Tag Archives: family

Girl Hunter by Georgia Pellegrini (and Chukar Hunting)

This book was fine.

Woman chef becomes hunter in order to truly participate in her omnivorous life.

Pretty good stories, good looking recipes but one thing really bothered me.

The chukar.

Georgia shoots her chukar at a Texas game ranch where “…an olive brown figure rises from the left, only 10 yards in front and, crosses my path in a diagonal leap skyward.”

She who has never tasted a chukar gets her bird, and life is good. I bet she even remembers how it tastes.

I have also been chukar hunting.

It was a bit different than that.

My Dad, brother and cousin Johnny all went chukar hunting in Nevada a few years ago. After lots and lots of driving we arrived and it was beautiful.

We parked the truck down along the river.

Until I realized that I had to hike up all that beauty.

See here is the thing, the locals don’t call them “Dirty Rotten Bastards” without due cause. Chukars hang out on the side of the mountain until they see you coming, then they run – straight – up – the – mountain. When they reach the top they no doubt do a few chukar high fives before the Dirty Rotten Bastards laugh and fly down the other side of the mountain. 

I don’t run up mountains as fast as a chukar, my game vest stayed empty.

After a few days of hunting we got smarter and learned what the birds ( I mean Dirty Rotten Bastards) were flying to and we were able to set up hunts so that they flew down our side of the mountain. That sounds like it should be much better, and it was. All you had to do was stop upward movement on a 45 degree, rocky, snow covered slope, pivot outward to be facing the flying birds and then attempt to stop gasping for oxygen in the thin mountain air so as to steady your gun and get a shot off.

My game vest still stayed empty.

Then I’d watch and watch as the unscathed bastards would fly off, mark where they went down, hike back down my mountain and get ready to chase them up the next one. It was fantastic in a masochistic sort of way.

Fortunately not everyone was as bad a shot as I was and we were able to eat chukar for dinner at night.

Unlike Georgia I do not remember how it tastes.

I was so tired by the end of the day it’s possible I would have thought cardboard a delicious dinner.

Tyler (who can kill a chuckar) and dogs along ridge.

As the local mountain lion hunter told us, you go Dirty Rotten Bastard hunting the first time for fun, the next times are all revenge.

And now that I have my own bird dog and know that I have to pretend I’m training for a marathon before I leave, I can’t wait until I have an opportunity to get my revenge.

Hopefully I’ll even remember how it tastes.

Would I recommend the book? I go bird hunting because I like the hunting. Figuring out what the birds are eating, where they will be and when, watching the dogs work the field (or mountain) and maybe if I’m lucky being able to fill my game vest with something tasty for dinner. I’d rather hike up and down mountains while puzzling out how it all works with friends or family than be certain of finding game on a managed property with a guide.

The author is a hunter to find out where her food came from, participate in the harvest and cook great food. I think what she does is admirable, I think her stories are good and I’m glad she wrote a book about it, I just can’t broadly recommend it as a hunting book. It’s not my kind of hunting.

Where Mom, Where?

Clara has always been very concerned about where people are. It’s not unusual for us to run though a long list of family and friends throughout the day identifying who is at work, home or elsewhere.  If those people have dogs we have to do a run down of those too. Tonight we picked up our friend Jessie’s dog Finley and that started Clara off.

Where Jessie Mom?

Where Cooper Mom? (Jessie’s other dog)

Where Ivy Mom?

Where Dad Mom?

Where Piper Mom?

Where Storm Mom?

Where Trip Mom?

Where rat go Mom?

