The Hunt

One of life's many conundrums came my way recently. What for some people may be a simple thought process and short discussion can, for me, require an inordinate amount of thought and emotional processing to come to some reasonable conclusion.  This conundrum came from my 15-year-old son in the form of a very simple question: "Mom, when can I hunt?"

This question, at face value, is a simple one requiring only a straight forward answer such as, "next week," but when it was initially asked almost a year ago, it set off in my mind a series of thoughts similar to a Rube Goldberg machine - the eventual outcome will still be simple, but it takes many twists and turns before my brain can wrap itself around the whole idea of hunting.

Quite simply, I don't hunt.  I probably would if I desperately needed the meat to feed my family, but when you have two hundred pounds of pork in your freezer and several very large gardens, it becomes less of an issue.  I do, however, hunt for mushrooms every spring so to claim that I don't hunt is not entirely true, but I am hunting for fungi not animals. Should this make a difference?  The existential dilemma is only made worse by the thought that mushrooms, being rooted to the ground, can't get away from me whereas an animal could flee from a hunter. Hunting an animal does require some skill - patience, intelligence, observation, and marksmanship, but when it is done simply for the thrill of  it, hunting looses some of its credibility. However, when it is done with some thought as to the need for food and with reverence to the animal you are hunting, I have no real problems with the idea of hunting.

My son and I had discussed his hunting several times before and it was suggested that maybe hunting turkey would be the way to go.  Turkeys are something that we can process ourselves and would definitely eat, whereas a deer is entirely too much meat for what we need right now. This decision alone took several discussions and months to come to terms with....not for my son necessarily, but for me.  It isn't the hunting that is the problem....it's the death. Although I have hunted before and seen animals killed in a hunt, I think that at this point in my life, I have seen enough death.  As a veterinarian I see life in many different facets - I see lives honored, abused,  neglected, and loved.  I see lives born and I see them die.  Watching something die that is frightened and wounded is one of the most terrible events to ever have to witness, so I am no longer cavalier about hunting - it needs to be something that we would definitely eat and it has to be something that my son is capable of killing with one shot.

Then, of course, there is the question of gun versus bow. This throws my psyche into paroxysms of anxiety.  I, myself, have hunted with a gun, looked down the barrel through the sights at a beautiful doe and silently cursed my license for being buck only, so I know what it is to carry a gun.  But that was twenty plus years and much naivete ago, and since that time the country seems to have morphed into a gun crazy nation. Guns used to be for hunting, but now owning a weapon  is seen not only as a right, but a political status symbol and necessity.  The list of species that we hunt now apparently includes one more animal, and this thought alone keeps me up nights worrying about my kids in public places like movie theaters and schools. I realize that nothing in life is completely safe, but this obsession with weapons that kill just baffles me...and not only kill, but kill as many as you possibly can as fast as you can.  Hunters of animals aren't even allowed semi-automatics, but apparently when we are hunting humans, it's acceptable.  What my son sees as he waits for my response in this discussion is simply a mother too fraught with anxiety over all the anger, hostility, fear and hate that the world now holds. Guns are too easy, guns are too deadly.... "Bow! If you hunt, let it be with a bow."

He made his own.

I had passed down to him my old fiberglass recurve bow several years ago and he is a far better shot with it than I ever was.  He set his sights on making his own recurve out of wood and fiberglass.  Cut it, shaped it, glued it, sanded it, stained it, strung it and took it to the county fair as his wood project for which he received a blue ribbon.

Then we went camping up north in Minnesota and one of our favorite things to do on the rainy days is to find the local resale shops and see what they have.  My son found ten hunting arrows at a reasonable price.  The only thing left to obtain was the license.

In Iowa, as in most states, the Department of Natural Resources has all the license fees on their websites.  All the rules and regulations are there as well.  We looked these up and noted that, if you own land, you can obtain a land owners permit that allows you to hunt on your own land (and your land only) for $1.  I stalled. We would see the flock of turkeys parading around our property at the end of October and beginning of November - sometimes twelve of them or more, and still I stalled.  Then winter break was upon us and I was faced with five children cooped up inside the house for two weeks.  There is one thing that hunting does well....it gets you out of the house.  I logged onto the DNR website and provided all the necessary proof that I did, in fact, own (at least partially) the land upon which we live and purchased the landowner's permit for the turkey archery season.  Total cost $3.28 - the additional $2.38 had been for the convenience of doing it via Internet and having them send it in the mail - well worth it in my opinion.

