What on earth can this rifle do that couldn't be done with something else, other than cause people who have an eye for classy guns recoil in horror? If ugly is somehow necessary, well, the Savage Model 42 is ugly enough for any practical purpose but nowhere near so ugly as the Little Badger:

And there's the very ugly M6 Survival gun, now available in civilian versions, ugly but again not in the same league of ugly as the Little Badger:

Both of these are ugly, but they have the advantage of incorporating a shotgun barrel as well as a rifle barrel. If indeed "survival" is the point of the Little Badger, well, it's outclassed except in ugly.

When it comes to an all-around survival/foraging gun, it's hard to beat the old and much-loved Savage 24. This over/under combination was made for decades in many variants, one of which is shown here: it's a 24-S, one of the least attractive versions but still recognizable as a real gun, not something that might have been issued to a Star Wars trooper. For my money of all the Model 24 combinations the .22LR/20 gauge is the bee's knees; it's a shame that Savage stopped making these guns and replaced them with the moderately hideous Model 42, but at least they had the decency not to produce anything like the Little Badger.

January 15, 2025: Why? Why?

Oh, God help us, the ugly gun trend gets worse every day. Here is the "FlightLite" [sic] "Herring Model 2024," which the NRA has described as "...AR-15 based lever action..." as if that justified it.

I'm not sure how much more of this I can stand...I didn't think anything could be uglier than the Chiappa "Little Badger," but clearly I was wrong.

No doubt this...thing...is intended to get around the AR-15 bans in some states and countries. No doubt some people will buy it. This should not have happened.

January 18, 2025: Today's Idiocy

From time to time I spot something in a supermarket or other store that makes me scratch my head at the stupidity of today's consumer. Here in Blacksburg we have many students who are vegetarians or worse, vegans; the local Kroger's caters to these dimwits. Here is the latest imbecility:

January 20, 2025: Well, He's Gone

Fifteen minutes ago President Buffoon's term ended after four long years. He can now stumble off into the mists of history; good riddance to him and everything he stands for.

February 2, 2025: The Festival Of The Meteorological Rodent

The report from Punxatawney is that the groundhog saw his shadow today. Six more weeks of winter. Well, Phil is at least as accurate a forecaster as the Weather Babes on TV.

February 9, 2025: Super Bowel Sunday (And No, That's Not A Typo)

I've spent the last few days digitizing dog pictures from our old albums, so that they can be displayed on one of those digital photo frame gadgets. Forty-one years of having dogs means you have a LOT of pictures. I've been through three albums so far, have 86 more images to go in the current one, and no idea how many more there may be in other albums stashed away in our spare room closet.

This is a tiring exercise for many reasons. First—and least important—is the fact that my back is killing me from the stooped positions I have to take. Much more importantly, it's emotionally draining. Seeing all those pictures of long-dead companions who have shared our lives for anywhere from 10 to 16 years each is wearing me down.

So many memories...For a variety of reasons I believe I have, at most, 10 years to go. Not long enough. I have come to realize that I can no longer, at age 77—nearly 78—have a dog. It would probably outlive me, and I have no one to whom it could go. I could never countenance any pet of mine ending up in a shelter or worse, being "put to sleep" because I was so inconsiderate as to die first. Nor do I wish to undergo the heartache—again—of losing a beloved animal should I live longer than I think I will.

I have absolutely zero interest in football, but briefly I've been watching the "Puppy Bowl," which is far more entertaining and far more honest than any football game could ever be. This isn't helping my melancholy outlook. Those adorable dogs remind me of what I have had, what I have lost, and what I can never have again.

February 26, 2025: The Last Tree

If you have followed this blog for any length of time you'll perhaps have read my essay on trees that have meant something to me in the course of my life. Today the last tree that was in our yard when we moved here 38 years ago was cut down.

It was a flowering crabapple, a spectacularly showy ornamental that every Spring burst forth with pink blossoms for a brief time. I have no idea which of the previous owners of this house planted it, nor when. The house was built in 1963, so I suppose it could have been planted then, or sometime afterwards; but it was certainly well over 40 years old. It had been steadily declining; in the last ice and windstorm a couple of weeks ago it lost some big branches. It was directly under our power line, too: a year or so ago another of our trees had grown up into the line and got set on fire, something we didn't want to have happen. I hated to lose it, but it was obvious the crabapple's time had come. We hired a tree service to do the deed; it was far too much for me to handle. The tree man came yesterday, to give me a very reasonable estimate. Today two workers showed up. A husky young man and a lithe, wiry young woman. He did the cutting, she drove the skid-steer and shoved branches and debris into the wood-chipper trailer. (That chipper is one of the scariest pieces of equipment I've ever seen. A few weeks ago a man working for one of the local tree companies fell into a chipper, about as grisly a fate as could be imagined. His work mates got most of him out, according to the news story, but it must have been like that famous scene in the movie Fargo. Yechh...)

I was immensely impressed with these two professionals. They showed up at 12:30 and were done by 3:00, including an hour for their lunch. It helps when you have a 24" chain saw and a skidder that handles logs 12-15 feet long and a foot thick. I thought about what it must have been like when this area was originally settled, back in the mid-18th Century. Virgin forest that had to be cut down with axes and hand saws! Those old timers really had it tough. Doing it today is not easy but back then it must have been literally back-breaking. No wonder they died in their 30's—if they were lucky enough to live that long.

May 9, 2025: Back From Europe

I returned two days ago from an extended (5 weeks) trip. A report will be posted soon, I've been terribly lax about that, but please be patient. It took us three days just to do laundry and catch up on paperwork. We traveled again via Queen Mary 2. Went via London and Paris to Barcelona, whence we boarded a Viking cruise in the Mediterranean. I'll post a link when the report is up. Mea culpa.

May 24, 2025: The Universal Words And Common "Culture"

While in Europe I was reminded of two facts: first is that English is becoming—if it isn't already—the universal language of the world. When I made my first trip across The Pond in 1966 it was a good thing that I spoke some French and my traveling companion spoke some German, because otherwise we'd not have been able to communicate at all. Nowadays at least in areas frequented by tourists, English is almost universally understood and spoken by the local population.

The second is that some words are simply universal. They're the same in every language, not only in meaning, but in spelling. We encountered these in at least half a dozen countries, always spelled the same way. Here are a few of them but no doubt there are more:

STOP
TAXI
PIZZA
SNACK
HOTEL
SPORT
OKAY
TATTOO
MINI
MAXI
BAR
CAFE
VIDEO
EXPO
PHOTO
CASINO
S.O.S.

(Yes, I know that last entry isn't a "word" per se, but its meaning is clear to everyone.)

Another thing that's become increasingly obvious over the years is the enormous influence of American pop culture. This is entirely due to television and Hollywood movies, which present a distorted view of American life. (I was once in Egypt where the soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful had such a hold on the imagination of the populace that the entire country came to a grinding halt when it was on TV. Most Egyptians seem to think all Americans are rich, beautiful, spoiled, and live in mansions. But I digress...)

In 1966 it was possible to spot Americans in Europe easily by the way we dressed, particularly with respect to shoes. The sort of athletic shoe so common today was unknown in the US: Americans wore normal street shoes. Today it is no longer possible to spot who's from where. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, wears the same clothes and sports the same logos, regardless of their nationality. Unless you hear someone speak it's not possible to determine where someone is from.

Some logos are more common than others. Names of cities and states in the USA are by far the most common words emblazoned across T-shirts and sweatshirts. Especially "NEW YORK," both the city and the state; but the names of a dozen or more American states and cities were also easily seen in any crowd, in any city we visited. Most of these were being worn by people who weren't Americans. "SAN DIEGO" and "CHICAGO" were popular, too; but "MILWAUKEE" and even "CLEVELAND" showed up from time to time, as did—of course—"TEXAS" which rivaled "NEW YORK" in numbers of sightings. This is an interesting thing, because I don't remember seeing "TORONTO" or "MONTREAL" or any other Canadian city. Why not, for example, "SASKATCHEWAN" or "WINNIPEG"? I have no idea. American sports teams got good exposure: the New York Yankees baseball team was everywhere evident.

