it has done well, I want to be able to use that space for other crops and the rhubarb takes up so much space when it is in full growth. I’m going to split the crown and have at least two plants for next year. Mmm mmm can’t wait for the pies. My strawberries have gone berserk this summer and spread like wild fire so I thinned them down while still leaving approx twice the number of plants. Between those two I’ll be in the pies for sure next spring! I also hope to be able to get a good potato crop in that space next year, I’ve never really had enough space to plant more that a couple of plants, but I love the new red ones so that’s on the list for sure. I could go on and on, but I think I’ll save that for a dedicated post later this winter when I’ve been able to further finalize a garden plan for next year.

Hope you all had a great week. I’ll be back with more soon, oh, and some really great news too!

P~

Snow and Fire

I've been in the mountains since Friday with the family; mom, dad, and the wife and kids. My dad, my son and I hunted hard through the weekend, but unfortunatly came up empty handed. We expected cold weather going into the hunt, I mean it wouldn't be deer camp without brisk fall mornings and perhaps a little snow....

Um, I said a LITTLE snow! We got there Friday and scouted a bit, decided on where we wanted to sit the next morning and then ate a great dinner and got to bed. The next morning we got an early start and hiked the mile and a half out to the ridgeline we wanted to hunt and watched for the sunrise. Then the wind picked up... and up... and then the snow started to come. It was just the little flurries and the wind, then the big flakes came. By the end of the day the ground was white, and by morning we had nearly a foot. The snow came on and off through Monday. Yesterday morning we decided to get a late start expecting it to be too cold for anything to be up and moving, it was 15 deg when we got out, it had been only 5 deg that morning according to the camp caretakers. I do have to say though that the cabin we stayed in was very comfortable, and if I was going to spend a cold hunt coming home empty handed then this was the way I would want to do it; spending the evenings playing cards, telling old stories and singing tangy old country songs (Much to my wifes displeasure!).

When we got home today we learned about the fires raging in San Diego county. I grew up there, not many miles from one of the fronts. My parents learned about the fires and spoke to my sister in Temecula who can watch the fires from her bedroom window. We've had friends of the family displaced from mandatory evacuations and others including my sister prepared in case they are called. I guess this is just how life works. Snow and Fire.

Carmel Mountain Road fire photo credit: ALBERT JOHNSON / For SignOnSanDiego

Thought for today

Perhaps there is a more generous light in which to view the hunter's joy. Perhaps it is the joy of a creature succeeding at something he has discovered his nature has superbly equipped him to do, an action that is less a perversion of that nature, his "creaturely character," than a fulfillment of it. But what of the animal in the picture? Well, the animal, too, has had the chance to fulfill its wild nature, has lived, and arguably even died, in a manner consistent with its creaturely character. Hers is, by the standards of animal death, a good one.

~Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals)

 

I hunt, therefore I am.

I eat meat. A lot less than I used to but yeah, I'm a carnivore. I'm also trying to be more responsible about what I put into my body. This isn't why I began hunting, but as I see it, it fits in perfectly.
Hunting is always something that I wanted to do. I grew up in Southern California, and although it's not a barren wastland for hunters, as you may expect, it's not a very common thing. My dad grew up here in Utah, and as a young man he and his brothers hunted every year. It was a very different affair then than it is now. He has told me of the nights sleeping in a "shepards tent", a wool blanket on top of a tarp then flipped over the top of you. They also didn't only hunt for the sport of it; meat was expensive, and they weren't rich. I think that this perspective may have lead my father away from taking me hunting as a kid. I am glad to say that for the last five years, last year excluded due to a broken arm with two metal plates and 12 screws, my dad has made it a point of coming up here and sharing the experience with me. This year, I will have the privilidge of sharing it with my 12 yr old C~.
In todays fast world, where nearly everything we consume is cut cleaned packed and prepared with little to no interaction from us, I think it is important to share something that brings us into intimite contact with where our food comes from. It helps us to define anew our position in the world, and in the food chain. Growing a garden is much the same thing but the relationship is different. I can neglect my garden from time to time, pick some and perhaps not use it soon enough, but the plant persists and completes it's life cycle. To hunt, at it's most elemental, is to take a life to sustain another. There is a level of responsibility in that action that exists nowhere else. I am responsible to the animal that I take, to respect it by ensuring that I am effective and concise in my taking of it. I also have a responsibility to my son, and to other hunters, to ensure that I pass on not only the craft of pursuing the game to him, but the ethics and sense of responsibility in it. Also, much in the same way that my father hunted for meat, I too hunt to eat. I would take a trophy buck if one presented itself, but that is not my purpose. No matter how hard I've looked, I've never found a good recipe for antlers.
I know there are a lot of people out there that look unfavorably on hunting and in turn on hunters. They see it as an unnecessary act, a cruelty and a barbarism held onto by beer guzzling partiers with guns. Let's be realistic, in some circumstances that is true, but hunters are also some of the greatest conservationists in the nation. Without them and the fees they pay, many of our national parks and game preserves would not exist. As humans we are not removed from the wild world, as much as it may seem at times. Because we live here, and because our impact is felt regardless of how hard we try to reduce it, we have a responsibility to manage our herds and to optimize their range and numbers. I hope to be a part of that managment program, but I'll leave that to the fates.

I'd love to hear from you on this. What are your feelings? Are you opposed? Will you never read me again because of it? I'm curious.
P~

Ssshhhh don't tell

You have to keep this a secret or I may get run out of the suburbs.

I don't like lawns.

Nope I don't, just figured that out this afternoon. I was out there mowing it, getting it short for the fall, and thinking to myself about all of the things we do for this plant. We water it, kill the weeds and fertilize it so it will grow fast and lush; then we complain about how often we have to mow it. I did fertilize it early in the spring, and I do have a sprinkler system, but I didn't use any weed killers. (I pulled them with my hands. And for that matter ate many of them. Dandylion and purslane, Mmm Mmm good!) I've come up with a theory that directly relates my level of summer enjoyment and overall happiness to the number of weeds and imperfections in my lawn. It goes as follows:

To control my weeds I can either spray them with a bunch of poisons and then let my kids and my dog run and lay and play in it, but no trouble right? Or I can take the time to pull them all, one by one, investing my time in nothing but manicuring the lawn and miss out on so much of the other things that life offers.

I struck a balance. No chemicals, and I pulled weeds when I had the chance, here or there. I didn't get them all, but you know what, I had a pretty good summer all told. Am I being a little extreme? Yeah maybe a little, but think about it, how much time and effort do we put into our lawns as a nation? What if we put that into something more productive like growing something edible or playing with our kids? Wouldn't we be happier, I know I would.

Oh well, I guess I'll just go pull some more weeds. Have a good day all.

P~