We had our first really hard freeze last night, 19°F. We had been enjoying the fall flowers, the
asters and cosmos, marigolds and the last roses. But that killing frost was a firm dividing
line. From now on, autumn will be
increasingly silent. The summer birds
have gone, the crickets are quiet.
For the hunters, it is deer season. I know several deer hunters at work; was
talking with one of them this week. He
showed me some pictures on his phone. Prior to the season actually opening he
had gone out to his spot and scoped things out.
There was a picture of a lot of grass and brush, now turned brown. Barely visible, there was a young buck
grazing. He blended into his surroundings perfectly. The hunter said that he perhaps wouldn’t even
try for a deer, unless the perfect opportunity presented itself. The main pleasure was going out to his tree
stand before dawn, and watching the world wake up. He spoke of it happening in
stages, the different types of birds, the small animals, the larger ones.
Another coworker is a fisherman. He spoke of taking his boat out on the lake,
he supposed for the last time before winter.
He tends to be kind of hyper, says how calm he feels out on the
water. I asked if he caught
anything. He said one, but he threw it
back. He does mainly catch and
release. The challenge, and the pleasure
of being on the water is the main thing for him.
The hunter is a Lutheran, the fisherman is a Catholic. Both speak of their pastimes as being a
spiritual experience, of feeling close to creation.
The crows are the harbingers of spring and winter around here. They're noisy and busy right now.
ReplyDeleteWe had our last farmers market today, and once All Souls is past, I am pretty much in the Advent spirit.
It's a time to keep things simple and let go of expectations. Useful attitudes for the Hereafter, too, I expect.
Here in California, it's still pretty drought-y. Today it was in the low 80s and will be about 50 at night. The fall ritual for me is getting tarps put on the leaky roof before the rainy seasons starts.
ReplyDeleteThe birds are still here - I don't think they go south - and all the other critters are out: skunks, possums, and the stray cats of the neighborhood. The squirrels are eating nuts from the pecan tree and searching for acorns from the oak trees in the yard.
I used to dislike fall, because it was gloomy, wet. and cold. But thanks to global warmer it's much nicer now (except for the fires).
Well, here are signs of global warming. I have always loved autumn (we Libras do). But I always counted the harvest moon as the start. That was Oct. 6 this year. Y'all are nearly a month late by the accounting I used when I lived in Wisconsin, when it was God's country before it became Kochtopia.
ReplyDeleteAutumn came to Florida last week, or about two weeks later than it did when we moved down here 30 years ago. You will laugh when I say we could tell because nighttime temperatures PLUNGED into the high 70s. When I went out to get the paper this morning, it felt like late spring used to feel up north. At the moment, we are feeling combat between the second cold front of the season (more daytime temps that can't get above the mid-80s, sigh) and what may be the last effort at a tropical storm. So we are getting the Florida equivalent of a cold rain, about which Jean would laughingly say, "Are you kidding?"
The psalm in the Office of Readings for this morning is 104, a meditation on the creation of nature. It fits Katherine's post here.
Tom, I really like Psalm 104.
DeleteI guess we have had global warming, at least climate change, here also. The hard freeze was about on schedule, this is the time we normally get it. What didn't feel quite normal were the days in the high 80s in October. We didn't used to have that in my youth. Also quite a bit of rain in Sept. and Oct. I made the remark to one of my sons, that it reminded me of my days in NM, a bit of a mini monsoon after a hot dry summer, that we were the "new southwest". He said, " Yeah, and the southwest is the new Sahara."
ReplyDeleteMowing my mother's lawn late into October is enough for me to recognize the local effects of global warming. In the Poconos, if it hits a low of 7°F, the brainwashed will say "where is global warming?" However, I remember readings of minus 25°F in the 1980's and 1990's.
ReplyDeleteThis came to mind:
ReplyDeleteGod's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
##
I like that, Margaret. He wrote some good ones.
DeleteThe line:
Delete"nature is never spent" seems to me to lie beneath the calm the hunter, the fisherman, the gardener etc. sense this time of year...
We had our last water fountain shows this weekend. Now the fountains of Versailles will be silent until Spring, and on the week of All Souls' day all the white marble statues outdoors will be covered by tarpaulin for protection during the winter.
ReplyDeleteCovering the statues on All Souls day!! How touching and appropriate.
DeleteI hate to be the wet blanket, but I really have problems understanding how shooting a deer - an innocent animal living in his own natural habitat - is a spiritual experience. Deliberately killing another living thing, a magnificent animal. I doubt he needs it for food. Maybe the hunter should retire his gun and simply enjoy the spiritual experience of being one with nature, which means loving it - and all it encompasses, including deer.
ReplyDeleteAnne, Katherine's deer hunter specifically said he might not even shoot. He was not out to satisfy blood lust, only his soul.
ReplyDeleteBut having enjoyed venison my mother-in-law cooked from deer my father-in-law shot, I must add that you can hardly object to shooting deer if you eat chicken -- unless you are willing to go vegetarian, which is a whole nother subject whose time may be coming but I don't believe has come yet.