Of non-US places "PARIS" or "ROME" and "OXFORD" popped up now and then. I don't recall seeing "MOSCOW" but I did see "BARCELONA." I have no explanation for this phenomenon of the predominance of American cities and states.

As anyone who's traveled to Europe can attest, too, the presence of American companies is widespread. I've seen a Subway sandwich shop in Russia, for Pete's sake; you will find the malign Golden Arches in any town in Europe of any size. For that matter I once was treated to dinner in a KFC in Amman, Jordan. Starbucks and Burger King are everywhere, too; plus I've counted at least five Five Guys franchises in Paris alone. But one company whose logo is surely known by every living human being outside of a Borneo rain forest (and maybe even there) is...Coca-Cola. In my early travels I would see Coca-Cola signs everywhere. Every bar and restaurant seemed to have Coca-Cola and displayed that fact. This trip, I saw none of that. The only "advertisement" I saw for Coca-Cola was on the side of a 60's or 70's vintage napkin holder in Crete. Hard to explain the near-total disappearance of an iconic brand.

Long Live The Flip Phone

I hate "smart" phones. After the trip we made to Europe a year and a half ago my wife forced me to get a "smart" phone because my beloved LG Wine flip phone wouldn't work there. I flatly refused to spend $1000 on the then-latest I-Phone; under compulsion I bought a Samsung Galaxy A15, and I hate the damned thing for many reasons, too many to go into here. I've been using it for a year and a half and I hate it more every day.

I have two, maybe three uses for a phone. First, to make calls; second, to receive calls. On very rare occasions I find it convenient to take a picture (all mobile phones are also cameras these days). That's it. I cannot comprehend the idea that someone should put his or her entire life on a phone: bank account numbers, credit card information, Social Security numbers, passwords, birthdays, etc., etc. What happens if the phone is lost or stolen? Your life goes with it. Still less do I understand the logic behind those little stick-on sleeves that people use to carry their driver's licenses, credit cards, etc. attached to the phone in one "convenient" package. Convenient for whom? I live in a university town with innumerable young women who carry their phone sticking out of the back pocket of their blue jeans. Maybe it's to make things easier for pickpockets? To me this sort of behavior is just asking for trouble.

Moreover, I loathe texting and refuse to do it. Texting makes no sense. If someone needs to speak with me, that's what the phone is for: call me, damn it. But too often the text is "Can you talk right now?" or something similar. If I can talk I'll answer: if not I won't.

But...I believe I have found The Way. About two years ago I bought a cheapo flip phone, one of those pay-as-you-go things, that costs me the magnificent sum of $15 per month, no contract, get-rid-of-it-when-you-want-to. You know, what on the detective shows on TV they call a "burner" phone*. It can't do "apps," and I don't want it to; but it makes calls and receives calls and has a camera.

Today I found out I can forward calls to my never-sufficiently-to-be-cursed "smart" phone to my "burner" phone. I am now liberated. Anyone who calls me is automatically routed to the "burner," which is half the size of the Samsung phone. Texts are not forwarded, which is no hardship. I can't check voicemail, either, which again is no hardship. Henceforth the Samsung will sit on my desk and act as a relay station. By the way, the burner phone is "unlocked," so if we travel outside the USA again I can buy and insert a SIM card that works wherever we're going, rendering me free of that damned Samsung even in Europe.

*The modern TV detective drama simply couldn't carry its plots forward without having the Good Guys as well as the Bad Guys use cell phones.

July 4, 2025: Rodenticide

I killed a groundhog today. This is nothing new for me, I've killed a lot of them. Since my dog Lucy died two years ago the word is out among the local critters that our yard is now a "safe zone," so we've been seeing a lot of wildlife in it.

Had this animal been smart enough to stay in the back yard I'd not have bothered him. We have no garden, and a groundhog in the back yard isn't doing me any harm so I "live and let live." But this one decided to build a burrow right up against the outside wall of my house. I suppose he thought to himself, "Aha! Here is a nice big flat rock, I can dig my home against it and have a solid, safe place to live!"

I have a couple of those "Hav-A-Hart" traps (is there any less suitable name for a trap?). These have one advantage: if a "non-target" species such as a rabbit or a squirrel takes the bait, I can let it go unharmed. Its disadvantage is that it doesn't effect an instantaneous kill, as does my neighbor's Conibear trap, with which he has killed at least 50 groundhogs in his garden. I don't have a Conibear trap and don't want one, lest a neighbor's cat, or the small dog who lives behind my house who periodically escapes to go a-roaming, might stick its head in and get killed. I would hate to have to explain to my neighbor what happened to his little terrier. Another disadvantage of the "Hav-A-Hart" is that if I'm not home when something gets trapped it may be a long while before I get to either let it go or terminate it. Even a few hours in the hot sun in one of those would be indefensible torture. I place it where I can see it from my deck, so I can check it several times a day.

I did the deed that necessity demanded had to be done using my 63-year-old Remington Nylon 11 .22 rifle and a CB cap. I took the trap plus temporary resident into the garage, closed the door, and POP! translocated him to the Great Garden In The Sky. May he forage in peace. I then washed up the blood, bagged the poor critter's carcass, and took it to the disposal site my neighbor with the Conibear uses.

I didn't want to do this. I hope I don't have to do it again, but I probably will have to: once a burrow is vacated sooner or later another groundhog will move into it. I would greatly have preferred to let him go, but in Virginia the law says that if you trap something you may not relocate it: you are required to kill it. Mr Marmot in his innocence sealed his fate when he chose to dig where he did. I can try closing up the hole after inserting a smoke bomb into it, but I did that last year to no avail. My father used to buy some sort of thing that looked like an M-80 firework but when lit released cyanide gas. Those are no longer sold (at least not to non-professional pest removers) and the smokers are pretty feeble. Shoveling dirt into the hole might slow down reoccupation but can't prevent it.

I'd baited the trap with carrots and sliced oranges; two days after putting it out I saw the doors were down, went to look, and there he was. At least he'd had a decent last meal. It isn't much to ease the pangs of conscience but it's something. I imagine that executioners in prison feel the same way about those prisoners on Death Row they have to kill when the time comes.

More Stupidity

From time to time I come across something that strikes me as terminally stupid. It's usually something related to advertising or merchandising; the best place to find such things is a "health food" store (ever notice how everyone who works in a "health food" store look emaciated and on the verge of death?) but supermarkets are also great places to encounter this sort of nonsense. Hardware stores aren't exempt either. Here are a few recent, choice examples.

Beer Charcoal

Well, what the hell, it's July 4th weekend, right? People will be having cookouts, and what's a cookout without beer, hey? So Kingsford brought this gem out. I wonder if they expect it to be sold to teetotalers as well as "normal" people? It "contains no alcohol," they are careful to point out, in small type, in both English and Spanish.

The Electronic Fly Swatter

This one might actually be fun. You put in the batteries (not included) and hit a bug... and ZAP! the little bastard is no more. I've seen electric "bug-zappers" that make a very satisfying noise when a victim touches the wires, so I assume this thing does too.

The Solar-Powered, AI-Enabled Bird Feeder

Sold in our local Tractor Supply store. You can watch birdies from the comfort of your armchair by using the function that sends HD images to your cell phone. Videos, too! Best of all you don't have to get out your copy of Peterson's Field Guide To The Birds, because this thing recognizes them for you and tells you what you're seeing. So if an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker comes but you're in a business meeting or aboard a cruise ship, you'll know it. What's not to like?

