Month: March 2011

The Winter of Our Discontent

It is a poor substitute, to say the least. We go through the motions – I make him sit and hold while I go hide the dummy in the brush, make him wait till I return to his side, release him with a ‘fetch’ command. At this, he explodes, his hard-wired enthusiasm escaping in high-pitched barks as he charges toward the location.

He drops it at my feet and sits. He will do this with me all day, if I have the stamina – his, on the other hand, is not in question.

But there is no rich panoply of smells typical of an October day in pursuit of wild birds. We are not riding currents of air and ground scent, not feeling the same, simultaneous explosion in our hearts at a bird that launches skyward, not savoring the sharp tang of a spent shell carried on the breeze. There is only a feeble smell of rubber and plastic, the familiar heft of something bird-like in shape and weight. Something that, for reasons he probably can’t understand, is not a bird.

I feel cheap. I feel like I owe him a lot more. I feel like I’m trying to explain sex to my son, and I just copped out and bought him a blow-up doll instead.

But it is March and the snow continues to fall and another season is so goddam far away that I have no choice but to focus on more immediate distractions and put the thought of it out of my head. I imagine that his approach is not much different.

He drops the dummy at my feet.

Eye Candy

The upland photography of Kevin Emery.

Big country and little details.

Enjoy.

You can see more of Kevin’s upland work, and other galleries, here.

Prickly

It is the beginning of the longest season and temper flares now and then like bursts of gas refinery burn-off. Prickly. Irritable. Sloth. No long walks with dog and gun. Those are far ahead. Too far ahead. Irritable itch. We’ll get through. Somehow. Somehow. Some way.

I think.

–TR

Stench

Here’s one they don’t tell you: Birds’ innards stink.

To holy hell.

It’s nice when you can breast out a bird neatly without breaking into the internal cavity; when you can fillet the meat off in two perfect little slabs. But when the shot mangles the meat or the freaking dog chews a bit too hard and the crushed organs behind the breast bone are exposed to air, the smell is almost toxic.

Worst bouquet ever: A small garage on the farm we stayed at in South Dakota where seven of us each cleaned our limit of roosters. It was like walking into a commercial poultry processing plant.

Even the lingering effects of quick stop breakfast burritos and draft beer caught in old neoprene waders can’t compare. Sunday morning frat house bathrooms smell better.

If you’re a dedicated crop-opener like I am, you have some insight on where the foul fowl scent comes from. Imagine what a diet of decaying apples, grasshoppers and aspen buds would do to you.

I know folks like to wax poetically about that magic moment when a dog’s olfactory system triggers the pooch to stop suddenly. Maybe, just maybe, our dogs are getting a whiff of the fetid internal stew inside the little birdies and they’re pulling up short.

Could you blame them?

– Matt Crawford

Avocation

A bird scented.
The world compressed into a moment of single moment of sure as hell, not-a-second of doubt this-is-what-I-do confidence.
All is as it should be.
To be a dog in tall grass…

GM

Week-old chukar

It was a romantic dinner. Candlelight. A fire crackling in the woodstove, splashing orange shadows on the walls of the old ranch house. A decent Malbec. Some tunes.
And chukar. Sauteed in olive oil with an excellent mild curry paste added on low-simmer. Red peppers, cloves of garlic, slivers of sweet onion. Served on a bed of rice. Delicious white, wild meat, spiced just right. A most successful evening.
A week later, my old die-hard bachelor habits resurface. I dig in the refrigerator, find the remnants of that spectacular meal. I’d sent half home with my lady and she prudently ate it the very next day for lunch. My half I forgot about and now, like a treasure discovered at a garage sale, it resurfaces. Eureka! I’m not shoveling in microwave popcorn after all.
When was that meal anyway? I wonder, asking my canine friends. They don’t remember. Surely this has still got to be good, right? They agree. Offer to eat it for me.
Without female wisdom this night to guide me, I dive in.
I can put it on a tort! Melt some cheese! Dab a little Indian hot relish to top it off!

And so I do. And it turns out well. Nearly as delicious as the first time, with only the lovely company lacking.
Two hours later, a rumble. Hark! What was that? Distant thunder. A crack of gastric lightning! Silence rent with a sound much like a stepped-on frog. From under. Fumunder. What?! I’m tore up. Battered in a bile hailstorm!
I sprint from bedroom to bath and fling porcelain out of my way. An explosion! Then silence. A thunderclap!! Another! What?!
Two hours later, I shiver and sweat in bed, timidly sipping water, awaiting the next distant rumble and thinking: Goddamndable chukar partridge. Even in the off-season, they win. Little bastards.

Rain

They were waiting for the rain, but the rains came late.
Instead of wetting the ground and bringing shoots and bugs and cover that just hatched quail so badly need, the monsoon came when the chicks were on the ground.

The rain came in a torrent, mixed in equal parts with hail and sleet, hammering down on the desert. While the succulents drank it in, the quail were victims of its fury. Innocents swept away by the very thing they so badly needed. Add in years of drought, exacerbated by overgrazing and it’s tough times for New Mexico’s uplands.
Low survival rates mean few birds, scattered widely across the desert in small bunches. These are not the easy birds of wet years. There are no lay ups now.
These birds have been hunted, by man and beast.
At the flush, they go low and fast. Bird, tree, bird, nothing.
No shot, just a quiet curse for myself. On a day like this one, in a year like this one, the opportunities are few and far between.
The dog is exuberant and I laugh at how much energy she regains from her success at finding a single.
“Go on,” I shout at the scalie, rocketing downhill out of sight. That bird is a survivor. A worthy sire for another year’s covey.
It’s been three months of quail hunters, hawks, coyotes, bobcats, skunks and foxes.
Now the season is done.
The men and dogs are gone from the fields.
Time to dodge the raptors and predators and wait for the rain.
The dog and will I settle in and wait for Nov. 15.
For them, it’s merely another chapter in a long dry spell.
They wait for the rain.