Anne, that was my reaction too. Society romanticizes hunting. But then, I'm a vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, quickly killing an animal in its native environment is more humane than a lifetime spent in a confinement stall. I've had vegan and vegetarian periods and plan to return to it but presently, it would add another difficulty to ongoing difficulties, so I just eat.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right, Stanley. Up until that last moment, the deer that people shoot were living wild and free. Of course if they shoot it, they ought to eat it. Most of the hunters are ethical about not wasting the animal.
DeleteBut the choice isn't between killing an animal quickly in the wild or caging/slaughterhouse .... it's between killing it or not killing it. Hunting for Americans is about pleasure/fun, not about food.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's road kill. That seems to be one of the ways folks up in the country get their venison steaks.
ReplyDeleteWhatever is shot is usually eaten. Some people reduce food costs by hunting and financially need to do so. It certainly does matter how a creature lives its life and how it is killed. Personally, I have no desire to hunt but would do so if it made a difference between eating or going hungry.
ReplyDeleteAll animals are beautiful, but that's not the point in my area. The deer population is a problem. It is so large that it spreads bovine TB to livestock. And it is overcrowded so that wasting disease and starvation in winter are problems. And deer-car accidents kill hundreds of motorists. They are not in a "natural area" because overpopulation has forced them to spread to urban areas and parks where sharpshooters have to take them out. Supposedly, they are processed for prisoners. I have seen them caught in medians at the intersection of 496 and 127. It is pitiful. I am not out to demonize the deer--I'd be happy to demonize the DNR--but hunters help cull the population. Wolves and bear would also control the population, but farmers in the U.P. went ape when wolves were reintroduced. Farmers were allowed to shoot wolves near livestock. Now you can shoot them for fun. Which means the deer have fewer predators (again) and run rampant.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in shooting wolves for fun, but I also don't think they ought to be re-introduced in populated and agricultural areas. Which is one reason I oppose Trump's proposals to open federal lands to logging and drilling, etc.; that is loss of habitat that doesn't need to happen. Of course I can't think of any of Trump's proposals that I don't oppose. But loss of national park lands is something people on both sides of the divide ought to oppose.
DeleteYou are right about wasting disease. I don't know if "blue tongue" is the same thing or not, but that is also something that is a problem here.
People hunting for food ... go to the food bank ;)
ReplyDeleteAnimals' habitats are disappearing because there are too many people, so they end up where people are. Natural predators are killed to make ranchers and farmers happy. Scientists have called what's happening to animals now a mass extinction ... one to five species a year is becoming extinct and by the end of this century it's thought that half the species now existing will be extinct. Even the pope spoke about this in Laudato si'
... "Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right."
I'm not a hunter; have never even fired a gun. Just cap pistols when I was a kid. But I can't be too hard on the farmers and ranchers; most of us wouldn't take kindly to something taking a bite out of our paycheck. That and ranch country is where I grew up.
DeleteIt's remarkable though, how many hunters progress to not being hunters. They get so that being out and enjoying nature is enough for them. My dad was like that. He used to hunt as a young man, but said that after he had kids he lost heart for it.
My sister in law is a deer hunter. She goes out every year, but it has been several years since she took anything. She is a good enough shot I know she could if she wanted to. She spoke about the Gralloch Prayer, that she read in a book:
"O Lord, bless the blood and the flesh of this the creature that You gave me. Created by Your hand as You created man,
Life given for life.
That me and mine may eat with thanks for the gift,
That me and mine may give thanks for Your own sacrifice of blood and flesh,
Life given for life."
I didn't mean to hijack the conversation - just wanted to respond to Anne C.
ReplyDeleteBut that prayer is kind of an example of the attitude in which people are God's favorites and animals only exist to be used by us for whatever as gifts from God. I think that's referred to as an instrumental view of nature as opposed to the idea that nature has intrinsic value. There's a whole religious difference of opinion on this.
Thank you for responding, Crystal. I also did not intend to divert the discussion from the original post, which struck me as an oxymoron - deliberately killing an animal, even if necessary for survival (and few hunters in the US are really living at the subsistence level in our era) seems not spiritual to me. Being in nature can be the settings for a spiritual experience. But killing a living, breathing animal seems the opposite of a spiritual experience, prayers not withstanding. Fishing and throwing back the catch is also problematic. Fish may experience pain from the hook, but the thrashing and fighting the hook show that the fish is overcome with fear and panic. Why fish at all if not to eat the fish? It seems cruel. It's perfectly possible to enjoy nature without killing anything. We sail - it's incredibly peaceful - AND can be very spiritual. Or maybe fishermen can just sit quietly in their bass boat for hours and pretend they are fishing.
