Not just for the birds
We've never been huge-mile hikers. We've never logged more than 9 miles on a chukar hunt, and I think our average hunt is less than 5 miles. But for some reason, each season we seem to go longer. Last weekend I hunted Saturday and Sunday, and totaled about 17 miles, which is a lot for …
What a word. It's a verb. It's a noun. It's an adjective. It's an adverb. It's a body part. It dominated my fall and winter last year. It's the first word in the title of a great movie. It can signal a return to something horrific or sublime. In upland bird hunting, it's also a …
The week started off bad. The week also ended with many firsts. Tuesday started with Angus throwing up his morning kibble in the backyard. Later on, he refused a dog treat from the treat jar. This was a first time in his life that he's ever not wanted one of those multi-colored square snaps treats. …
Our school offers an enrichment program for grades 6 through 12, which consists of two-week blocks of varied "courses" allowing teachers to do things with kids that the "normal" curriculum doesn't typically allow. Since we began this program a couple years ago, students have been able to learn how to create striking landscape paintings, make …
October has always been my favorite month. I love everything about it. The change of the colors of the leaves, the western larches turning golden, Halloween, and of course because it's upland hunting season. October in the chukar hills October is also my birthday month. I almost forgot to send my twin brother a birthday …
The ugly under-belly of chukar hunting has once again exposed itself here, hoping, maybe, for some kind of swan song celebration of self-hatred. I don't really want to give the person the pleasure of a reaction, which -- not unlike the mentality of mass murderers, who failed in life to get the attention they crave …
UPDATE 10/21/19: I'm participating in Boise's storytelling institution "Story Story Night" on Tuesday, October 29th, for its "Starry Story Night" event, which weaves together six storytellers' narratives on a theme related to hunting. My part is largely from the piece I published in Gray's about Angus and other things. We've rehearsed several times now, and …
We haven't made many videos since Leslie traded the camcorder for a Benelli. I was looking through my Youtube channel the other day, and noticed that one of the first videos we made (and one of my favorites) had been permanently blocked because I used copyrighted music as a soundtrack. I have no problem with …
Friday, August 30th. It was warm outside, t-shirt weather, and I was hoping for a crisp, cool morning on grouse opener but the air felt thick and muggy. You could hear a pin drop in all of its calmness. I worked my way up through the deep draw that was nestled between stands of tall …
Sometimes, the best way to define something is to begin with what it is not. I think this is because the more stuff we get exposed to, the harder it is to distinguish between things that appear similar but really aren't. The Internet Age has amplified this, as we all know. Social media in particular …