Off the grid

Restored by Nature

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I spent the afternoon climbing the hills and walking the fields near home amid softly falling snow yesterday. I went out to clear my head from a very long week, to look for deer antler sheds, and because I felt the groggy headache of an impending cold coming on.

The fresh air does wonders. Like the alcohol laced tonic sold a century ago, it takes off the edge that is caused by living in a modern world. To be the only person on hundreds of acres of bluff and farmland has a quieting power upon the madness that exists in over stressed minds. Snow floats in the air like the ivory down of heaven’s eiders creating a blanket to hide the barren ground and casts a hush upon the earth, upon the soul.

Stands of goldenrod bend in the wind. Their stems holding orbs once pregnant with a single larvae laying dormant over winter only to chew its way from a woody womb and become something new entirely in spring. Gilded blades of grass bend beneath the weight of slowly falling snow. Snow that is nothing more than an icy mask to cover the ugliness of winter’s death. The earth is transformed into an alien landscape and the feet of lone creatures mar the surface like man’s first walk upon the moon.

One can never get lost following the tracks of nature’s greatest survivalists. Not man with his GPS and fire starters, but animals whose very bodies have the power to transform and adapt to every extreme in terrain and weather. Dens on sides of hills where bears slumber through the months, oblivious to the world outside their earthen cocoon. Leaves bunched in branches that provide shelter for squirrels who never seem to stop for rest. The very trees themselves, such as the oak, aid in the survival of others by clinging to their leaves far into the winter just in case some creature of the forest needs forage for its frost bit bed.

The hills offer views of the river below. Frozen and still, a misleading field of ice appears barren yet teams with unseen life just below the surface. Currents flow strongly beneath the crystal sheets and back water sloughs fill quickly with species of fish that provide feasts for those who will brave the bite in the cold. Along the main channel areas of water remain unfrozen and attract bald eagles in groups who stand sentinel on the icy edges in wait for a feast of their own.

The view from the cliffs is hypnotic, humbling, and for me a place where I choose to worship in a cathedral built by God not man. From heights that force me to see beyond what is in front of me, to gaze past the horizon and witness all that was created by a hand strong enough to carve stone yet gentle enough to love even the lowliest among us.

My trips to the forest and hills are more of a sabbatical than just a mere walk in nature. They are an escape from the din of a demanding world. They are what I need to get back to myself, to get back to who I am when I take off the mask of necessity and shrug off the cloak of responsibility. A time where I can silently enjoy the company of someone who understands me more than anyone; myself.

Too Late or Just in Time

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I was born in the wrong time period.

How many of you say that to yourselves daily as you make your 5 mile 3 hour commute to go sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer screen until it feels like there is an ice pick prodding at your brain while the phone shrills incessantly?

I tell myself daily that someone who is as unhappy as I am with the modern world had to have been meant for a different era in history. By some cosmic fluke, my birth was delayed until the late 20th century and here I am clinging to the old ways while cursing the slowness of my internet connection.

I often pour over images on the web of one room cabins, fires ablaze in the hearth, rag rugs on the floor, a wide front porch with golden domed fruit pies cooling on the rail, a root cellar lined with glass jars filled with delicously colorful contents, a barn with a scattering of animals, and the peace and slight fear that comes with knowing that you are the only person around for miles. The idealized Laura Ingalls Wilder lifestyle complete with calico and maple sugarings calls out to me more and more the older I get.

I wonder about that kind of life, long for it sometimes and wish I could just walk away from everything to lose myself in a deep forest cabin.

I am not the only one, I am certain of that. Many of us want noting more than the serenity of solitude. To have time unspoiled by electronic devices, to be left to our own devices. We want this freedom yet remained chained to the very things that hold us back.

Hours that could be spent acting on our dreams are spent living vicariously through the posts of others. Heads down, fingers flying over a stylized keyboard, we fail to look up and around us to see the world in its entirety because it is easier to view it through a 6 inch screen.

