Beams alight from broken sky
Hallowed ether to the ground
A vacant plot of reclaimed land
A moment’s pause it doth demand
Breaking free from worlds on high
To pierce the gloom without a sound.
I hate winter.
–Simon
Death to Sciuridae!
More hunting success! See my mighty warrior battle cry pose:
Alas, still no squirrel for Joe. Though at least he got to feel like a badass riding shotgun:
Maybe next time.
–Simon
The Weak are Meat
Last year, hunting was a failure…if you judge success by quantity of vanquished quarry, that is. Flesh is only one of the reasons to go hunting, granted, but the other reasons are mere condolences one gives himself upon the lack of dinner, when no flesh hath been gotten. But not this year! This year, we eat!
Following last year’s events, I let the season sneak up on me, until Joe, unexpectedly, called me on a promise/threat that I would take him hunting. And not one to dishonor a prior arrangement, I agreed. We would hunt flesh this year after all–Joe for the first time.
I prepared.
- Mucks
- Mora
- Wigwams
- 7/2 Federals
- First Aid
- Tourniquets
The first aid kit and tourniquets were new acquisitions. After last year, when the woods were awash with 20-somthings sporting camo-skinned shotguns, I considered that I might need something to treat trauma. Fortunately, that turned out to be a mere precaution.
And so, properly geared up, we were off to that little plot of woods in which I’ve only ever been successful hunting squirrel on public land: Clark Lake. I cast a judgmental eye upon Joe’s loadout: a tactical 12 ga. and an army bag packed with who knows what. But points for enthusiasm, as evidenced by this photo:
Two squirrels, in the end. Joe did make an effective spotter despite his lack of experience with the sport–his eyes must be better than mine. And while he was slow with the draw, he did clean one.
And to maximize the manliness factor, we cooked then in a dutch oven in an open fire while getting some target practice in with the longbow.
It was a good day.
–Simon
Misery
I love sweating. Really, few sensations top that of standing in the sun and feeling that stream of sweat run down my back and into my pants, or the deodorant in my armpits failing and causing a sticky feeling whenever I move. In the final death-throws of heatstroke, victims tear of their clothing in a state of agonized delirium, fatalistically surrendering to the elements. I understand why.
We went to the Ohio State Fair.
Not my thing, granted, but educational for the kid.
–Simon
Forced Childhood
Every artist has their medium. Snow is not my daughter’s. My theory (based on the current state of her basement art studio), is that snow is too monochrome (#FFFFFF is sooo pedestrian).
Yet this irritates me, probably due to my own childhood memories. Texas didn’t offer much in the way of snow, and as our culture as a whole is heavily influenced by the Midwest and New England and their associated images of holiday blizzards, Christmas time always carried with it a bit of melancholy as I peered out the window across a wind-swept and barren Dust Bowl landscape. I never once rode a sled in my childhood, and on only one notable occasion do I remember building a snowman (to which my dad added breasts, followed by mom administering a mastectomy via garden trowel).
But the joke’s on this youngest generation. Climate change will either warm the region beyond the point of regular snow, or cool it to the point that it destroys us. Either way, those quaint Rockwellian scenes will vanish alongside the planet’s biodiversity. And I, Dad, will mock my child for her youthful indifference.
–Simon