BiblioGrind
On the Rim of a Millstone
Archive for March, 2008
March 18, 2008 at 1:42 pm · Filed under Apple Canyon Winter '08
The deer know where to live, much like retirees, who flock to the Early Bird specials at the local diner.
There is no hunting on Apple Canyon property, but there is just over the farmers’ fence. The deer know this. They’ve figured out how to stay alive over the years since Open Season had taken so many of their ancestors (don’t worry, I’m not going to get all mushy over deer kills). The problem is, there are just too many deer around.
I see eight deer out the deck-side windows right now. I think there’s two families. When I take trail hikes, I come across at least four or six deer just one hill over either way the trail leads. Across the lake, other herds exist, too. That’s just too many deer.
The herd really needs to be culled, for the benefit of the population. If something isn’t done, won’t they overpopulate, contract and transfer deadly diseases, perhaps even begin to form societies, and so turn into vindictive assholes, just like humans? I don’t know for sure, but I think there’s precedence here.
At the moment, though, all I’m thinking is, “Venison steaks tonight on the barbee!” I wonder if a BB gun pellet will pierce their hides. I can always go Rambo on them, hide beneath the leaves in the woods, awaiting one of them — a fawn — to pass and then run that baby through with one of my mom’s chef knives.
Luck for them I just had pasta for lunch, and have defrosted chicken breasts for dinner.
March 13, 2008 at 8:11 am · Filed under Apple Canyon Winter '08
I’m not just being optimistic. Temps have risen above freezing over the last few days, and this morning at 8:30 it is already 35 degrees.
Out in nature, Spring’s arrival touches all the senses. The once knee-deep snow is now to just inches, with many brown patches and green stains of grass; animals are about today, first the birds—flying squawking swooping calling reporting pecking colorful lively (red-tail hawks are dive bombing the brush for fresh meat … can you taste that rodent?), then squirrels scurrying through the brush and into the trees, and the deer travel in gangs (with established pecking orders, I’ve noticed).
All are hungry, and while the bounty of Spring is not yet shown to humans, Earth’s creatures are doing just fine. There’s a smell to this not-quite-calendar Spring. It’s fresh, buoyant, the earth is undernose now. The sun warms the skin; I stood outside on the deck, feeling sunrays pull at the hairs on my arms (I doubt if Floridians can stand 35 degrees in t-shirt and sweat pants, but it feels damned skippy to me).
Later, to fill out the senses that I allude to, I’m going to go lick tree bark. I’ll get back to you on that.
March 10, 2008 at 1:03 pm · Filed under Apple Canyon Winter '08
It’s been solidly winter around NW Illinois since late November ‘07. Tomorrow the temps will begin to climb: 43 … 45 … 50 … 47.
I sound like some weather dot com. The snow has been the news in ACL these last few months, so the thaw is good news then, finally. I’m certainly not the news out here: all I do is sit on my ass, reading & writing. Sometimes I sit on my ass on the exercise bicycle. I’ve tried to read while spinning, and it’s sort of doable, but then one day I got really interested on this scene in a novel I’m reading, so I stopped spinning and sat in the saddle for like ten minutes. Finally I realized I could be sitting in a more comfortable chair. I guess I didn’t lose weight that day.
I’ve yet a few days to get in some XC skiing, so I think I’ll take that chance tomorrow and hit the trails. The lake looks might frozen yet — there hasn’t been a day above freezing, really, for two weeks — but March isn’t the time to die. Not this year, anyway.
The coming spring has drawn out the deer. Four of them wonder the property as I write these words. The fuckers are prolly starving after so much snow that has covered their traditional meager over-the-winter diet. Matter of fact, they do look a lot thinner than they had in December. Scrawny or not, if I had a bow & arrow, I’d like to skewer one and roast it over an open pit fire.
