Doc

I had a guy in to plow my 1000' driveway because I thought the consistency of the foot of snow was a bit too heavy for my ATV. He came up the level part ok, but as soon as he started up the area where there is a slight grade, he buried himself and left a huge pile of that sloppy-gloppy snow About 4' high blocking the driveway completely. It was dark and he decided to come back the next day. So he had a friend pull him out and off they went with my driveway barricaded with a pig pile of compacted snow. I figured that the guy would never be able to finish (He had a nice rig, but only summer tires). So yesterday I got out the ATV to see what I could do. Well with a bit of hand shoveling to get around the side of the big pile that he left and lot of stubbornness, I finally finished the job where a 4WD pickup truck failed. I have a renewed sense of respect for those little ATVs. The agility and maneuverability of those things gives me a leg-up on some of these trucks....lol. Of course if the guy had some good tires on his truck or maybe some chains, he should have really had no problem, and he could have saved some wear and tear on my trusty Yamaha. My conclusion: These guys with the snow plows should first have appropriate tires, and second they should keep a good 4WD ATV w/plow, in the bed of their truck for times when things get tough.

I don't know an exact density number either, but on the bigger state parcels, you usually can get away from the crowd. Also, some pressure in gun season is usually a good thing once you discover the hot escape routes.

Damn March! More times than not we get a doozy of a sloppy, heavy, storm in March. It is almost guaranteed. I remember one back in the 70's where I had to have a payloader come in and open up our driveway. This one is a bit more than my ATV can handle. It's just too darn heavy and deep. Last night at midnight I took a look at the thermometer and the temp was 32 degrees and there already was a pile of snow. So you know that crap is the consistency of ice cream.

I am hoping that before any such plan were to be put in place, a very rigid program of background checks and mental evaluation and a very rigid program of school security training would be developed for anyone who would take on the responsibility of being an armed protection resource whether they be a teacher, janitor, coach, registered security guard or even a member of the local police force. I doubt they would simply make it a "bring your gun to school" day for any volunteers that might come along ..... lol.

That is the site of the huge March deer yard back in the 80's around the Emil Muller farm. Yeah, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that they numbered in the thousands when the yard was at it's peak population. Things have changed a lot since then, and I have lost track of the deer situation over there in recent years. But the area still looks real "deery". I'm not sure what the hunting pressure is like now with it all turned into state land. Take a day off and wander around over there. If there are deer in any numbers, they will be obvious at this time of year.

It is hard to get the proper perspective on the ravine behind our place, but I can only say that just over the edge of what you see in these pictures is vertical drop of about 200 feet straight down with nothing but shale. This was where I learned about rubber boots and how fast your feet will go out from under you when you step on a slick stick just under the snow. The only thing that stopped me from going over the edge one day was a small spindly root of a small hemlock sapling. There are no ledges or anything else to stop a falling body until it smashes onto the rocks a couple hundred feet below. Scary??....... You bet!

I wonder how many consumers are like me. Once I stop patronizing a store based on incompatible principles, I tend to stay out of those stores completely even on unrelated products. I also cannot remember ever reversing that choice. So stores such as Dicks or Field & Stream have really not lost any gun sales with me because I would likely never buy a firearm there. But they have most clothing and footwear sales and archery purchases, camping supplies, and ammo and reloading supplies and equipment, and any number of other outdoor related items because I will never again see the inside of their store. Multiply that times untold numbers of hunters and gun owners who also feel betrayed, and I have to wonder how many millions of dollars in lost revenue that represents.

I have never seen Dicks as a "go-to" place for hunting gear, and so they will not be missing my business in their stores. Now Field and stream was a different story. They had selections and reasonable prices on their hunting supplies and accessories, and I have spent considerable amounts of cash there. That has now ended. I wish them well, but their success will have nothing to do with my support. We have enough enemies outside the industry without having their deceit inside the industry. And I can do very well without ever setting foot in their businesses.

