Doc

I am not talking about voting very conservative republicans (although that would be ideal ....lol), I am talking about voting out those that voted for the SAFE ACT. In fact I did go out of my way to say that ideologies are not influencing my vote at all this time around. I am all about sending a message with my vote. That's all, it's a very simple concept. If the message is put across politicians will understand how to vote on gun issues, now and in the future. And I believe that if all or even most gun owners can be dedicated to that idea, that we would form a solitary focused voting block that could put that message across loud and clear for decades to come. I am not talking about a vote that will get the SAFE ACT repealed. I am talking about an effort that will get all politicians thinking right on all gun issues and understanding the dangers of voting in anti-gun directions. Once they are convinced that anti-gun support could spell the death knell to their careers, the SAFE ACT and all future similar efforts will take care of themselves. We need a show of solidarity and a return to a position of political power. The other choice is to do nothing and live with a future of accelerating and escalating gun control. Of course if we are going to be inundated from our own ranks with those attempting to demoralize the effort with dire predictions of certain failure, then yes perhaps it will be a vain attempt. We don't need people doing the antis work for them. The best way to ensure failure is to preach it.

Apparently memories are quite short. I believe that Rockefeller and Pataki were not Democrats. There are other examples where areas that were solidly democrat voted in Republican candidates. So the mistaken idea that only democrats can win in NYS is a flawed thought. And all these defeatist attitudes may be great aid and comfort to the enemy and great encouragement for the anti-gunners, but I certainly hope that not too many gun owners are buying into it. Look nobody is saying that it will all be a walk in the park, and nobody is guaranteeing that we can even pull it off. And we don't really even have to unseat every candidate that voted for that piece of trash law. But whining about how tough it will be and even trying to dissuade people from even trying is about as counter-productive an action as I have heard so far and certainly plays well into the hands of these anti-gun politicians who believe that their constituents have absolutely no recourse.

Frankly, the opponents to Cuomo and his sidekicks can be comprised of any kind of ideologues and I don't care. For me my vote is established by that voting record for the SAFE ACT. That is my litmus test this year. I am a one issue voter this year and that issue is to punish those who voted for that act, and to send a clear and distinct message that voting for anti-gun legislation will cost you your job. We have never had such a huge opportunity to make a statement that will last for decades......if we can stay dedicated to principle. Even though there appears to be flagging concern about what was accomplished by this little fascist, I still believe (or hope) that the bitter taste in our mouths over this can be worked into a frenzy and energized into unified voting action by the NYS gun and hunting organizations. However, I caution against becoming fragmented over other issues. If that happens, we lose this election, and the battle to save future gun owner's rights. If we can knock off even 50% of the legislators that voted for that bill, the message will be huge! And if we can take down Cuomo, we will have the legislaors trembling in their shoes anytime a gun control piece of legislation is even thought about.

That is absolutely correct. A determined and organized and focused minority will take out any politician they want to if they can stay dedicated to their principles and their disgust for these enemies of the 2nd Amendment. The big-city welfare staters do not all vote, and the ones that do are not singular in purpose and fragment their votes among all kinds of liberal causes. If we can act as a single dedicated voting block, I have no doubt that heads will roll. Also, if we fail to do this, all kinds of anti-gun politicians will be emboldened and will be coming out of the woodwork right at us. You can take that to the bank! Somehow we have to put the fear of God back into these people, and appeasement and thank you letters have no place in this fight. That is the message and the battle plan that I hope all of the gun advocacy and hunting organizations will be pushing.

No! I will not become them. I am not two-faced, and I don't even want to let them think for a moment that I am. I have just one focused goal, and it does not include making nice-nice with a demonstrated enemy of the 2nd Amendment. And that includes saying anything good to him or about him. To be just a little more frank about it, I hate his guts and will not rest easy until he and all his anti-gun buddys learn the career costs when they thumb their noses at gun owners. This is a vendetta, and I do not want him to ever think any differently. There is no purpose to sending the enemy thank-you notes and it only shows a lack of unity, and determination to be running around thanking him for anything or in any other fashion affording him any thought that we are a bunch of naïve jerks that can be walked over. It disappoints me that other gun owners do not have the same singularity of purpose and attitude.