Last, But Not Least: "Plant-Powered" Laundry Detergent

Yes, you read that right. These days the term "plant based" is a big selling point in grocery stores. It's worth pointing out that everything sold in a grocery store is ultimately "plant based" because it's plants that make life on Earth possible. But this is without doubt the silliest "plant based" product I've seen in a long time. Nor is it a joke. Here is the blurb from the product's web site:

Don’t let harsh chemicals harm sensitive skin. ECOS laundry detergents and cleaning products are made without harmful chemicals and nasty ingredients found on our Nasties list. We use safer ingredients while offering superior cleaning power compared to many leading brands. Discover plant-powered, sustainable laundry detergents and other eco-conscious laundry products in our ECOS lineup today.

Notice that they don't tell you what it is, just what it isn't. This product thus shares the advertising philosophy that coined the term "non-dairy creamer." There's an old saying that "There is no medicine for stupidity," as I think all these products prove. They also prove the truth of P.T. Barnum's pithy observation that, "There's a sucker born every minute, and two to take him."

July 12, 2025: The Quicker Pecker-Upper

I knew there was a Museum of Erotica in Denmark (where else?) but I did not know until today there was a museum in Reykjavik, Iceland, devoted entirely to penises. Mrs Outdoorsman wouldn't let me go to the Museum of Erotica (why bother, in these days of Internet porn sites?). We're going to Reykjavik next year, but she has asserted that under no circumstances will we go to the "Icelandic Phallological Museum." It is, of course, handicapped-accessible, and children under 14 are not only admitted, they get in free. Since the age of consent in Iceland is 15 perhaps they want youngsters to be well informed when they hit that Magic Number of Legality. They need to know, after all, what to expect and all that sort of thing. No, I am not making all this up. Here's their web site if you want to test my veracity.

And yes, there most certainly is a gift shop. Described as...ahem.."unique" (I'll bet!) there are no doubt any number of really interesting gifts for the man—or woman—who already has everything.

But best of all, in the café, they sell "penis waffles." If you watch the little intro video on the web site you will see what they look like, covered in whipped cream and strawberries, to boot. You can buy the machine to make them from Amazon (where else?)

In this age of equality, of course, the ladies have to have an equivalent, and so they do. Another company sells a machine that makes vagina-shaped waffles. I will leave it to my readers to decide what that whitish material on these two confections represents.

Yum!

July 27, 2025: Jane Doe

Our "CWD Season" is about to begin in a few weeks, and I'm ready to get out. I hope it isn't but it may well be my last season. It gets harder for me to get a dead deer out every year, even with the winch-and-ramp setup on my truck bed. If I drop another one in heavy logging debris as I did a couple of years ago, I just hope I don't have a heart attack dragging it out.

We have a lot of deer in Virginia, and this year there seem to be more than ever. A few weeks ago Mrs Outdoorsman was doing some weeding, stepped into a grass patch, and BOOM! out popped a spotted fawn no bigger than my late Border Collie. I'm not sure which of them was more startled.

I sometimes put out a camera on our front lawn to see if any have come in to eat my wife's flowers, which they do with fair regularity. Our back yard is fully fenced, but a 4-foot fence is not an obstacle of much importance to a deer: I've seen them stand next to one higher than that, twitch a leg muscle or two, and clear the fence without a hitch. Our dog died a year and a half ago, so I think the word is out among the local wildlife. There is one doe—we call her "Jane"—who comes into the back yard on a fairly regular schedule, usually between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, to browse on the heavy vegetation that obscures most of the fence. She isn't too big, maybe 100-110 pounds on the hoof, so I believe she's just a yearling. Nevertheless she has two fawns. The picture shows them as they were last June on our front lawn. They're much larger now, and have lost their spots. I think one is a buck: I don't know if deer can have twins of different sexes, but the marks on the one fawn's head look like places where in time it will grow antlers.

I believe they're still too small to jump the fence. Jane seems to park them in a brush pile on my next-door-neighbor's side of the line. Once she's finished her meal she hops over the fence—through the brush, not at one of the cleared spaces. I hold my breath when I see her do this because I fear she'll get hung up in a vine and I'll have to go down to get her out or worse, kill her if I can't. Once she's over the fence she trots up the hill through the neighbor's yard, with her fawns in tow.

She was here today. She favors one corner of the yard where the vegetation is quite heavy, that's almost always where we see her. It's been my observation that deer don't care much about agricultural machinery. A deer will keep it under observation but won't run from it if it's far enough away. (I once shot a buck who was watching a farmer feed his cattle from a tractor.) Today my neighbor on the other side of our property, who is a grass-mowing fanatic, was out on his riding mower, zooming up and down; Jane paid little attention to him. From time to time she'd glance over at him for a few seconds, but clearly didn't consider him a threat, a couple of hundred feet away.

Bears Are Getting More Common

Last night my neighbor across the street, a sweet old lady, called me about 9:10 to tell me she'd seen a bear in her back yard. This is becoming more common here: another neighbor on the same side of the street told me a couple of weeks ago she'd been seeing bears in her back yard.

We have seen a bear on our front lawn, too. I caught this picture of one on a game camera two years ago.

We live on a very "suburban" street but there's a park at one end that connects to a trail leading into the Jefferson National Forest a couple of miles away. So there's a pretty much unbroken stretch of wooded land between the Forest and Suburbia, basically a highway for migrating animals. Deer are the heaviest "traffic" but bears use it too, obviously. There are plenty of bears in this part of the state, but the Department of Wildlife Resources won't do anything about them. Not much they can do, actually. Trapping and relocation, we are told, "...just makes them someone else's problem..." (well, duh, that's the idea). In time someone will get mauled or killed. Then maybe something will happen.

Well, This Seems Like A Good Idea...But Only Time Will Tell

This came from the National Rifle Association:

Colorado to Feed Road-Killed Wildlife to Problem Wolves

Colorado’s Wolf Depredation Compensation Fund was established to compensate landowners and agricultural producers for wolf depredation of livestock and working animals...[The fund] was nearly bankrupted after compensating just two ranchers for their losses. With wolf problems continuing to mount....wildlife officials in the Centennial State are looking for other answers to the problem. And one such answer might be feeding road-killed wildlife to “problem” wolves, based on a conversation at a recent Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) Commission meeting.

As background, Coloradans voted by a narrow margin in 2020 to reintroduce wolves to the state. Ten wolves were released in Summit and Grand counties in December 2023. In January 2025, CPW released another 15 wolves that were captured in British Columbia and relocated to Pitkin and Eagle counties.

The National Rifle Association and the NRA hunting news website warned of the possible negative long-term impact of a wolf introduction since the plan was hatched. In fact, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) partnered with other hunting and wildlife conservation groups in an initiative to stop the forced introduction of gray wolves to Colorado.

With depredation problems continuing, CPW Director Jeff Davis, at the June meeting of the CPW Commission, discussed feeding roadkill wildlife to “problem” wolves to take the predators’ focus off cows, calves and sheep. “The diversionary feeding is something that, when we talked with our counterparts in other states, has been shown to be effective—and we have considered that,” Davis said in a conversation about a “problem” pack during the recorded meeting..... “We continue to monitor those animals. When I say that, and we see movement that seems to indicate that those animals are following the elk herd, then do we intervene with that in a manner that might naturally hold them from moving along with that elk herd, for example?”

For his part, Commission Chairman Dallas May voiced his wholehearted support for feeding roadkill to wolves in an effort to slow depredation of livestock. “I’m all for the supplemental feeding of wild game, roadkill or whatever it would be to deflect this and to support those packs so that they don’t have to go out and survive on calves, they don’t have to survive unnaturally,” May said.

Incidentally, one Colorado wolf recently became such a problem for ranchers that CPW personnel finally had to kill it to stop the carnage. Because the young male wolf (wolf 2405) met the conditions of “chronic depredation” with “three or more depredation events caused by the same wolf or wolves within a 30-day period, provided there is clear and convincing evidence that at least one of the depredation events was caused by a wolf or wolves,” biologists called the wolf into rifle range with a predator call and killed it.