I have learned to be organized to the point where I actually make lists of needed items and periodically take the hour drive down the road to the Auburn Bass-pro and load up my shop with reloading components and equipment and what ever hunting accessories that I need. It actually is a pleasant drive and I take the longer scenic route down 5&20 through all those neat old towns and get to see some different country a few times a year. Its not a big imposition. It's almost as far to go to Henrietta as it is to go to Auburn, and I avoid dealing with the wolves dressed in sheep's clothing. It's bad enough that we have the libs to deal with but now we have those that are supposed to be 2nd Amendment advocates doing the heavy lifting for the gun-grabbers. As far as the Victor version of Bass-pro, I have basically given up on that deal. I think something must have killed that deal. Nobody's even talking about it anymore.

Such silliness. It's all symbolism and feel-goodism. They will fill the empty slots with typical semi-auto hunting rifles that are functionally the same things. It is all about appearance and cosmetics and some non-lethal interchangeability features for harmless customization. They want people to think that they are good caring libs, when in fact their moves will have zero effect on those that would commit mass murders. What phoniness! I'm not very big in boycotts, but there is no way that I will spend another cent in a store that makes such a big deal out of trying to make fools of their customers through phony deception.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is one of those ideas that Trump blurted out that he wishes he could take back after a few quiet moments of explanation from LaPierre. Have you noticed that all of the gun control talk of the last few days, the topic of minimum age has conspicuously been missing. I suspect that this is one suggestion that will never really be offered into legislation. It was a bad idea and I think he is already convinced of that.

Actually, those plastic bags are highly recyclable. We have collection boxes at out local Walmart.

I have to wonder how something like this would impact hunting. Yes, that is kind of a weak concern when compared to school mass shootings, but the thought does go through my head. Will the restriction be limited to purchases only. or will it be extended to possession and use of long guns. I guess we will have to see how or if it develops.

I will say that amusement and recreational media have taken a bit of a gross direction. The rash of C.S.I programs that feature dead and mutilated bodies has become standard fare for TV viewing. What the heck makes that crap so entertaining. I mean in the last bunch of years, it seems like you can't watch a nights programming without the obligatory hacked up body on a coroner's gurney with the giant stiches across the chest and the hearts and livers and other assorted human organs laying in a pan. Is that entertainment? Programs such as Criminal Minds feature super realistic torture scenes detailing exact methods and reactions as the victim slowly undergoes agonizing and gruesome deaths. Is that what we see as entertainment these days? Sure back in my day we had the bad guys getting shot off their horses on the weekly western shows, and the absolute worst, nastiest hombre always went down without even a red mark. We even had the popularity of the "hand-shooters" who always bested the bad guys by shooting the gun out of the bad guys hand ..... Ha-ha-ha. Damn those guys were good! Now today we are treated to the blood and brain spray out of the back of the head, and the growing pool of blood gathering around the head as the lifeless corpse lays twisted on the pavement. There is also the blood spray patterns on the walls depicted in these fictional murder scene investigations. It has all gone beyond simple artistic representation and has become a feeding frenzy of constant blood, death, violence and gore to the point where this stuff is being force-fed to our youth. Look at the prime time programming line-up and tell me that you don't see an over-representation of this kind of stuff. And every year it gets worse. Perhaps we are starting to reap what we are sowing. We are desensitizing our youth to these kinds of treatments of other people. We are showing them that an acceptable means of solving whatever problems that they have in their lives can be solved with a stab of a knife or a pull of a trigger. It is an indoctrination....a brainwashing. It has reached a point where for those with severe defects in social skills or weaknesses in judgment, or those that start hearing voices have now found an alternative solution that they learned on TV through a lifetime of forced study. At what point does it cross over from simple reality to trained obsession for the right mental conditions?

Just like the air martials, you never know which passenger it is.