-Wait what?! How did a rat get in the list of family pets?!!? Well, as much as I would like to feign ignorance of our rodent issues, Christmas is coming and if Santa isn’t a fan of pouting and crying I’m thinking I better not lie either…

A few weeks ago I heard rodent noises under the kitchen sink, I opened the cupboard but didn’t see anything other than un-tripped empty mouse and rat traps. Then I heard rustling in the drawers next to the sink. Irritated that a mouse was boldly rummaging around when I was right there I opened and slammed shut multiple drawers in some odd misguided attempt to either scare it away or squish it.  Instead a giant rat leaped out and almost landed on my feet. What followed I’m ashamed to admit was that girly scream that I seem to reserve just for rats – which then caused chaos to break out in the house. Clara stood up on her kitchen chair at the table and start crying, the rat disappeared,  Piper tried to knock down the pet gate into the kitchen to follow it and John yelled down from upstairs wondering if everyone was OK.

In my defense I had bare toes.

Anyways, I’m not surprised that Clara is still talking about the rat.

Clara -” Where rat go Mom?”

Me- “I don’t know where do you think it went?”

Clara- “Pantry…. You shoot rat in pantry Mom?”

Me- “No. We don’t shoot things in the house.”

Clara- “Uncle Tyler shoot rat Mom?”

Me- “Not in the house.”

Clara- “Where Uncle Tyler Mom?”

Me- “At his house.”

Clara – “He cut up deer Mom?”

Me – (shit)

Fortunately I was able to derail Clara from rats and cutting up deer by talking about Uncle Tyler’s truck he was fixing. Now if I could just keep her from ending every sentence with “Mom” I’d really be getting somewhere!

Uncle Tyler

The girls have many uncles but the one they spend the most time with is my brother, Uncle Tyler.

Which is good because little princesses need a healthy dose of Uncle Tyler every now and then. As much farming and hunting that we do we just can’t compete with the fascination of Uncle Tyler. For starters he’s not us, so therefore he is automatically cooler in the eyes of his nieces. Second of all he shoots more stuff and happily shows the girls what he’s doing as well as finds them cool things to see and trees to climb. He also is fascinatingly dirty while he’s hunting – that’s really here nor there just a good side note. Grime aside they were excited to see him so many days last week.  Since all the time spent with Tyler was the middle of the gun season it involved an extra amount of grime and plenty of opportunity to check out the hunters successes.  The girls happily went with him to see dead deer while he showed them who shot which deer and what he was doing when he helped butcher them.

Clara told everyone “Tyler shoot big buck” with her arms in the air for emphasis just in case anyone missed his bow deer of a few weeks ago. Then after John shot a very nice doe she added “Dad shoot done” (rhymes with stone) to her deer hunting talk. She got rides from Uncle Tyler and anyone else who would carry her to and from the shed to see the deer every chance she got. Ivy took her friend in to see all the deer and was perhaps a little miffed when she wasn’t interested in identifying carcasses with Ivy and instead bolted for the door.  In short my girls are not afraid of dead things and they love their Uncle Tyler so I was more than a bit taken aback by Clara’s bedtime conversation with me the other night:

Clara: Uncle Tyler shoot big buck!
Me: Yup.
Clara:  Dad shoot big doe! (we worked on pronunciation since last weekend)
Me: Yup.
Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up dad doe.
Me: Yup he helped. (A clarification to pacify those who did cut up Johns doe (Thank you!) Tyler did not in fact cut up that deer, but he cut up some others and I was trying to get the girl to go to sleep since she was up and talking far past bedtime.)

Then there was a thoughtful silence, followed by a very worried:

Clara: Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

Me: No Clara, Uncle Tyler would never cut you up. (shit… and excuse my language but there is really no other phrase that better suits the fact that at 8:45 at night your two year old is suddenly worried that her beloved Uncle is going to carve her up like a deer.) 

Clara: Uncle Tyler have big knife….. Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

So we talked about all the fun things that her Uncle Tyler likes to do with her and the conversation was going well until I mentioned that he likes to climb trees with her.

Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up trees!

Me: (shit!)

Fifteen minutes and one futile phone call to Uncle Tyler later(Tell me please – is there anything more annoying than a brother who falls asleep before your daughter, who is awake because of him???) I had her mostly convinced that her Uncle was not going to cut her up because she is not meat, and he wouldn’t do that even if he does have a big knife. She finally fell asleep and I haven’t heard any more about it since.

