Doc

Actually, I would like to see a few pictures of the cabin/camp. I love seeing these places. Obviously the deer hunting is rather good. That is quite a long drive. What part of the state is your camp located at?

See, I knew you had a reading comprehension problem. There was nothing in my comment that said anything about crossbows was there? Oh, you wouldn't know because the reply was over 4 sentences long and you couldn't handle it. But at least now it comes out why you tried to fabricate controversy. You are carrying some grudge over my position on crossbows and decided to arbitrarily make up something....lol. At least have the honesty and courage to prepare something truthful rather than trying to hide your grudge in some bogus comment about something you wish that I had said. Oh and by the way, I really don't care whether you like my posts or not. They are not written for those that have reading difficulties. If you don't like them, don't read them. It really is that simple.

Yeah, at organized shoots you do have rules to deal with.

Or it might be indicative of a reading comprehension problem. Actually I think it has more to do with trying to create controversy where there clearly was none. A little bored are we? ....... lol.

Making more grass to mow:

Well, I guess I am left out of this part of the election process. Being registered Conservative, I am not eligible to participate.

Once a week, I get an opportunity to ride around in circles in total relaxation, relieving stress, all by myself solving all the worlds problems. It is a bit therapeutic ..... lol. Of course, on occasion, that zero-turn mower can be a bit of a carnival ride. The thing is actually fun to bomb around in, seeing how fast I can zip around the trees and other obstacles. I'm getting pretty good. I haven't taken out a shrub in a couple of years.....lol.

Isn't it amazing how people work so hard to establish controversy where there really is none. The fact is that I have been around a bit longer than most here, and I have pretty much lived in the same area for almost all of my life. So, I have seen changes to rural areas that may have flown over the top of the heads of many. I was part of the rural culture that experienced one room school houses, Grange Hall dances, and a time before posted signs. And I have watched the city dwellers move out into the country like locusts buying up parcels of hunting land and essentially locking it up with their 5 acre home sites. I have seen the improvements in roads and cars making commuting a natural and easy thing to do, and basically filling up the countryside and hunting lands with residences and recreation camps. So when I talk about excessive infesting by people, that comes from a unique viewpoint that you have never had the opportunity to experience. The point of all of that is that the impacts on hunting regards the "access problem" and the slicing and dicing of hunting lands. And when hunters talk about the population problems that is what they are talking about, and had you bothered to look at the context of the reply, it would have been obvious that that is what I was talking about.

Weather like this sends me into a "work frenzy". So, I had a tiny strip of land full of sumac, multi-flora rose, wild grape vine, wild berry bushes and other assorted crap in a 120' long by 20' wide nasty jungle between my Austrian Spruce plantation and the woods at the base of the hill. It sure looks a lot different now. After weeks of snipping and nipping and sawing and stump pulling and ripping up vines and rototilling and raking, etc., it's getting close to being done. I just put the grass seed down, and getting the area ready for some elderberry bushes and another row of black raspberries to be planted next week. I have huge brush piles to burn next winter.

I once saw a guy walking up the very steep and long hill next door dragging a fully assembled ladder stand, and a huge back-pack, and his bow, huffing and puffing like a steam engine and sweating all over himself. He walked by at 30 yards and I could hear his breathing loud and clear from that distance. I couldn't help it ..... I just started laughing. Just a guy out having a nice relaxing day of hunting.

While I was still working at Xerox, I was asked to fly over to Taiwan to export our technology to their engineers. I refused. And this was happening on a wholesale basis even back in the late 80's. It's not just labor that we are exporting, it is also our bread and butter ..... our own creativity and technical know-how. I refused to go along with that.

Use different target spots for each shot. It'll save you a ton of money. I have a 5-spot target on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper that I print up off my computer that I use and that works great. I have to really screw up ugly-bad in order to smash arrows.

Not really any surprises there. That pasty yellowish complexion generally tells the story .... lol.

Well, My first impression even before reading the question was that it looked like a rhinoceros with the top half of its horn cut off. But if you want to see a strange formation compliments of Ma Nature, how about this:

So are we entering into a legal atmosphere where the right to manufacture, and distribute for sale is determined by the perceived potential for mis-use is the criteria? Look out automotive industry .... lol. Or maybe potential body count is the criteria. The fertilizer industry may be in jeopardy. Those that produce lead pipes may want to be concerned too. There are so many enablers and compatible industries for those that want to do evil, where exactly do we draw the line.

