Venison: Lean, clean, and (no longer) lead-fortified
I disposed of the lead fragment and picked through the rest of the venison carefully. I hoped none of my bullets would ever come apart like that again.
delusions of separation
Coyotes, deer, and the very idea of ‘game’
A few nights ago, coyotes yipped and howled nearby. I was delighted to hear them. Granted, I was in bed at the time. My sentiments would, I suspect, be substantially different if I was, say, deep in the woods with a turned ankle and no flashlight. The next day I got thinking about those wild … Read more
Snake food: Humans as prey
The sound was quiet, but close: a rustle in the leaves a few feet from the hiking trail. Curious, I peered under the ferns and caught sight of a garter snake. Then I saw what it was up to. Not one of Mr. Frog’s better days. The image of the amphibian in that reptile’s maw … Read more
‘I could definitely kill one of those’
The timing was dead-on. Just as I walked past the table, the woman said, “My rule is, ‘I’ll only eat it if I could kill it.’ And I could definitely kill one of those.” I left the restaurant chuckling. I was thinking how the line echoed one of my reasons for taking up hunting: to … Read more
Asphalt and wildness
What was that just ahead, in that puddle? Walking up the paved path, I looked hard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It had been raining hard for two days, and gusty. Anything light enough to be caught by the wind could have blown about and settled here. A couple of plastic … Read more
A buck looks back: Quirk or gift?
Reaching my spot in the woods that morning, I had no illusions about my chances of seeing a legal buck. My first three years, I had come up empty-handed. My fourth year, I had gotten lucky. This was my fifth year. Given that only one in eight Vermont hunters tags a whitetail each autumn, I … Read more
Feathers in the snow
First, a downy tuft. Then a barred tail feather. I scanned the path ahead and the woods to either side. Usually, when I find a few grouse feathers, there are more nearby, then more, then the spot where it happened. This time, I did find more feathers, perhaps a couple dozen. But no epicenter. One … Read more