“Consistent with the incremental approach discussed in Administrative Directive OW-15, the Division is now evaluating whether lethally removing wolf 2405 achieves the goal of changing the pack’s behavior,” the after-action report stated.

Ultimately, the release of the wolves in Colorado has become a tremendous headache for both ranchers and wildlife managers—just as expected—without providing much benefit. It’s doubtful that putting state resources to work collecting roadkill to feed the wolves is going to change the situation much, but wildlife managers seem to be scrambling to find some way to keep wolves from doing what they do best: catching the easiest food possible for their next meal.

One has to wonder how fastidious wolves are with respect to their food. It certainly seems that the Colorado wildlife authorities have created a situation without thinking of what the long-term consequences might be. Will these "problem" wolves become so dependent on handouts they morph into "Welfare Wolves" unable to get a decent job killing cattle? Will the subsidized wolves tend to stay in one place, perhaps increasing the size of their packs so as to maximize the benefits? Will there be setting up of Homeless Wolf Encampments? Will there be agitation to feed other predatory animals, e.g., coyotes, under the guise of "fairness"? Will there be formed "Wolf Rights" organizations to see that wolves don't get a bad name? (Oh, wait, there already are those.) Will small animals like jackrabbits protest that they are more or less literally being thrown under the bus just to feed the wolves? Inquiring minds want to know.

August 6, 2025: Today's Lunacy

These were picked up in an REI store in Columbus, Ohio.

In case you are tired of hot dogs grilled on sticks when you're camping, you can buy granola, Thai curry, Cucumber Chaat Salad, Pad Thai, and my favorite, Carrot-Ginger Power Bowl, plus many other flavorsome delights. Freeze dried, just add water.

And since no one wants to stink after a few days of sleeping in a tent with no running water, you can get a Happy Bottom portable bidet, to achieve that fresh, fresh, deep clean feeling. Since Americans rarely have bidets even in their own homes, this might come in handy there, too.

August 12, 2025: They're Back

Looked out my second-floor bathroom window this evening, and lo, Jane Doe and her two kiddies are back. They were out in my neighbor's yard, browsing. The fawns are getting bigger: soon they too will be able to hop the fence.

Our early "CWD" season (antlerless only) starts on September 6th. I've got my permission slip signed for this year, the rifle is prepped and ready, my backpack is kitted out, and when Der Tag comes, I hope to fill...ummm...a tag or perhaps two. The landowner says he has "lots" of deer this year and he is expecting his DMAP tags any day. No limit on antlerless deer around here. These are The Good Old Days for Virginia meat hunters.

I wonder how much longer I will be able to do it. I'm turning 78 this December, and the Ravages Of Age are becoming more and more apparent every day.

The Deck

If you have followed this blog for any length of time you'll know that I have done battle with the deck on the rear of the house. It faces south, gets a tremendous beating from rain, sun, and the weather in general. It went up in 2009, and after 16 years it's been necessary for me to replace a number of boards. I'm tired of fighting with it. I'd rather save my waning vigor for dragging deer to my truck. Accordingly I've arranged for a contractor to replace the top boards, and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be no serious damage to joists necessitating even more extensive repairs. The lumber was delivered today, but likely the weather will prevent them from working for a few more days. Once the repairs are done we'll get a pressure washer, clean all the mold and mildew off, and stain the rails. The flooring will have to "age" for at least 3 months, so that will get done in the Spring. I'll be able to do those things, assuming I'm still on this side of the grass.

August 14, 2025: More on the Damned Deck

Well, it seems that we have three joists in need of replacement, as well as the flooring boards. When the workmen ripped off the boards they found several places where rot had affected the joists as well. In the image below you can see on place where a chuck had fallen out. This was by no means the worst: that particular joist was rotted all the way through. In time we'd have put a foot through the deck and then we'd have really been in trouble.

The debris visible is leaves and similar stuff that has accumulated by falling through the gaps in the boards. We asked them to clean it out and they did, much of it. Interestingly the worst parts of the deck were clustered at one end: we're not sure why. The flooring in the screen house is fine; since the wind usually comes from that side of the house perhaps the screen house has sheltered the end of the deck closest to it. The more exposed part gets beaten up by sun, wind, rain, and suffers the most.

Another 15% added to the already too-high cost of this repair. Mrs Outdoorsman is not happy. Nor am I but if the deck were to collapse, or even the floor of it to break through, we'd be worse off. Oh, well. In time She wants to sell out and move so this had to be done. It will all get added into the price we demand the real estate agent put on the house.

Definition of a house: A heavily-upholstered box that eats money.

August 20, 2025: Today's Stupidity

Recycled toilet paper...recycled from WHAT?

The Deck Is Done

Finished. Cost me a lot more than I wanted to spend, but it's done. If it lasts another 16 years, I'll be a) dead; and b) out of this house.

August 28, 2025: The New Service Performs A New Service

I have written before about my old Colt New Service revolver. This gun, which bears British military proof marks, was made in 1916 on contract to the British Army. There is also some reason to think it may have been issued to the American Expeditionary Force sent over in 1917. I bought it as a college student in 1966 or 1967. I haven't used it too much; despite its age and undoubted military provenance it's in very good condition and perfectly functional. As a teenager I used it to shoot snakes in my father's garden, and I used it once to deliver a (wholly unneeded) coup de grâce on the first deer I ever shot. Today I fired it for the first time in decades, on a very different type of "target."

I had a bunch of old hard drives pulled from various computers I've owned over the years. These drives probably contained some sensitive information I didn't want to get out. The best way to prevent this is to destroy the drive. A number of commercial services will do this but the costs are very steep. All that's really necessary is to make a hole in the drive that cuts through the ceramic "platter" where the data is stored. I tried to do it with a drill, a trick that worked well on some old ZIP disks which are much softer than a hard drive. No go. Then it occurred to me that a bullet, say a 250-grain one moving at a leisurely 900 feet per second, with a kinetic energy of 450 foot-pounds, ought to do the trick. Well, by golly, I had just the gun for that...my New Service.

Originally it was chambered for the British service round of 1916, the .455 Eley (or Webley) but upon its re-importation to the USA (in the halcyon days before the never-sufficiently-to-be-cursed "Gun Control Act of 1968") it was rechambered to shoot .45 Long Colt a thumbuster dating from 1873 and never since out of production. This was a simple job: the .455 Eley and the .45 Long Colt are dimensionally identical except for case length. Running a reamer to deepen the chamber was a few minutes' work that made the gun much more marketable here.

So I hied myself off to the local shooting range with the gun, a box of ammunition, and the hard drives. If a computer company tells you their drives are "bullet proof" don't believe them.

September 7, 2025: The Usual Opening Day Blues

Yesterday, September 6th, was a High Holy Day of Obligation, the start of the early antlerless deer season. I managed to drag my increasingly-painful carcass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:30 to be on my stand at the Nine-Deer Dip, come first light. It's a 40 minute drive to there from my house, but it's as reliable a place as there is. I have it doped out and know where the deer cross the logging road on whose verge I sit.

I took my beautiful Kimber 84M in .308, shown at right. The hat is from my old high school, the Bronx High School of Science: I don't know when they changed the team name to "Wolverines"—in my day for some inexplicable reason they were called the "Turks"—but BHSS is a school for nerds. Anything less like a wolverine than a BHSS student could hardly be imagined.

I got to my stand about 6:15. At 8:00 I heard a small noise to my right, and lo, there was a deer watching me from 25 yards away. An easy shot, except this deer was a spike buck (still in velvet) so he was inviolable until November 14th. He stood there trying to figure out what I was, then turned and trotted away. Had it been a doe she'd have been freezer-bound. He wasn't alarmed: no flag up, not running, just didn't like the situation and walked off.