And I can drive into any city across the US and see strings of generations of welfare recipients that have never known anything but a life of welfare income. Much of our welfare system results in a strangle hold on generation after generation that grow up dependent on the government for their existence and cannot seem to break the chain. For many it has become a way-of-life. It's a cruel system that enslaves the recipients with dependency and lowered expectations. Yes there are some who run onto hard times and need a hand up but there are a lot of others who are in that situation because they were born into it and previous generations were born into it. It is a system that needs cleaning, and very little can be said in defense of the way we conduct our assistance programs. Many of these have been modeled with an intent that it is to become a lifestyle for those claimed by it. The temporariness has been changed to assumptions that this is to be the way people will live and people have responded in exactly that fashion.

It's not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you .....lol.

I am now getting a bit of insight into why Cuomo and his merry band of anti-gun politicos feel they can get away with such heavy-handed mis-treatment of gun owners. In such a short time span, he throws a bone to hunters, and they all come groveling back to him licking his feet like some whipped dogs. My gosh, nobody seems to have any true convictions anymore that can't be bought off with some meaningless gesture. All I can say is get used to the SAFE ACT and all such future intrusions on your 2nd Amendment rights because the gun-owning population is now showing just how shallow their convictions really go. I was hoping that the disgust and discontent might last until the election of these filthy creeps came up, and now I find people who are already crawling back with their hat-in-hand, ready to bow down and thank the author of one of the greatest gun-grabs in history for a little scrap thrown to them on the ground. Well, thank you all for a little dose of reality.

Very good article, especially since I can see a need for the checks and balances placed on the DEC as an agency, and the need for over-sight to ensure that all of the state's citizenry are safeguarded and represented in matters of environmental conservation. The trick is getting the right checks and balances and ensuring that. From what I can make out, there doesn't really seem to be any guidelines as to what environmental issues belong in the control of the DEC and which ones belong in the legislature. It just seems to be very arbitrary to me.

As we bow down and worship the gods of technology, it seems that very few have bothered to look at where all this stuff is taking us. I mean really, how often do you ever see anyone concerned about the speed and lack of controls on technological invasion of privacy and the insertion of government into our lives. Sometimes someone may laughingly mention it, but there really doesn't seem to be any real alarm. And yet everyday the government gets another tool to remotely monitor and study us and wrap another tentacle of invasiveness around us. I hear others in other threads talk about armed insurrection over infringements on our 2nd Amendment rights, and yet there is really very little concern ever mentioned about how technological fire-power and super-invasive government surveillance has truly made that option quite impossible.

Batteries on my new Cuddeback Attack survived two nights of -7 degrees. 4 "D"-size Duracells

Of more recent vintage, two stand out as my favorites. The first was a super funny movie with Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline, called "Last Vegas". No that's not a typo...lol. The second was War Horse. I have never seen a movie theater audience applaud at the end of a movie before, but everyone in the whole place gave the movie a loud round of applause. Great, great story!

It is amazing how completely different all of these nuts taste. The black walnut is a stronger flavored nut and nothing like an english walnut. To be honest, I don't remember how the butternuts tasted. The bad thing is that everything that you put any of these nuts into will make you fat ..... lol.

No butternuts this year. I don't know what happened, but in our area butternuts and acorns didn't come on like the other nut crops did. Maybe next year.

I discovered that using a vise was pretty quick and a more controlled way to keep from bashing them up too much. I got a lot of complete halves. Same thing with the hickory nuts. It actually went along pretty quick.

Is there such a thing as a "gruntled" hunter?

