Oh cripes, what do I do now?

I just got back from a walk with Yukon. We went up and down the back road, and were about to head back inside when some gunshots started in the distance. She flinched a bit, and I didn't want to take her in right then to reinforce her fear, so we circled the yard for a bit.

As we got down to one of the front corners of the property, in an area where I had cleared some brush over the summer, something odd caught my eye:

It's right in the middle, just a little below center - a white form on the ground. Funny, I thought, I don't remember a big rock being there.

The dog was interested, so I walked up and....

What must have been a beautiful buck - maybe even the one that scraped up a bunch of trees in my yard - crumpled in a heap, dead for at least a few days from either car or bullet. On my land. As noted in the title of this post, my thought: "Oh cripes, what do I do now?"

This happened on my family's land while growing up, but there were big, open spaces around us where the deer carcass could be dropped - and my dad was there to do it. I don't think he'll be willing to drive 400 miles to take care of this one - and there really isn't anywhere to go with it without loading it in the back of my car. I wonder what my garbage man would think if I dragged it down for next week's pickup.

For now, the thin layer of snow actually makes the situation a bit more bearable - it's almost serene. Everything is frozen, so I don't have to worry about decomposition right away. I think it's a 10-point buck - I didn't lift the head to check the antlers on the other side - and I may just leave it, and let nature take its course (no brush cutting in that area next spring). I'd like to harvest the antlers - they're really nice. I'll just have to keep the dog away from the scene.

A side note - my dad's dog, Daisy, stumbled upon one of those deer carcasses in the woods back home a few years ago. It was desiccated corpse, but she still found it irresistible - to the point that she'd wander up into the woods every chance she got to gnaw on it. Finally, one Christmas morning after presents, the whole family helped load the thing up on a sled and skid it to a distant, inaccessible location. To this day, years later, the dog still goes back to the original spot where the deer was, looking for her long-lost snack bar.

Just shoot the buffalo already!

Cape buffalo (image from Wikipedia)

When I got my dog earlier this week, I felt I needed to make a financial tradeoff. So, I canceled my cable TV.

Yukon has been taking up much of my time these first few days, but late at night, between work and bed, I still find myself with a half-hour or so when I need to just wind down. I can't watch late-night cable offerings, so I've been getting reacquainted with late-night local TV. Tonight I was introduced to a show that started out benignly, then became progressively more horrifying. The show? "The American Huntress."

The show started, and seemed mildly better than infomercials, so I decided to stick it out. It is sponsored by the likes of bullet manufacturers and a clothing line called "She Safari." The premise is something along the lines of two women from Texas who like to hunt, and they bring along cameras to film their exploits in hopes of encouraging more women to hunt. Tonight's episode involved one of the women - her name was Linda, but I'll call her "Shotgun" - and her husband ("Second Fiddle") going on an African safari.

They arrived in Africa, and filmed the interior of their luxury tents to show their female viewers how posh things can be, so they won't be so darn hesitant to join their husbands on their next weeklong trip to hunt game in Africa.

Then they headed out into the game reserve to find a big male cape buffalo, the shooting of which seemed to be Shotgun's all-encompassing desire. But then the group spotted a herd of elephants, and Second Fiddle just had to shoot one, so they stalked and took out a big elephant bull.

I was starting to feel weird at this point. I have nothing against hunting deer, or any other kind of game that is put to use as food, or clothing, or some other practical application. But it was quite clear that they weren't going to be frying up elephant steaks outside their four-star tent that night.

So then they went out the next day, in search of Shotgun's cape buffalo, when they instead spotted some kind of wildebeest that Shotgun just had to shoot. So she did.

I started thinking, for God's sake, for the sake of all these animals, let some dumb cape buffalo stumble out in front of their LandCruiser so they can shoot it and be done with all this. But no.

Then, if memory serves me correctly, they went out again and found not a cape buffalo, but leopard tracks - and Second Fiddle had to shoot a leopard. So they hung the wildebeest carcass up and waited for the leopard to come along. He did, and yet another majestic African animal fell. And we were only like two-thirds of the way through the show.

Another day, and Shotgun finally, FINALLY got her cape buffalo. But then she decided she HAD to shoot a lion. Which, using the logic of the safari, meant she first had to shoot a hippo to get bait for the lion. Which she did. Ultra-condensed version, the lions never showed, so, oops, that hippo was shot for... nothing. Oh, well. End of hunt for them. Sigh of relief for me.

Other than the wildebeest and hippo used as bait, the show never mentioned what happened to all these animals that were shot. I assume they probably were mounted as trophies to sit in Shotgun and Second Fiddle's living room. What a waste.

But all is not lost. Thanks to the ads, I've got a hot tip on the most destructive bullet on the market, and I got a good look at the She Safari line. Tailored camo never looked so good.

Gunshots, gunshots everywhere!

First day of Minnesota's deer season = guns firing in all directions around my house.

Note to hunter to the northwest: I'm not a hunter, but I don't think you're supposed to fire five shots in a row to bring down a deer. That's probably overkill (though I'm guessing that volley didn't kill anything)