Nothing much happened after that until I was just about to leave. At 4:24 a big doe trotted across the logging road 30-35 yards away, at the point where they always cross. She was headed for the incredible tangle of logging debris on the upper slope; had she stopped I'd have killed her but she didn't, so that was that.

Walking out along the logging road about 4:45 I encountered another doe, possibly the same one, coming from the same direction the buck had come. This one DID put her flag up, snorted, and off she went. I made it to my truck: as I did so, two more deer crossed the landowner's driveway, 40 yards in front of me. Couldn't have taken a shot there anyway.

So: five deer seen, no legal shots offered, i.e. my usual Opening Day. I'll get out tomorrow, but I'm not getting up at 4:30 again. They seem to be moving late since the moon is full: when that happens they get out to carouse all night long and are snug in their beds, exhausted, until the next afternoon. Oh, well, there 's plenty of season left.

I don't like to stay out too late. Sunset this time of year is about 8:00 PM but if a deer gets into the brush it can be an exhausting several hours recovery, if I can find it. Don't want to have to do it in the dark. Tomorrow I may stay out until 6:30-7:00 and hope my .308 drops it on the spot. Even if it does I'll have paperwork to do for the DWR's DMAP program, then a 25-30 mile ride to a processor. If I get home by 10:00 after a late day kill I'm doing well.

September 8, 2025: More Of The Same

Went out again today to the Dip. This time I arrived on my stand about 1:00 PM, reasoning that they are moving late thanks to the full moon of the past two nights. I was right, not that it helped.

At 3:16 a deer walked across the logging road: I think it was the same spike buck I saw last Saturday. Nothing after that until about 4:45 when I looked to my right and saw the "V" of a deer's ears perhaps 35 yards away. Almost certainly a legal deer, but I didn't like the shot: she was partially hidden by a fold in the ground and intently peering at me. I passed, she ran away.

I quit at 6:30. Saw nothing on the way out, but—of course—two more on the way home including a very large doe in someone's front yard and a small one on the side of the road, just waiting to dart out into traffic.

This is a tough season. I really can't see much with the trees in full leaf. Plus the woods are very quiet. I saw two, count 'em, two squirrels, not a single chipmunk (normally they run around like mad) and very few birds. Perhaps they're all mourning Virginia Tech's massive loss (44-22) in the football game last Saturday.

September 9, 2025: Halfway There...

We have spent the past three days painting the railing around our deck. Actually Mrs Outdoorsman did most of it, though I did do the finicky work where the screens are framed in wood, and wielded the long-handled roller to do the "band" around the outside and the vertical posts. I had hoped to play hooky today to get back into the field but after 50 years of marriage I know what I can get away with and that wasn't it. So painting was what I did.

Actually, I think it looks pretty good. The "paint" was really stain, which we've been told is better, though this makes less sense to me than it might. Although it looks white, the color is "Edgecombe Grey" according to Benjamin Moore's charts. In bright daylight it does look sort of very faintly grey. God knows who thinks up these names...my father once owned a station wagon whose color was "Champagne Mist," and if there's anything less like champagne than a Chevrolet station wagon I don't know what it might be. I think the people who decide on the names must live in padded rooms.

We aren't done. In a few months, after the flooring has "seasoned" by exposure to the weather, we get to paint—whoops, stain—it with another color. That can be done with a roller, and should be fairly easy compared to the brush job the rails took. Now I know why, when we had it "professionally" done, the guy sprayed the stuff on. A lot easier and faster.

September 12, 2025: "Well, That Ain't Much Of A Deer...

...but it'll eat good," as the wags at the old check stations used to say.

Went out to the Dip yesterday. I've adopted the policy of not going out before the Crack Of Dawn and it's paid off. I arrived on my stand at just about 1:00 PM, sat there reading a perfectly awful "Tom Clancy" novel (not written by Tom Clancy, who knew what he was doing, unlike the clowns who are writing this tripe and slapping his name on it. But I digress...)

Anyway, just about 5:00 PM, I spotted two deer walking towards me coming along the logging road from the Dip. Clearly antlerless: a doe and a fawn. The doe slipped into the brush and the fawn kept coming, so I shot her with my .308.

The range was about 30 yards. Normally that .308 with Remington's plain-vanilla Core-Lokt ammunition isn't too violent but in this case it was. I shot at the center of her chest, and the expansion must have been terrific because it made an exit wound the side of a dinner plate, essentially taking the whole of her right side out.

She was so small I wasn't going to pay a processor's fee to get maybe 10 pounds of meat back, so I took her home. Last night I skinned and quartered her, and put the pieces in plastic bags in the refrigerator. I'll bone the meat out for stew. It's hard to tell the size of a deer when there aren't any nearby clues, and I thought this one was bigger than she actually was: it was only when I got up to her that I saw she had a few residual spots. I'd have preferred not to shoot a deer that young, but the DWR makes no distinction: she qualified as "antlerless," which is what we're supposed to kill in the early season. I'm "Giving back to the Commonwealth," as the saying goes, I suppose. She might have weighed 50 pounds alive. With careful knife work I might get 10 pounds of meat.

Last year I killed a big 8-pointer in exactly the same spot. Since the venue is a DMAP property this doe didn't get tagged on my basic license. Montgomery is an "Earn A Buck" county; before you can shoot a second buck you must have shot an antlerless deer. It's DWR's way of increasing the doe kill and cutting back the overall population (statewide about 44% of all reported kills are does, and DWR would like the percentage higher than that around here). This kill satisfies the "Earn A Buck" requirement. I can take two antlered bucks on my basic license (they don't qualify for DMAP tags) now. We are allowed five deer on the basic license up here west of the Blue Ridge (six east of it) of which three must be antlerless. I can now kill any deer I see out there once the "regular" seasons start.

A Sad Anniversary

Today marks 15 years since my beloved first Border Collie, Meg, died. And tomorrow it will be 29 years since my first dog, poor Toby, also crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Ave atque vale.

September 13, 2025: The Yield

I finished processing my little doe today. 12-1/2 pounds of boned-out meat, plus two shanks. Divided into larger chunks for kabobs, somewhat smaller pieces for stew, and half a pound of ground meat. Not too bad for such a tiny deer, 25% of live weight.

September 27, 2025: More Culture

A couple of nights ago we attended a performance at Opera Roanoke, our local semi-professional company. Not a real opera: a series of scenes from some, including Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, and one or two more I forget. Not a "performance" per se, but somewhere between that and a staged singing behind music stands, which OR has done before. It was well done.

In a few days we travel to New York City (by AMTRAK and may God have mercy on my soul) to attend two, count 'em, two actual live-on-stage performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Something that's been on the bucket list for a long time.

Painting

I've spent the last couple of days painting the banisters to our basement. I never would have thought it would take two days. But the prep takes longer than the painting does, something I always forget. I hate painting. I much prefer wall papering. I'm very good at wallpaper, or at least I used to be. Now that I'm closing in on 80 I wonder if I still am. I hope I don't have to find out.

September 28, 2025: Not Culture But It Was Fun

This afternoon we attended a semi-sort-of play, "The Million Dollar Quartet," about a famous event that took place in 1956 at Sun Records, "The Cradle of Rock and Roll." In the real event, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis got together in the Sun studio and jammed. This was a touring company, of course, not the Broadway cast (Roanoke is far too small for the Big Actors to come here) but they did a very creditable job, even though none of them really looked like the real people. For some unexplained reason there is a woman in the cast, introduced as "Elvis's girlfriend," who joined them in some numbers. It was very loud, very energetic, and nostalgic for the audience, nearly all of whom were in their 70's and 80's. At right is a photo made at the time of the actual Million Dollar Quartet by Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records. Not opera, for sure. But that comes next week when we slog to NY City on (ugh) AMTRAK and spend a fortune going to the Met at Lincoln Center.

September 29, 2025: More Damned Painting

Sort of. After allowing those rails to "cure" I'm varnishing them for improved wear and tear. The Good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise, I'm done with painting this damned house.