I believe that my first hunting experience was at age 9 or 10 ..... somewhere in that area. I was hunting pigeons up in the hay loft of the barn with a homemade long-bow that I fashioned out of hickory with an old draw-knife that I found in Dad's shop. My Mother cooked up the harvest of three birds and I ate them.....lol. Legal small game and deer hunting was 16 years old I believe. I'm not sure because that was a pile of decades ago ..... lol. Actually, I don't remember any problems with that age. It was the law and simply accepted, and just like driving a car and voting, there was a certain age that you had to wait before you could do certain things. It was simply the accepted way of life. Things are a bit different today in that we find ourselves in competition for kids attention and incorporation into hunting. The future of hunting and game management population control seem to be at stake. When and where I grew up, hunting was just an assumed activity and it was just expected that you would be a deer hunter when you got old enough.

Well, first of all there is damn little that you can buy that is truly made completely, 100%, made in America. Second, we have adopted an attitude of profits first and quality second, where some foreign manufacturers have found that quality will eventually bring the profits. As far as cars go, I have always been a long distance commuter, living way out in the sticks. Being left along the side of the road at 4:00 am in a snowstorm got old in a hurry. So quality ranks right up high on the list of purchase criteria as far as cars are concerned. Electronics and other trinkets are generally built elsewhere or at least most of their components so "buying American" is not even an option. You can buy things with American brand names, but that does not mean that they have been built by American labor.

Sometime in the late 90's I decided to ditch the tournament archery and concentrate on hunting. At the same time, I began to recognize the fact that I had a wall full of bows, arrows, equipment, and drawers full of gadgets, gizmos and go-fasters most of which hadn't really added anything significant to my accuracy. So, in 1999, I bought my Mathews MQ-32, and shut down all future purchases. I still get deer, and still enjoy shooting, but I am living off the fat of years of past purchases. I have a collection of old aluminum arrows that is huge. I have a wall full of bows. I have a tackle box full of accessories. And I am very well equipped to shoot a deer. No more chasing after speed or any of the other things that I had always convinced myself that I needed. So in short, I have shifted the emphasis from buying success to simply enjoying using what I've got. Today, I literally spend absolutely nothing on my archery. I probably could have done this thousands of dollars and decades earlier if I had not gotten caught up in the tournament bug and all the advertising hype. Looking back over the years, the fact is that that old Bear Whitetail with the pulleys and cables all over the place and the clunky epoxy limbs that could be used as a crow-bar seemed to be quite an adequate and reliable deer-getter.

Well these jerks want to buy the cow and retire it to some kind of sanctuary that they operate. I say great. It looks like the farmers of their area have a new alternative market. The farmers of that area ought to flood these creeps with all kinds of cattle for them to buy. Break the suckers .... lol. Let them put their money where their mouth is ...... ALL of their money.

The parcel size has definitely shrunk as farms went out of business and the land got divided, and then divided some more and divided even more. Forested land has had a revival in financial worth as city dwellers decided they wanted a nice little place in the woods. I have been around a lot of years and watched all my hunting spots being built up. So what you are saying is true. And I guess we are both the cause and the symptom. I remember laughing at people who used to rant and rave about over-population. I'm not sure whether their vision of over-population was the same as mine, but I sure do agree with them today. There really are too damned many people infesting the U.S. these days. It shows up in every facet of life, and hunting is just one of them.

Deserted cemetery in Bristol Springs. Has since been restored.

“Those who forget or ignore the past are doomed to repeat it”. And never, ever forget or downplay any of the violent offenses against this country or its citizens. To downplay them is to condone them. Since this thread was about militias, it seemed to be important to remind people of exactly what those people are all about. Yes there are sources of evil all around us that have to be taken seriously and require vigilance. But this thread was regarding concerns relating to militias. And on that subject of militias, it bears repeating that they do have a record that shows that there is reason for EspressoBuzz to be concerned about them. Just because we have worse threats of greater scope and size does not justify or warrant ignoring all others.

I remember our driveway looking lie a parking lot when all the family got together for deer hunting. The air was full of stories (some of them true) and the strategy sessions, the joking and some of those meals that the ladies of the family would put on. I think that whole atmosphere is what really kept me in an anxious condition while waiting to get old enough to hunt. Hanging on every word, enjoying all the enthusiasm, it all made me want to be a part of it all. None of that happens when a kid's introduction to hunting happens in the absence of all that and at a time when all those characters are excluded.

This is one more step toward bringing in new people to hunting. Let's keep it going with other good thinking of this sort. Instead of just sitting back and taking a beating at the hands of the antis, we need a lot more aggressive thinking and actions. We are fighting a cultural battle with technology, and while we don't want to stifle the interest in technology by our youth, we need more actions like this proposal to stem their obsessions with technology to the exclusion of all other things that could be in their lives.

I am always amazed at how some people continue to enjoy their firearms while at the same time bad-mouthing the very organizations that are out there trying to save their right to do so.