Our concepts of the beauty of the earth and of people has been distorted by built in filters. An instant face lift in the palm of our hands allows us to alter our appearance so as to get more likes on social media. We erase lines, change eye color, add length to our lashes to the point where we are disappointed when we dont see that exact avatar in the mirror looking back at us.

Everything is contrived we feign concern for others, give a crying emoji and keep on scrolling. We get people to fall in love with us through messenger with daily messages, flirtatious, canned compliments at just the right time and then ignore the person for days. We toy with emotions because there are no consequences. We post our stories only to have Keyboard warriors attack like pit bulls in a ring when in real life they are de-nutted poodles in their mom’s basement.

This is why I cling so firmly to the old ways. The practice of going visiting on a Saturday, baking pies for elderly friends, helping out those in need, canning enough each year to share, quilting, raising livestock, hunting, fishing, surviving alone.

I am not ashamed to be politically incorrect by having pride in doing “women’s work” nor am I afraid to show pride in doing things that were formerly called “men’s work.” Yet the before mentioned keyboard warriors are quick to pounce with their verbal warfare and mindless threats.

What have we become? We laugh at how archaic things were in the past while the past laughs at how backwards we have become. We are now fully connected yet people are more isolated than ever, we get through horrific events by blaming things and not people, we have manipulated the system so that everyone is a victim and not at fault for their actions, we lost our funny bone and, as a result our backbone, in that people are offended by everything, we turn our backs on neighbors and open the gates for strangers, our children starve while others feast but no one bats an eye, we just don’t care because we believe that there just is nothing to care about, we have given up, we just want to be left alone.

Yet, as they say, a flower can grow in the tiniest of cracks in a filthy sidewalk. So too can we flourish amid all the bad news, good news, fake news, what have you. How? By being old fashioned, for lack of a better term. Roll up your sleeves. Bake a pie and take it over to that old lady next door who spies on you through her blinds. While you are busy commenting on your Facebook friends dinner in Australia your neighbors Social Security check might not have covered groceries this month.

Go out and teach a kid something that doesn’t involve a smart phone or video game. Engage in real life conversations with people face to face rather than sending them a text from the next room. Take a class, learn to sew or make butter or to make something with your own two hands and your imagination. Build a shelter in the woods and camp out for a week with your phone turned off and your senses turned up to high. Eat food you grew yourself or harvested from the forest and waters. Survive and you will thrive and I am not talking about that patch people wear and shakes they drink. I’m talking the real deal, feeling like you are alive because you did something, created something, gave to others, pushed your limits, burned that box you felt safe in, lived.

So next time you say that you were born 100 years too late ask yourself why you can’t recreate all that was good about the past in your own life. Work hard for your dream as though your life depends on it (because it does), be a good person, simplify, be grateful for the little things, be a good neighbor, slow down, look up, look around, create, build, make memories, establish traditions, and just live. Don’t watch life through a 6 inch screen, go out and live it in real time!

Blood Knots and Swedish Pimples

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As many of my blog followers know, I do not like to let grass grow under my feet. My year is divided into a plethora of outdoor activities that run the gamut from ice fishing to antler shed hunting to duck hunting. Every season is full of reasons to be in the woods, stomping around the marsh, or on the water.

Ice fishing is in full swing right now and I have been getting out every weekend since before Christmas to enjoy some quiet time in my portable ice shack and catch fish. My shack is of the old Fish Trap variety with a myriad of holes in it from a combination of much use and critters who have a taste for old canvas. The fact that it probably belongs in a fishing museum does not take away from its usefulness in keeping me cozy, with the aid of a propane heater, even on days when the temps dip well below zero.

So, what is the draw to pulling a 50lb shack out across a stretch of frozen sloughs with the sting of negative degree wind-chills freezing my face worse than a Hollywood Botox clinic? For one, I am a sucker for braving the elements. The feel of icy air in my lungs is invigorating and to be out on a frozen sheet of ice at a time when everyone else would rather be tucked in at home makes me feel like I am truly living. Also, ice fishing holds a certain nostalgia for me in that it was something I did with my dad when I was a child.