Another Sad Anniversary

Today marks 25 years that my beloved dog Tucker crossed the Rainbow Bridge to join Toby. Toby, Tucker, and Meg all died in September. It isn't a good month.

October 11, 2025: A Trip To New York And A Short Scout

We have recently returned from a trip to New York City and the Metropolitan Opera. Since I missed much of the early "antlerless" season due to this trip and bad weather, and since the black powder season begins November 1st. I decided to use the time interval to go out to the Nine-Deer Dip. I wanted to set up my stand and to see what I could see, reasoning that the weeks between now and November 1st would give the deer time to get used to things. The BP season ends the 14th but we're leaving Blacksburg around the 8th for a trip, so my time is going to be limited.

I don't "do" trees: I have a small, well-padded "hunter's stool" that I place on the ground with my back against a tree. I took it out to the woods and set it up. No one will bother it; having it ready saves me from having to carry it in with all the other stuff I need. Even with a backpack to hold most of the gear I'd have to sling the stool over my shoulder so if it's there already I can just walk in with nothing in my hands but my rifle. Often enough I've kicked up a deer on the way in so it's best to be prepared.

Along the logging road to the Dip I spotted a couple of scrapes and two rubs, obviously made by a small buck. This is encouraging, though I don't care whether I shoot a buck or a doe: all deer are legal out there for the entire season. It proves that there are deer in the woods at the Dip and that they're moving around.

October 11, 2025: The Brush Pile

In our town there's twice-a-year pickup of brush and trash. All we have to do is put it at the curb (and pay for it though taxes, but that's another issue); the town comes along with their trucks and picks it up. God knows what happens to it but after it's off the property it's not my department.

To some extent your "respectability" is dependent on the size of your semi-annual brush pile. This time around we had a whopper:

Now, the guy who trims our trees has already hauled off a lot but there's at least that much more where that came from. The town sends its trucks around by "quadrant"; we're in the Northwest quadrant so we were first on the list this year. I heard the trucks coming so I hied myself out to the street with my camera.

The trucks work in pairs. One has a snazzy arm with a clamshell picker-upper, the other is there to receive the loads of brush. I managed to get a video clip of the process, which you can watch if you click on the picture above. This system allows two men to do the work of perhaps six. They used to have two extra guys with rakes who'd pick up the small debris but now we have to do that ourselves; hey, no problem, they got the big stuff. I can live with it.

October 18, 2025: Un-Cultured

Our local theater that hosts the "Live in HD" performances of The Metropolitan Opera was showing "La Sonnambula" starring the magnificent soprano Nadine Sierra. We went there of course. The show was to start at 1:00 PM, we were there by 12:30. But the show didn't start at 1:00. Something was wrong. Ten minutes into the wait a kid who works there came in to tell us they weren't sure what had happened but "...we'll start the movie as soon as we can." Mrs Outdoorsman pointed out that it was a live presentation, not a movie; if we missed part of it we wouldn't get to see all of what we'd paid to see. We're certain that boy didn't know the difference between a movie and a live opera, but what the heck, he's a minimum wage employee whose real job is to sell popcorn.

At 20 minutes late, we got up and walked out. The theater manager (a kid not much older than the first one) willingly gave us a refund. There's an encore performance on Wednesday of next week, so we'll try again. Unfortunately the encores don't include the behind-the-scenes parts of scenery being shifted and the interviews with actors, but at least we'll see the opera. We hope.

October 23, 2025: Cultured At Last

Yesterday we finally got to see "La Sonnambula." The theater had an encore. It started half an hour late but we did see it from the beginning. Had they not done this I'd have walked out and demanded a refund. We asked and were told that the theater never did show it on Saturday.

Nadine Sierra is not only phenomenally talented, she's beautiful: not all opera stars today are fat women in horned helmets! The co-star was the tenor Xabier Anduaga, who was spoken of by the Met's Director as "...a young Pavarotti..." which is high praise indeed. We could in fact hear a bit of "Lucky Luciano's" voice in his.

Following that we went to a talk by Roz Chast, a New Yorker cartoonist. Her stuff is quirky and usually hilarious. She spoke in an almost deadpan way but she had the audience laughing all the time. The Moss Center (now officially the "Virginia Tech Center For The Arts" because they ungraciously changed the name when P. Buckley Moss—who'd donated $10 million to it—died) often has performances I don't like but this one was well worth seeing.

October 29, 2025: Well, Duh...

...isn't water a "drink"? Or have I been fooling myself all these years? What if you have something else in that permissible water bottle? Like maybe vodka?

November 2, 2025: Halloween And My Usual Opening Day

Well, last Friday night we had 41 Trick-or-Treaters at our house. Not a record (that was 61) but better than last year's total of 31 (don't ask me why but we keep a record every year). In recent years more and more families with children have moved into our neighborhood, hence the reasonable number of kids in costumes. Nearly ran out of candy but there were a few Snickers bars left, so that I could take a couple into the woods with me.

Yesterday, Saturday, was Opening day of the black powder season. True to form, it was a bust. I saw a deer on the road driving out, a bad sign; when that happens I don't see any in the woods. I saw three more driving home. The moon was a bit over three-quarters full last night: when there's a bright moon they start moving later in the day so that there's no point in being out there before dawn. I hit my stand in the Nine-Deer Dip at 8:09. Nobody came by until just before noon, when a "tuxedo cat" (one with white paws and a white chest, like Sylvester in the cartoons) came sauntering down the trail. He got within 20 feet of me, then stared and turned tail and ran.

Had I been out for squirrels I'd have made my limit. The Montgomery County Squirrel Society was holding a meeting and they were everywhere: active all day, too. Their small brethren chipmunks were also in abundance. It's simply amazing how much noise a 2-ounce chipmunk can make in dry leaves.

We've had a bumper crop of acorns in our yard thanks to my next-door neighbor's huge red oak, but I didn't see too many on the ground at the Dip. DWR says that when acorns are readily available deer tend to move less, not having to go scavenging. If yesterday was any indication, DWR is right.

I'm going out again today but will be leisurely about it. I don't plan to be there much before noon. I'll quit at 4:00. That will be an hour and a half before sunset: I don't fancy having to trail a deer in the dark; even though 90% of the time a deer shot with a .54 caliber rifle doesn't go far, sometimes one does, so I leave while there's still light. If I do shoot one I'd have enough light to find it.

Good thing I shot that fawn last September in the antler-less only season: had I not done so it's looking like this will be a year of being skunked. We leave for a cruise on the 9th, so I'll miss a week of BP season AND the first few days of the main rifle season. I have a standing invitation to go to my neighbor's house in Amherst County; last year I shot one in December up there, so maybe I'll do that again. Perhaps it's just as well that I'll have an abbreviated season: I'm getting to the point where sitting on a stool in cold weather for hours at a time is taking its tool on me. I turn 78 in a month. I don't think this will be my last season but maybe it will. We'll see in a year what happens.

November 2, 2025: Busted Again

Went back to the Dip today. Since last night the moon was 88+% full I took my time, arriving on my stand about 10:30. There I sat all day long until 4:00 (we're back on Standard Time so that sundown was at 5:30 PM). I saw two squirrels and a spotted lantern fly that dropped into my lap and was promptly squashed for his pains.

Amazing. Yesterday the place was alive with squirrels. Today I saw a tail flickering through the trees 100 yards away, another on my way out, and that was it. Where did they all go?

Time's getting short. We leave for a cruise on Sunday. I'll miss most of the black powder season and well over half the main rifle season. There is no justice. If I hadn't shot that teeny deer in September I'd be skunked this year.

Phooey.

November 4, 2025: Death Of A Neighbor

My neighbor across the street died at 8:00 AM today. She was 94. A very gracious and kindly lady, whose death is a loss to all of us in this neighborhood, as it is for her family. She died of congestive heart failure. Her son told me it was a quiet and peaceful passage, and that her last conscious act was to eat some of the pumpkin soup Mrs Outdoorsman had made for her yesterday. We are grateful to have known her for the past 38 years. Sic transit gloria mundi.