ReplyDeleteStanley, I am not a complete vegetarian like Crystal. However, if I were not cooking for a husband who doesn't think a meal is complete without some kind of dead animal on his plate, I would be. So I compromise - I am the shopper/cook. I cook mostly with vegetables and whole grains, with some chicken or fish four or five times/week. I often leave out the chicken when I eat. Fish is my weakness - I love fish. Many deer and other animals are killed with one shot, but many are not. They feel pain, fear, panic before dying. If they are lucky, the hunter might find them quickly and finish them off. But many hunters are not hunting for food - they take the trophy - antlers - and discard the rest.
However, the way animals are treated in big business is worse than the hunters (at least worse than hunters who hunt legitimately and not those who "hunt" captive animals on ranches, which is beyond conscience). So I pay $4.00/dozen for eggs (certified humane), and more $/pound for chicken than I care to think about for truly free range, certified humane. I buy mostly organic food - not just to reduce the chemical load on my husband and me, but to reduce it in the environment - in the water and to reduce the exposure of farm workers to chemicals. Farm workers have a higher rate of cancer than those of us who simply eat the chemically coated produce they pick for us. I buy only wild-caught fish, avoid GMOs in food, and bovine growth hormone in dairy. It gets really complicated to try to shop and eat ethically, not to mention expensive. So a little animal protein, and a lot of vegetables and vegetable protein. One cookbook I bought years ago suggested using meat as a condiment rather than as the main course.
Anne, I would be perfectly fine with sitting in a bass boat not even pretending to fish. I love to ride in boats if I get the chance. I'd probably be sitting there with a good book.
DeleteIt is much cheaper to use a little meat in stews and soups. As lower income people, that's how we eat meat as a necessity. It's also healthier to eat small amounts of lean meat. Most Americans eat more than they need.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was married I cooked meat for my husband too ... what we do for love ;)
ReplyDeleteDinner last night was a toasted cheese sandwich and some halloween candy - yum.
Jean, I love soups and stews, so it's no hardship to make them with little or no meat. Toasted cheese sandwiches - yum. Katherine, the bass boat would be much better for reading. When you're sailing you are either coming about all the time, or tipping too much because of too much wind, or......fun but not really conducive to reading! But the moment we turn the sailboat's engine off after motoring out to open water at the lightening fast speed of 5 knots, and the wind catches the sail, it's so peaceful and beautiful that it really is a spiritual moment.
ReplyDeleteI am not opposed to hunting, per se. But I don't seen killing animals, even for necessity, as being conducive to the spiritual experience. An unfortunate necessity. And I am strongly opposed to unnecessary cruelty to animals we eat - found mostly in factory raised animals.
We have a problem with overpopulation of deer right here in the suburbs, only about 10 miles to the DC line. We see roadkill deer all the time. I guess Margaret must live in the city, because dead deer on the road is not just a rural thing. Cars are their natural predators here. I live on a typical suburban lot (1/4 acre) that backs to a small woods that borders a streambed. I see deer behind my house every day, often in my yard beyond the fence, and often in my front yard, munching my petunias. The woods, owned by the county and un-buildable (yay) because it's a flood plain , is only about 400' across and then you hit another subdivision. Naturally no hunting is allowed there - way too close to houses and people just walking in the woods. The deer eat the flowers, a less serious problem than spreading TB, tut they can also have Lyme ticks. Too many deer are a problem because our human habitat and theirs are in conflict. The county has a controlled hunt every year in the major parks where it is safe. I believe that most of the hunters do use the venison. One of the large federal agencies (NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly known as National Bureau of Standards) has hundreds of acres and a whole lot of deer decided to give free birth control to their deer population because hunting there would be too dangerous. So the deer get free birth control but women don't? ;)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1998/11/27/a-scientific-approach-to-deer-control/2385fce1-21be-4651-b6d0-8d965d8cfd79/?utm_term=.94f9726072dc
Michigan looked at birth control in deer feed, but decided it would be too hard to dicey to control. Other animals (and possibly people) could get the laced deer feed. Birth control one deer at a time is incredibly time consuming. The thinking here is that if you can catch a deer, you might as well kill it and eat it. So, a lot of dead deer on the roads, and sharp shooters in the suburbs who take out the deer with bow and arrow periodically at the request of municipalities. They do it when school is in session so as not to get the kiddies upset.
DeleteIf you have never tracked an animal--even if just to take a photo of it--you don't really know how it heightens your awareness of your natural surroundings. Grampa used to take us out to stake out turkeys. Not for hunting, but just to track them. Sometimes we found huckleberries. And then we had to spend hours picking them. Ugh.
Using animals as experimental subjects in research bothers me worse than hunting. I realize that to some extent it is necessary, to find cures for cancer, etc. But a lot of animal research is redundant, duplicating studies and data which have already been gathered. I think the burden of proof is on those doing the research to demonstrate that it is really necessary, and observing strict protocols for keeping it as humane as possible.
DeleteOne of the organizations I support is The American Anti-Vivisection Society, which works to end using animals in scientific research. It may be useful to us humans but that doesn't make it ethical, just expedient.
ReplyDeleteI basically agree with you there, Crystal.
Delete