The worse part, at least initially in my mind, was that the license had to be in my name.  Minors can hunt under your license as long as you are with them.  In other words, I had to go hunting as well.  We picked a nice morning to head out.  We have 20 acres so it was clear we weren't going to be gone too long....either the turkeys were around, or they weren't.  I sent my son around the north side of the woods and I walked along the ridge of the hill straight through the woods slightly ahead of him to see if there were any that I could startle in his direction.  I carried with me my coffee thermos - my chosen weapon for a morning hunt.  Dressed in blaze orange, not so much for us but for the other hunters that are all too prevalent and trigger happy, I moseyed through the woods.

It was very quiet.

I could glimpse my son slowly walking along, stopping every once in a while to look around him.  I could hear the birds flitting above my head in the trees and chattering to one another.  I saw a squirrel darting here and there.  The snow crunched under my feet and the tracks that raced this way and that were almost entirely of deer with a few rabbit tracks here and there.  No turkey.  The sky was blue with some high clouds and no wind. Beautiful. Just like that, all the stress of the holidays was wiped away and I realized that I was immeasurably happy right in that moment.

Woodpecker listening for insects

My son and I met at the east edge of the woods - essentially the end of the property upon which we could hunt.  We both noted that there wasn't one turkey track in the snow, so we could probably head home.  I suggested that we try the trees on the north west edge of our property just to see if there were any tracks there.  The snow was just deep enough, and just cold enough that with each step you would break through the top inch of hard frozen snow into the deeper soft snow underneath so going quietly was impossible. We discussed hunting and how it really wasn't so much about whether or not it was "successful," it was more about being out in the world and paying attention - listening, seeing, observing - using all the senses that we modern humans have essentially stopped using. The senses that allowed our ancestors to survive for thousands of years.

Among those senses, there is one that lets you know you aren't alone in a wood.  A feeling that there is something else there....watching you.  Just as we entered the small three rows of trees I sensed the movement and the shadow cast on the snow and trees made me stop and look up. A Great Horned owl had flown from one branch to another and sat perched with his body facing away from us, but his amber eyes peering directly at us.

"Wow!" I heard my son whisper next to me, "That is so cool!"  Mystified, we just stood there for several minutes watching as the owl became more comfortable with our innocuous presence and started to survey the land, turning its head almost completely around for a full panoramic view of the countryside.  After several minutes, on silent wings, it lifted off and flew to a large tree out in our neighbor's field where it perched to wait for the silly humans to leave his woods.

A year in the thinking and pondering, a year in the making of bows and collecting of arrows, a year in the contemplation and discussion of "life" - be it turkey or human life, and an hour spent in the peace and beauty of the woods.....  As we trudged back to the house, me with my coffee and my son with his bow and arrows, we both decided that it was a wonderfully successful hunt.

A Breed Apart

No farm would be complete without a few farm cats around. I have quite a few. Occupational hazard as a small animal veterinarian....you accumulate all those that desperately need a home or face extinction. The one advantage I have, however, is the ability to be sure that they are all spayed and neutered and vaccinated for the worst of the cat viruses.

I have seen many farms (and grew up on one) that was not able to provide this service to the cats that came to stay. What would start out as one cat, would quickly turn into seven.....and then 49....and then...well, you get the picture until some horrible virus would sweep through the lot and kill off 90% of them. That was devastating as a kid. That is one of the many reasons that I became a vet - hard to look a dying, beloved kitten named Fred in the face and know that he is being killed by a completely preventable disease without making promises to devote your life to stamping out disease and illness.....and so, several years later and several thousands of dollars poorer, I take on the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

I try to keep it within reason though. After a while it gets to be a little nuts when you can't make it from your car to the front door without tripping over three or four cats all winding around your legs and purring for affection.