As I mentioned before, my dad taught me about life. He was all about showing me how to fend for myself and that included hunting and fishing lessons which I absorbed with great gusto. I was no girly girl. In the summer I would dig worms to fill rusty coffee cans and fish the creeks for chubs that we kept in a dented milk can full of spring water. In the winter we would load up our rickety ice shack with thick summer sausage sandwiches on homemade bread, thermoses of hot chocolate and coffee, a few rods, our bait and we would be on our way. I remember the anticipation I felt riding in that 1970 Chevy pickup. I can still smell the vinyl of the seats and feel the cold of the window nip my fingertips as I drew pictures in the frost.

When one is a child, everything is magical because the imagination has not yet been tamed by the reality of adulthood. Even mundane events have the potential to be an adventure and for me, arriving at the frozen lake we were to fish was akin to landing upon a newly discovered planet. The wind whipped across the barren landscape like a scene straight out of Star Wars and old ice holes became indentations left by ancient meteors in my 7 year old mind. We were on a great quest to find life below the crust of this whole new world and I was ready to begin.

The buildup to the actual event was more dramatic than what gernerally followed but, once we were settled, my dad and I would spend hours chatting about anything and everything in the warm glow of a sunflower heater. I heard every one of his childhood stories, advice on how to tie the perfect blood knot, how to properly thread a wax worm on a freshly sharpened hook, and how the Swedish Pimple was the ONLY lure to use for picky pan fish.

My dad was a gruff man who never showed much emotion except anger but when we were alone in that ice shack he was a different person altogether. If I got bored with fishing he would pull out my ice skates and tell me to go for a spin but to not fall in any spear holes. He wanted me to have fun and to learn. For me, however, the icing on the cake was to have my dad actually want to spend time with me.

I have not been fishing with my dad in years. He is 83 years old now and entering a new stage in his life that involves relocating my mom into a permanent nursing home for her Alzheimer’s care. His lungs can no longer take the cold and he just doesn’t have the energy anymore. So, I go out and in my mind he is right there with me making me laugh with his stories, telling me what I need to do next time to catch more fish, and just being there enjoying each other’s company.

Life goes by very quickly, as we all know, however, things slow down a bit when you go out on the ice or into the woods. I can flip the top closed on my ice shack and shut out the entire world for hours. Basking in old memories, making new ones, continuously learning lessons that will help me when I go out again. Then, when it is time to go home, I open up my shack and blink against the sudden brightness of light on new fallen snow. Everything is the same as it was but somehow it is different. Or perhaps it is me that has changed in those hours on the ice and my eyes are more focused on what is important because I allowed myself a moment to slow down, to stop time and just live.

Icing on the Cake

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With winter fast approaching I always laugh at people who bundle up like they are headed out on a trans Siberian adventure when they are merely going to the mailbox at the end of their drive.

Living in Wisconsin the number of complaints filed to the weather gods rivals that of the daily postage arriving at the North Pole this time of year. People curse the cold, stomp their feet, and proclaim loudly about how much they hate winter. What is the reason for so much animosity? The cold temps, messy roads, snow to shovel? With all the energy that goes into hating winter isn’t there at least one positive? Oh yes my friends, there are many.

Ice fishing! The best tasting fish of the entire year are the ones caught through the ice from December through March. Every winter I drag out my Fish Trap ice shack and treck across frozen backwater sloughs to my favorite spots. The crisp air stings in my nostrils and through watery eyes I survey the bays for the perfect local to drop a line. It is either feast or famine out there and while nothing beats sunfish fried in butter, just a few hours out in the peaceful quite of my shack melts away the stress of a long work week.

Hiking! I absolutely love going hiking in the winter through snow frosted forests. Like a sparkling wedding cake, the landscape is perfectly iced without a single flaw save for the tracks of woodland creatures going about their winter routines. The clear sharp air clears my lungs and the most minute of sounds is amplified and carried to my cold nipped ears. Squirrels rustling, deer foraging, and birds of prey swooping almost silently down into the snow to catch a meal while the sun reflects off of crystalline surfaces painting rainbows on pure white templates. Every sense is heightened in winter. Unable to succumb to the sluggishness that warm weather fosters, the cold has a way of heightening and sharpening awareness of ones self and ones surroundings.

