Doc

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.

I have one hell of a huge collection of his records, tapes, and CDs so Merle will always be alive through his music for me.

Your right. It is time for lunch and I'm gone.

What exactly bothers you about that attitude? Why are you shocked or scared about that kind of attitude toward law enforcement. We hear it almost every day from some individuals on this forum. We have our resident anarchists who would dearly love to topple our government. They live for revolution and they somehow call themselves patriots. You need to pay attention to this forum and understand the mentality that exists in some corners of it. Militias can do no wrong. Never mind what these people would replace it all with or how they would control any transitions. There first desire is to bring it all down and then try to sort it all out later. We have our own homespun jihadists right here and they seem to pretty much get a free pass from some. Yes you are absolutely right to be shocked and scared. Apparently you thought that all threats to our way of life came from abroad. Well, turn around very slowly and look at we have grown while nobody was watching. You've got two fronts coming at us, and unfortunately there may be a lot more allies in there pocket than most of us ever realized.

Those that want to treat militia terror any differently than over seas terror to be exact.

No, some of your asinine statements have gotten me pretty stirred up though and I don't mind telling you so. When I start hearing statements that when discussing U.S. based militias that some how the Oklahoma City bombing is off the table. Then someone is trying to whitewash the actions that militias are capable of doing. And I am here to say that we do have domestic terrorism and they are quite effective. And those that want to stick their head in the sand and pretend that these creeps are a bunch of harmless people that like to play paintball in the woods, had better pull their heads out of the sand or wherever it is stuck and understand that we have terrorism on two fronts. Foreign and domestic. And don't be telling me that the 20 year old bombing that took place doesn't matter, because to me it does matter. We don't need people that will turn their backs on terror that exists openly here inside our borders simply because it is convenient to do so. I will never forget 911, but I also in spite of everyone's wishes will never forget Oklahoma City.

That is simply ridiculous. There is no way that you could possibly in your most wildest imagination come up with anything in this discussion that would even hint that radical Islam is manageable. Now if you want to make sensible arguments, then let's hear them, but that line of illogic is too foolish to even respond to.

Absolutely none of that warrants the hero worship of McVeigh and Nichols, and it makes me sick to even hear such talk. In some of your twisted minds, because we are involved in Islamic terrorists, all home spun terrorism is excusable. I have never heard such crap. I have no idea what warped minds would even try to justify the killing of 168 innocent people and 19 children and then try to say but it's alright because look at what the jihadist are doing. My God... what gets into your minds?