December 8, 2025: Another Ocean Cruise

Well, we have returned from a trip to the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. Anyone who's interested in the details can read about it in the "Trip Reports" part of this site.

December 13, 2025: Another Opera

We went to see another MetOpera performance. This time it was "Andrea Chénier," one I'd never heard of. It is an example of what's termed opera verismo, a style described as:

...a late 19th-century Italian operatic movement focusing on intense, gritty, and truthful stories about ordinary people, their passionate struggles, love, and violence, moving away from mythological themes. It featured raw, powerful singing, emotional drama, and was influenced by naturalistic literature, with key works like Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci defining the style.

This is the formal definition. But I have yet to encounter any opera which could be said to have any degree of "realism." Still, there it is, according to the (virtually)-infallible Artificial Intelligence function of Google.

The story involves Tragic Death, pretty much a requirement for opera verismo. It's set in the period of the French Revolution, Act I opening at a ball given in the home of the Countess de Coigny. The place is stuffed to the gills with gaudily dressed Aristocrats having a very good time as they heedlessly trample on the Underclass. Enter the Hero, Andrea Chénier, a poet, who is perforce quite naturally sympathetic towards the Underclass. He upbraids the Gentry for their lack of concern for the plight of said Underclass.

In the meantime, Maddalena, the daughter of the Countess (so by default an Aristocrat) enters the room. She and Andrea, as is the normal state of affairs in any opera, see each other and instantly fall in love. Unusually, however, they don't give way to their natural impulses right off the bat. No, no, they have to wait a few years. Not that they ever get around to doing anything, if you catch my meaning. Not even off-stage.

The next act is during the Reign Of Terror, five years later. Andrea is free, more or less unmolested by the R.O.T., but Maddalena has become impoverished as a result of their exactions against her Aristocratic Family. She has been writing to Andrea anonymously, but eventually he figures out who it is. That's when they realize that—believe it or not—they're in love with each other and have been since that fateful night five years before.

By then the R.O.T. is really getting into high gear. Gérard, a former servant of Maddalena's Aristocratic Family has moved up in the ranks and is now a Big Wig in the R.O.T. (you might call him a Head Honcho, ha, ha) although as a true member of the Underclass, he has thrown off his wig as a symbol of servitude. Having long been in love with Maddalena he's deeply jealous of her affection for Andrea, so he denounces the latter to the R.O.T.

A trial ensues. Maddalena is desperate to save Andrea's life because he has been condemned by the R.O.T. to a date with Madame Guillotine. Gérard has sworn to "have" Maddalena at any price; she even very generously offers him her body if it will save Andrea. But Madame Guillotine is waiting, the R.O.T. tribunal is implacable. Gérard, however, has switched sides, disavows his threats of force, deciding that if he can't have Maddalena the least he can do would be to save Andrea's life for her sake. It doesn't work. Too late! So, in the best traditions of opera verismo, Maddalena decides that if Andrea has to die, so will she. She switches places with another young woman, also condemned to die, marching to the scaffold with her beloved. Finis.

Since it's the holiday season, I will close by saying that "Andrea Chénier" does have one very important thing going for it: it has no Christmas music.

An Analysis Of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Everyone is familiar with the story and song of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” but how many realize its immense cultural and sociological significance? “Rudolph” isn’t just a happy story about Christmas: underneath the superficial happiness lies a dark and compelling narrative of vicious discrimination, hatred of The Other, ageism, and grudging acceptance of differences because of necessity, not out of conviction.

Rudolph was the youngest of Santa’s reindeer: that is obvious from the image at left. He is shown with only nubbins of antlers, not a full set as seen on the other reindeer. Rudolph may well have been illegitimate, thought to be the bastard offspring of Prancer and Vixen, but only DNA analysis could prove that. (To date Prancer and Vixen have refused to provide DNA samples—as have Dasher, Dancer, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen—but well-founded suspicions about Rudolph’s parentage and the probable conspiracy to keep it quiet continue.) Reindeer usually live in a barn, a perfect place for reindeer swinging parties; Rudolph would have been born there, a birth shrouded in secrecy by an unholy compact among the other reindeer to keep things under wraps as a way to prevent Santa from knowing whence came this youngest member of the herd.

It is important that Rudolph is deformed, disfigured by an immense, shiny nose. This does not happen in wild reindeer; Rudolph might well have been the product of promiscuous, even incestuous inbreeding. Whichever pair of reindeer he to which he was born, they would want it not to be known lest they, too, suffer the same fate as their son, becoming outcasts for their misdeeds.

Because of his awful tribulation we see discrimination at work: Rudolph is shunned and avoided because of his difference: he was not, we are told, allowed to “…join in any reindeer games…” i.e., openly excluded from polite reindeer society. He is the target of jests: “All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names…” taunting him and pushing him out of the circles of mainstream Cervid culture that his very Reindeer-ness should have allowed him to join.

He is not a rebel. His meek submission to Santa’s Christmas Eve “request” proves that. Conditioned to accept his alleged inferiority, he goes along to get along as a way to avoid further trouble. Rudolph is The Other: an outcast, a Reindeer Alone, submitting to the treatment cast upon him by a cruel, uncaring and judgmental peer group. This is always the fate of The Other; Rudolph is receiving the same treatment as any other minority group, relegated to the fringes, thinking himself unworthy of anything better.

In the end Santa must, however, turn to Rudolph for help when fog prevents him from delivering presents. This is a responsibility he cannot shirk without severe personal, reputational, and financial consequences. Santa grudgingly submits to necessity and orders—the song says he “asks” but this is surely fabrication created to cover up the horrors to which Rudolph has been subjected all his life as well as the risk he is being ordered to take. As has happened before, the despised Other has become needed: yet by leading the sleigh, Rudolph is put in the most dangerous position, forced to gamble with his life for Santa’s reputation and that of the other reindeer. He would not even be there had it not been for his “...very shiny nose...” which could easily have got him mistaken for an incoming missile by NORAD. Had they scrambled heat-seeking interceptor rockets to shoot him down Santa and the other reindeer would not have suffered because Rudolph, well out front of the rest (as the image also clearly shows) wore a breakaway harness that would be released on missile impact. The rest of the pack would have survived with only minor injuries if any at all. Rudolph is, in short, expendable, a mere pawn for once allowed to play in a very dangerous Reindeer Game.

We are assured that the other reindeer accepted Rudolph as a “leader” or “guide” on departure but it is dubious that this would have changed things after returning home to the North Pole. The other reindeer might have “…shouted out with glee…” on Christmas Eve but on Christmas Day they’d revert to their previous contempt and humiliating behavior towards him, who had so bravely led them. Even their claim that “…you’ll go down in History…” must be taken with a degree of skepticism because it can after all be read two ways. It might have been praise but equally likely it was simply further sardonic mocking of a defenseless individual compelled to act as a searchlight against his will. Remember, we are never assured that Rudolph consented to Santa’s “request,” we are only told that he did by the author of the song. No concrete evidence is put forth to support this assertion. Disobedience to Santa’s orders might easily have led to Rudolph becoming reindeer stew on New Year’s Eve.

So “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” can be seen for what it really is: an allegory for discrimination, group hatred of The Other, forced compliance, and conspiratorial secrecy. That this story has taken on the aspect of a silly, jolly song with no real importance is a disgrace, a sneering insult to the memory of a brave and loyal animal who served faithfully and well for no discernable reward. Not only that, it’s a damning indictment of an unthinking human culture that accepts distortions and lies readily as a way to assuage collective guilt. Rudolph, ground under Santa’s boot heel, serves us as a symbol, a warning to The Oppressed about what will inevitably happen when there is no Resistance to Tyranny and social pressure.