I could go on and on extolling the joys of the season and I am a firm believer that people who partake of the outdoors regularly, no matter the weather, are happier and, as a result, healthier people. I am living proof of this in the fact that I can feel a change in me when I have not had enough time in the wilderness. Headaches become frequent, irritability takes over, and my mood becomes generally glum until I get outside for a few hours. Yet there are those who think I’m crazy for feeling this way. The outdoors is my therapy, my spa, my place of renewal despite the weather because there is so much to experience when you head out into the woods, fields, and valleys.

Tell me how one cannot find beauty and peace while standing amid falling snowflakes. Angel feathers dropping from the sky to gently kiss upturned faces. Or the watercolor glow of a January sunset melting across sky and frozen land like a overturned painters pot spilling warm color before darkness falls. How can one complain about the cold when bearing witness to mornings following a fresh snowfall when every twig and surface is flocked in lacy white sweaters knitted by unseen hands?

There is beauty in the death that signals winter. Life yet to be discovered and savored with each icy breath, each crunching step. The cold months are a time of inner renewal, a time to explore and push ones limits and find splendor where others see only despair. Perhaps the sole purpose of winter is to serve as a test, a test of endurance, a test of appreciation, a test of imagination. Or maybe it is what I have called it all along; a gift.

Antlers for Supper

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“You can’t eat antlers!” My dad used to say to me when I was a kid and complained that no big bucks ever came our way. I was not impressed by shooting does, I wanted that big 30 point buck to come my way so I could prove to the world that this 11 year old was a force to be reckoned with!

Looking back on my dad’s simple wisdom, I see how much times have changed. Back in the 1960’s Dad would load up his buddies in a renovated school bus with questionable breaks and head out to Buffalo, Wyoming for their annual mule deer hunts. They didn’t go out there to bring home trophies, they went to enjoy the camaraderie of deer camp and to bring home meat to fill the freezer, and memories to fill the year ahead.

Black and white photos from back then often depicted A-framed structures lined with deer harvested. There were no photos of a guy and his 40 point, non typical, mineral fed, selective bred, food plot deer. Just photos of rangy men standing by decrepit shacks in red wool and tattered hats.

What changed? How did the age old tradition of hunting become so glamorized, so Hollywood? Is it the TV shows featuring people in perfectly clean expensive camo always getting monster deer without breaking a sweat? The female hunter has morphed into women on the screen so perfecty coiffed that they look nothing like the women in my life who grew up hunting. Meanwhile, guy hunters show up to events in bedazzled jeans. It’s all about the big show, who is better, who gets more ratings.

These days, it seem like the whole atmosphere of the sport has changed from fun and camaraderie to a cut throat competition over who can shoot the biggest deer. Social media is littered with images of guys and gals posing strategically behind behemoths of the forest so as to make them look even larger than life. It is all about the size of the rack and even that is not real anymore. Not even deer could escape man’s constant quest to alter nature and now there are whole industries dedicated to producing products to “enhance” antler growth to the point of absurdity. Selective breeding on deer farms is also a norm and people pay thousands of dollars to get the opportunity to bag “trophies” inside fences. Why?

Because it is not good enough anymore to be common, to be that redneck hunter in dirty, blood stained orange who hunts on instinct and the will of God. It is not “glamorous” enough to come home with your tag limit of does and a small (by today’s standards) buck to fill the freezer. The network and code of honor among hunters too has died in the sense that social media is filled with trolls waiting to pounce on anyone, man, woman, or child for shooting anything under 14 points. Hunting has become a competition to see who can bag the biggest and the best.

Is that really what it’s all about? I think not, but that is my opinion. I’m old school and to me hunting is all about the unknown. It is about going out into the woods and waiting for days and not seeing one deer. It is about freezing and sweating and pushing yourself and your patience to the absolute limit then going out and doing it all over again the next day. It is about no guarantees, it’s hard work, intuition and skill not gleaned from watching TV but from years of training, years of disappointments followed by years of victory. Gadgets and equipment can’t make a hunter, they may make things easier but is anything really worth having ever easy?