So, this year was a record year for bumper crops of nuts. The hickory nuts were covering the ground, and they actually had had that outer shuck already peeled off. I picked up a 1/2 peck basket full in just a few minutes. That was so quick and easy, that I visited one of our local black walnut trees, and gathered up a pile of those too. Just stepped and squashed the soft green outer shell and picked the walnut out. I took them all up in the basement and laid them all out on newspaper for about a week and let everything dry off. Then during one of those wet throw-away days, I sat in the shop cracking hickory nuts and walnuts. You really need a lot of patience to sit there and do that ..... kind of makes you wonder if you'll ever get a life some day .... lol. Well anyway, when I got done I had quite a pile of shelled nuts ready for cooking. So I put them in the freezer and yesterday the wife got into a baking frenzy and did up several batches of cookies and a few cupcakes that featured these two kinds of nuts. First of all, let me point out that to my knowledge there is no place that you can buy shelled hickory nuts and shelled black walnuts, so basically we are talking about a rather scarce delicacy. Second, I have to say that each of those two varieties have a very distinct and unique flavor. Third, I will say that those cookies (and cupcakes) were some of the best tasting things I have ever had. I believe that I have tasted some stuff that is absolutely fantastic and that 99.99% of the people have never and will never get a chance to taste. So, am I the only one here who has ever gathered and shelled hickory nuts and black walnuts? Because I will say that if my time were counted for anything at all, those nut-meats are quite a bit like gold in terms of value. I believe that they are a harvest that is impossible to commercially automate. But as a once in a lifetime experiment, it was worth every minute.

Generally speaking, I am not one to keep shooting until nothing is left moving. The wack 'em and stack 'em philosophy just isn't my thing. But then we are talking about a different state with different population dynamics and control needs. I don't have a clue what the mindset and needs are down there. Perhaps there is a need to mow them down like rats at a dump, who knows? I will say that it is a shocking picture of action that we seldom get to take part in, and perhaps it's a picture that a lot of us would rather not be involved in. That may account for all the uproar.

This time of year, the fur is prime, and they generally look all fluffy and plumped up. But yes, he does look like he is doing very good.

The deer were able to put on some hefty fat reserves this year in many parts of the state, which will help them withstand anything so far with no problem. But If winter extends into March and April with deep snow, that is when their supply of reserve energy will be tested. However, those talking about thick crusting on the snow put the deer into a different winter mortality category that relates to losses to predators rather than starvation. Anytime coyotes or dogs can run on top of the snow where the deer punch down into it, The coyotes or dogs have a distinct advantage. Also, I do recall hearing of a large deer-kill that was due to an extraordinary icing event where a bunch of deer actually slid to their deaths in a deep/steep ravine. I can't recall where it was that that happened and it was a bunch of years ago. But something like that might be a problem in certain unique areas where the ice is so thick that they do not break through but also have no traction.

And people question the ethics of baiting?? .....lol.

Nice deer, and great that you were able to zero in on him with just using Google Maps.

First project in the spring is a new roof for the barn. 38 years for an asphalt shingle roof is pushing the life expectancy a bit .... lol. And I have a bit of roof damage to show for it. Metal roof this time. Also, it is time to get back at the brush clearing down along the driveway. That damn wild rose is sure persistent. In a hunting category, I want to try a bit more off-hand shooting just to see if I can improve a bit there. Not sure how that will work out. After all, it's not like I am getting any steadier in my old age .... lol. I might also drag out the old recurve just to see what I can do with it. I have to add a couple of pear trees to my orchard. Also, I am going to try my hand at grafting. I have a scrawny Bartlett pear tree that really should come out of it's shaded location. It never is going to do well where I planted it years ago, in fact it is dying. I also have a real nice-shaped seckle(sp?) pear tree that has these little dinky, hard-as-a-bullet, pears all over it. So I want to make a bunch of grafts from the dying Bartlett tree to the seckle pear tree that has the crappy little pears. I'll see how that works out. Also, I have a lot of trim work to do on the trees in my mini-orchard. They have been ignored and finally need some attention. Also have some spray work for apple scab on the apple trees. These damn trees really are high maintenance. Also have some repair work for the pump shed. There is no shortage of projects around this place. So maybe I should be enjoying the winter break instead of always complaining about the weather .... ha-ha. The work begins when the snow goes away.

Back in the olden days when I took my rifle hunter safety training, Our instructors made sure we understood what a bullet (12 gauge slug to be precise) could do to the human body by showing some very gruesome detailed pictures. That was the right message, in the right context, with the right impact, and was aimed specifically at hunter safety. Of course if that were to be done today, you would have a mob scene of angry parents on your doorstep. No problems with having little Johnny sit down every week watching somebody on Criminal Minds cutting eyes out their live victims or eviscerating some lady while she begs for her life, or any number of other atrocities that they depict each week.

What is the current record these days?