We do not know exactly what happened after Santa got back: the implication of the song is that Rudolph was finally accepted as One Of The Reindeer. But it is equally possible that he was not, that he was again left alone until he might be needed again some day. We do not even know if Rudolph is still alive: while his story has passed into the mists of “…history…” his true fate is obscure. Given his reluctantly admitted success in the famous ride, nevertheless there seems a high probability that the other reindeer eventually took vengeance on him. There is a chilling prospect that Rudolph may have been lynched by an angry mob of those reindeer whose inadequacy he’d so openly demonstrated.

It is clear that until and unless the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Files are fully released for open scrutiny, speculation and suspicion must remain in the minds of the public.

December 28, 2025: The Bernstein Doe

In what will likely be the Last Hurrah of this deer season, I went to the Nine-Deer Dip to see what might transpire. It's been a very thin season this year: I shot a very, very small deer back in September during our "CWD" season (see the entry for September 12), a fawn, really: since then I haven't had a shot until yesterday. In fact I haven't had most of a season. We did a couple of trips, one of which started on the first day of muzzle-loader season and lasted three weeks. When you throw in three days' driving time each way to and from Florida to catch our ship, that was a whole month lost.

Yesterday my sister in law and her husband were coming to visit, which was an additional incentive for me to be somewhere else if possible. Brother-In-Law-In-Law is one of the most boring people I know, and Sister-In-Law is a perfect match. So if I had an excuse to avoid them I was damned sure going to use it. Mrs Outdoorsman wasn't the least bit happy about my abandoning her on the day they were to arrive but I assuaged her indignation by saying I would go out early and come home ASAP.

When I say "early" I mean exactly that. I'm not by any means a "morning person" but yesterday I managed to haul my increasingly weary carcass out of bed at the Groaning Hour (4:30 AM) because it's a 45-minute drive to The Dip; I wanted to be there at dawn. I made it, too, fortified by coffee and a couple of doughnuts at the Speedway Gas along my route. Lugged my gear in to my favorite spot, then sat down a bit before 7:00, which was official sunrise.

Somehow I managed to avoid dozing off. Then at 8:30 things started to happen: I spotted three deer coming down the hill into the Dip, headed right for me. I slowly lifted my beautiful Kimber 84M in .308, aiming at the lead deer, a big doe. I don't much care for frontal shots, but that's mostly what I get at the Dip because of the configuration of the site. I sit hidden by a screen of brush but can easily see 100-125 yards along a clear-cut logging road. Deer are as lazy as humans in some ways: they like to use that logging road to get from one place to another. I am certain that they know exactly where they are, exactly where they want to be, and exactly how to get there with the least effort. Hence my nearly always successful ambush position. This year on the few times I'd been able to get out I hadn't seen any but that's a matter of timing. Yesterday morning my timing was perfect.

On they came. When I fired the lead doe fell hard, kicking as she went down. The others put their tails up and ran. That doe was already dead but didn't yet know it, so I trotted up and popped her with my .44 Bulldog to finalize the contract. Then the fun began.

She was easily the biggest doe I have ever seen, as big as most of the bucks around here. A dignified Old Lady who'd have gone 130-150 pounds on the hoof, no question. I trudged back to my truck, so I could drive it up to her. (One of my rules is always to shoot a deer where I can do that, it saves me a lot of effort.)

The exit wound was on her back: the bullet had gone through, clipped the heart's right ventricle as cleanly as if it had been a knife blade, then took out a few inches of her spine forward of her hindquarters.

Normally it doesn't take me long to eviscerate a deer but this one took me most of an hour, I'm not sure why but possibly because she was so large. Once done I proceeded to set out my deer ramp, and hook her up to the winch in the truck bed. That's when thing began to go south.

The winch was mounted on a board that I'd rigged up across the bed under the window. One screw holding the winch board in place pulled out due to deteriorated wet wood and rusted screws (next time: stainless steel screws!). An additional problem was that the doe's nose got hung up on the lip of the tailgate. A 1500-pound ATV winch has ample power to lift a doe that size but when she got stuck I found it also has enough power to rip out the remaining screw mounting the board, which is exactly what happened. Okay, so there I was with a non-functional winch, a damaged ramp, and a doe far too large for me to lift her up at all, let alone into the truck bed. Two people could have done it but alone I simply couldn't handle the weight.

I tried lodging one end of the board under the spare tire and sitting on the other end. Uh-uh, nope, the winch simply dragged me and the spare towards the hung up doe. I tried re-rigging the winch board behind a couple of improvised stakes in the wall of the truck bed. This looked promising...until the winch snapped the board in half.

I carry a block and tackle, so I tried that. No go. By then the ramp was so battered as to be more or less useless. Furthermore, one of the guide boards on the ramp to keep the deer straight had got snagged in the exit wound, greatly complicating things. I tried calling the landowner to ask if he would bring his tractor out, but he wasn't home. At that point it had easily been 2-1/2 hours since the doe died but I was no further along than I had been at, say, 9:30. I couldn't lift her; I couldn't haul her up using a block and tackle; and the winch was as hors de combat as the ramp. There was only one thing to do: cut her up and put the pieces in.

I have one of those Coughlan folding saws. It was up to the job but working within the confined space of a dead deer's body cavity made cutting her up a slow process. I tried cutting her in half: but even then the halves were too heavy to lift. In the end I cut the front third off, which made it light enough (barely) for me to lift it up. I had to cut the back part again. Doing that allowed lifting the hindquarters and the middle part separately. After an exhausting struggle lasting at least three hours I finally had all the bits in the bed, so it was off to do the paperwork.

The Dip is a "DMA" (Deer Management Assistance) property. Our DWR is big on statistics so every deer killed has to be reported; additionally DMA deer have to have a jawbone sent in for aging, plus there's a special tag you get because a DMA deer doesn't count against the 5 you can take on a basic license (not that I'm likely to try to get another one this year!). It takes a good half an hour of Telephone Tag with the DWR Robot to get the "check tag number" needed to complete the legalities. As I was doing this back at the landowner's house, finally he rolled in from a shopping trip.

Then I had to take her to the processor in Shawsville, a mere matter of 30 miles from the property. It had to go there: we're a "CWD" county so I couldn't take her out of the "Disease Management Area" to a closer one, they're all in non-DMA places. I was donating her to Hunters for the Hungry so she had to be tested for CWD; had I kept her for myself that wouldn't have been needed. Only that Shawsville processor will do the testing. There are other processors locally but they won't take donations. Shawsville it had to be.

They have a 24-hour operation, thank God. I didn't fancy having to keep a tri-partite carcass overnight in my truck, and I damned sure wasn't going to drag the pieces around to my garage. There were two geezers at the processor who were amused at the tale but gave me no assistance. There I did more paperwork, this time for the donation and the CWD testing. Finally I was done. I shot that deer at 8:30 AM: it was after 4:00 PM when I was able to go home, another 18 miles away. Eight and a half hours to get that doe into the cooler. I was wiped out and covered in blood by the time I got home, which was ten minutes before Brother-In-Law-In-Law and Sister-In-Law arrived. I dumped my clothes in the washer, ran upstairs to shower, and came down to be a Gracious Host.

This was Deer #15 for my Kimber and #70 brought to bag for me. It may be my last. After that ordeal I plan to repair the winch, but even so will stick to small deer; the time is not far off when I'll have to think long and hard about whether I want to hunt anything bigger than squirrels. At least getting them out is still within my capabilities. Today I'm creaking and aching, and I would like to go back to bed but the duties of a Gracious Host don't allow that.

I have a habit of naming my kills. When I drove out to get her the radio was playing a suite from "West Side Story" by Leonard Bernstein. Hence this one is "The Bernstein Doe."

In the (likely) event that this will be my last entry for 2025, I will wish all my readers a very Happy New Year, good hunting, and all that stuff. I'll see you in 2026!