I have not heard anyone advocating that teachers should be mandated to be armed. In fact they would be much more effective if the shooter didn't know which one was armed. I guess if that cowardly cop taught us anything, it would be that it's not wise to put all your eggs in one basket. Having said all that, in addition to having anonymous armed teachers, janitors, and such sprinkled throughout the internal adult population, I am still in favor of having at least one armed cop at a single check point entrance with metal detector devices.

Ok this is one glaring entry into Trump's turn at gun control proposals. His idea is that he would like to make it illegal for anyone under 21 to buy any long gun. That would mean that no one under the age of 21 could purchase any powder propelled guns of any sort. So what do you all think about that? I have a lot of mixed feelings about that proposal, and mostly see this as an unreasonable 2nd amendment attack offered simply as appeasement to the left. He needs to think about that knee-jerk reaction a bit more.

Good Stuff!.......lol

Yes, they absolutely do. They believe it like it is a proven law of physics. Just one more magic law added to the volumes of existing laws will be what turns the tide on the issue. When all you have heard all your short life is that guns are evil, or that there is no reason to own a gun, or that guns have but one purpose which is to kill, it's very easy to tag the gun as an actual cause of violence. The real reasons for the rise in violence is such a multi-faceted and complex array of social forces that it is much easier to blame an inanimate object as the cause. It is just human nature. They are so busy looking for the mythical "quick and easy fix" that they have given up on looking at real root causes and taking the fight there.

Well, you may not be able to get large equipment back there, but there are damn few places that a dozer can't get to. Also, when he is heading in, he can build a rough road for future access and maybe even stir around and open up some other areas for you.....or even make your prime plot larger to open up more sunlight. You would be amazed at what these guys can do for a small amount of money. At any rate, it doesn't hurt to have a guy come in and offer an estimate.

Wait until these kids (and other wack-os) start thinking about pipe bombs and such. According to what terrorists have taught us it is only a matter of time before more destructive methods become the weapon of choice. Death and mayhem gets even more destructive once the assault rifles are outlawed. The thing is that bombs, trucks and such are each more destructive than any rifle ever could be. Are we going to continue eradicating everything that can be mis-used as a weapon? Isn't it time to start getting serious about what the real causes are for these incidents? You know, it occurred to me that semi-autos have been around since forever. 60 some years ago when I was in high school I had a buddy that had a .22 semi-auto. I'm sure they were available to a whole lot of other kids too. And yet school massacres never occurred then or many of the years since. So other than appearance, those very same semi-autos have not changed a bit in terms of function. So to those that think assault weapons (Also known as semi auto rifles) are what's driving our kids nuts and making them shoot up schools, I guess I have to ask, "Other than making everybody artificially feel good, how does outlawing them really get at the root of the problem?". Has anyone ever spent more than a half a second actually thinking about such things as the root of the problem. I know it is a whole lot easier to take the easy way out and intellectually lazy approach of thinking anything is really solved by going after an inanimate item. But apparently no one is actually concerned about doing anything effective and are content to simply ban the next in a whole unlimited supply of implements that can be used lethally.

I'm still wondering about the scene where the narrator is stumbling around asking the kid about where the deer is and is it dead, etc. kind of like he hasn't seen it yet and yet the kid is standing next to the obviously dead deer (approximately0.52 into the video). And then about a minute later,Approx. 1.57 into the video) he is telling how he (the narrator) "finished it off". Perhaps there was some creative re-enactment.

The pictures look like something that we have growing wild in our area, and they are good draw for deer. They like them. I wouldn't hesitate to plant them. I know a lot of other critters like them too.

Yes, 8 sounds about right, and the only reason for the 2 point deduction is the growing scarcity of available hunting land. And that statement is made confessing that I have no idea whether other states are significantly any better.

Ha-ha-ha...... There is always that "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. Personally, I have not hunted every other state in the country to the same extent as I have hunted here, and wouldn't even pretend to offer a credible assessment regarding the whole country. For me, based on real full-time hunting experience, this is the state that I live in, so it offers me the best hunting that is available to me. This is where I can spend an unlimited amount of time hunting, and that makes it the best for me.