I have probably hit a nerve with this post and pissed some people off but I’ve never been one to mince words or worry about offending others. All I am saying is that we can learn a lot from those old deer camp photos. Namely that sometimes size doesn’t matter. Isn’t it supposed to be about tradition, bringing home stories, lessons, and if you are lucky, some meat for the table?

Redneck Margarita

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Musing over hunts past as I prepare for another weekend of duck hunting I thought I would share another one of the articles I have written about my hunting adventures for you to enjoy!

 

Needles of ice were hitting my bedroom window, awakening me in darkness to the last day of the duck season 2004. The wind howled through the trees like some phantom hound on the trail of an unseen foe as I slowly extracted myself from the flannel warmth of my quilt piled bed. So simple it would have been to turn over and succumb to the warm beaconing fingers of slumber but this was it, the very last chance I had to redeem my season and savor one more day on the water that would have to last me the long months until the next opener.

By the time I was on the road, the world outside was covered in a sheet of ice. Old tires on fence posts reflected in my headlights like the sugar glazed donuts which fueled my early morning jaunts. The sky was dark and thick like the midnight coffee keeping me awake.

At the boat landing, fellow hunters were slip sliding down the ramp using kitty litter, sand, and old scraps of carpeting to obtain traction under bald tires. The water was churning ominous and black as I started the motor and braced myself against the onslaught.

I felt like Captain Ahab in a 14ft Jon Boat; my enemy not some leviathan of the deep but rather the petrified bodies of ancient trees laying just below the surface. Those who came before me had attempted to mark the watery Graves with driftwood and u-posts. Many a morning I would hear the steady whine of an engine cut short as an unwary boater hit those underwater threats.

Safe at my spot parked in a tattered frag, I battled waves that threatened to swamp my vessel as I attempted to produce some semblance of a line of diver decoys. A hodgepodge of repurpose and repainted decoys bobbed among rafts of slushy ice like some giant redneck Margarita. By the time I was finished setting up, my left hand was clamped frozen to the gunwale, my nose was left red and dripping like an old man eating chicken soup, and a layer of ice cloaked me from head to toe.

Settling in as best I could, the ice continued to pelt me, hitting the aluminum of the boat with a raspy beat. Then, right at shooting time it happened. At first I was frozen in place, not so much from the cold but from the pure shock one feels when bearing witness to a phenomenon never before experienced.

The sky suddenly darkened a shade, not from the storm but from countless dive bombing winged bodies. I sat transfixed as time stopped and everything seemed to move in slow motion like in those superhero movies where the character is not moving but all the things around him are circling minutely as the world explodes.

Divers were pouring out of the sky, landing on the uncertain water then lifting up to hover and land again. Snapping to attention, I regained my purpose and stood in awe as varieties of ducks I only dreamed of shooting were laying at my feet.

When the onslaught subsided, I was left in breathless wonder. I looked around me, pinched my arm to see if it was all just a dream then proceeded to knock the ice from my tangled decoys.

It was then that Mother Nature had her fun. As I was bending over trying to untangle some deaks, an especially large wave struck the boat with enough force to knock me into a frozen bath. Pulling myself out of the water I imagined that every duck in the sky was giving their version of the old high ball at seeing “The Mighty Hunter” do her imitation of the Swan dive.

Wrapped in a moth-eaten army blanket, I finished the day out and went home with my first full plumage shovler and bluebill. My limit was achieved that day in ducks and experience.

When I arrived at the landing I soon realized that I was not the only one who was glad that she got out of bed that morning. Fellow hunters were chattering and gesturing wildly about the fantastic morning we all had out in the storm.

In life and in hunting we have two choices: to either call off the fight due to rain or pick up our gear and soldier on. Life is not lived when we shy away from a challenge. Life is lived when we duck our heads into the storm regardless of the risks. Frozen feet, soggy waders, and tangled decoys are a small price to pay for a lifetime of memories such as this!

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