This weekend we will again be spending time with Uncle Tyler.  The girls are already excited and I’m just crossing my fingers that we’ll all be able to sleep when we get home!

Crazy?

This last weekend the family gathered in Pewaukee for an “Early 2011 Holiday Meal” with Granny and Gramps before they head down to Florida. I brought a ham for dinner, my Mom made twice baked potatoes, John brought the wine, and Tyler showed up with this:

Someone should probably explain to Tyler what is and is not acceptable as a hostess gift.

After taking lots of pictures,Tyler graciously gave this deer to John and I. Since this is Tyler’s second deer of the year, and we are out of venison we happily accepted his offer. The deer was well photographed, hung in the garage and we all went and had our “Early 2011 Holiday Meal” The food was delicious, the company was not bad (considering we were all related) and soon it was time for the fun to be over and the girls to head to bed.

That’s when Tyler got a look that was a little like this:

Suddenly at 9:30 on a Saturday night after eating far too much delicious food I found myself sitting at my parents kitchen counter butchering a deer while listening to a conversation about how the family isn’t crazy we just are more interesting, or fun, or something that was attempting to justify the fact that we were spending our night putting meat into little white packages. All the while John is pulling out knives and grinders he is yelling that we made him crazy, claiming that he used to be perfectly happy watching movies or playing cards and that our family had ruined him.

I’m not sure if we are crazy or just know how to have a good time, but it was a memorable night full of laughter and I’ve got freezer full of venison again.

Can’t complain about any of that!

Pumpkin Patch

Once again the girls Great Gramps grew them a patch full of pumpkins, and once again I made the girls do all the work while I took pictures.

The pumpkins have turned into a tradition for the girls,  you can see a how some past years have gone on last years “Pumpkins” post.

This year while the picture taking was fun as always. Clara, just up from a nap, was not so interested in getting out and finding pumpkins. She was unsure of the whole ordeal until I showed her that there were bugs on the pumpkins. I’m not sure if we predisposed her to her love of bugs by nicknaming her Clara Bug or if it was bound to happen but give the girl an ant, a few squash bugs and a worm and she’s a happy camper.

She and Granny found all the pumpkin bugs, but it look like they were a little unsure of some of them.

Ivy on the other hand was the big pumpkin carrier this year.

Good thing because Gramps needs lots of help sometimes!They loaded up pumpkins until the cart was full and headed off into the sunset.Clara didn’t want to get left out of the ride……but my serious little girl picked an unsteady seat and Great Gramps tipped her on the first corner.

Pumpkins, they are all fun and games until someone falls off!

Pumpkin patch pictures are some of my favorites, the orange pumpkins, green grass, soft fall light…… you can even take a picture of your stockbroker with a few pumpkins and it turns out great!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

This is my brother Tyler.

It’s his birthday today.

In honor of his birthday I just wanted to say a few things about my favorite brother.

In particular I’d like you to know that even though he can wield a chainsaw,

or wrestle a sheep or fix his ginormous truck or engage in a many other death defying, dirty sort of pursuits don’t be fooled into thinking he is just a big tough guy.

I’ve seen bottle rockets cause him to cower in fear,

and once I heard a opossum made him scream like a little girl.

This has been Tyler’s big sister just doing what big sisters do best, thank you for your time and happy birthday Ty!

Thank Goodness For Grandma!

Once again we were hit with a nasty flu bug here.

Except this time it was really nasty and it got me the worst.

Without my Mom to step in to take care of me, and the kids, and the pigs, and the sheep, and the chickens, and the other chickens, and the ducks, and the dogs, and the quail I’m not sure what would have happened but it would have been really ugly.

I know this for sure because by Friday I was feeling well enough to brave a few hours of the day on my own.

They didn’t go well.

During rest time Ivy didn’t rest.

Instead she gave a lamb a bath in the yard.

There are so many things wrong with that I can’t even talk about it.

I’m just thankful we seem to be back to normal.

I’m pretty sure the sheep are grateful as well.