The outdoor cats when I was a kid, were scrawny and wormy and scruffy looking. The ones that I have collected now are a beautiful clowder of cats thanks to a little help from modern medicine and good nutrition. Fed twice daily (or they wouldn't let you get a thing done outside) they are all hefty with thick coats in the winter. A few of them are the farm "Originals" - bred and raised here on the farm by a wayward cat named "Slinky" because she never did stay around - Festus, Abby and Shadow are from that original bunch.

Then there is Tigger. I came across him while working as a relief vet. He had been abandoned by his original owner at the clinic - left him to board and then never came back to get him. One of the techs tried to take him home but discovered that he peed on everything. So, Tigger spent approximately two years in a small 2 x 3 foot cage and would be at the clinic every time I came in. One day, I simply couldn't take it anymore and Tigger came home with me. He is every ounce the appreciative cat. He lives to be held and cuddled and will happily drool all over your lap while you hold him. I love to find him lounging among the flowers in the summer and curled up in the straw or hay in the winter. He ambles along with a shuffle that is similar to that of a raccoon, so he has, at times freaked me out in the dark of the night when I see him trotting up behind me.

Frodo found us. No idea where he came from but he was definitely a wild cat when he showed up. I enticed him with food for several days before I brought my net home from work and managed to catch him. He was promptly neutered and vaccinated before being released back into the wilds of our farm. Originally, my son named him "Mittens", but I simply couldn't humiliate the poor boy with that name and when I realized that he has a perfect white ring around the end of his tail, his name became obvious....Frodo- he carries the ring. It took Frodo a while to warm up to us, and I wasn't entirely sure that he would stick around, but then one day he inadvertently got close enough to pet and suddenly he realized what he had been missing all his life - affection! Now, he sees us coming and his tail will shoot straight up and he will run along side with his funny bunny hopping gait and then sidles up to us and flirts until he gets the attention that he seeks.

Raven is our two year old kitten. She is the boss of the lot and most of the other cats hate her. She is very food motivated and will strike fear into any that attempt to eat before she does. Her first winter on the farm she even took on our dog, Gina, a large Golden Retriever/Great Pyrenees mix. Suffice it to say that more blood was lost from Gina than from Raven. Her best, and only friend appears to be Tink. He is the new boy this year. One of a litter of strays that needed a home and after spending the requisite amount of time in my clinic where I completely fell in love with him, he was brought home to the farm. He is as crazy about food as Raven is. He, too, took on Gina over her food bowl and once again, Gina was the one to loose more blood through an impressive scratch to her nose.

What amazes me the most about these little cats is how tough and resilient they are. I always say that when the people of the world ruin it completely with our pollution and atomic bombs, there will be two things left - cockroaches.....and cats. Cats are obligate carnivores which means that they are best suited to getting their protein from meat. Plant material really doesn't do their system any good simply because they don't break it down well. This has never stopped a cat from trying however, and typically they do get a bit of plant material from the prey that they catch . Hungry cats are really not too picky about eating select parts of birds and beasts....they eat all the parts if they are hungry enough. And when they aren't hungry, they bring what's left as a gift for the people in their life that they love most.....never mind that we aren't really into the whole "headless mouse" thing.

Obligate carnivore aside, I have seen these farm cats eat everything from left over soggy cereal to ears of corn. They can be ravenous little animals. I have had visions of falling on my way to the barn and having them quickly devour me.

The biggest problem that we have on this farm is that the great majority of the cats are male. Now, no offense to males of any species, but male cats tend to be very lazy. Most of this crowd finds the warmest, sunniest spot to hang out for the day to wait for the food to be served in the evening. The girls tend to be the ones to take off hunting for a while. Abby was gone for about a month, we had given up on her coming home and then one night I looked down and there she was amid the mob as usual.

Farm cats will often disappear for days or even weeks at a time. You have to have a very relaxed relationship with farm cats because you just never know if it is an extended hunting trip that keeps them away, or if they have gone to the great cat beyond in some unfortunate accident on the road. There are nights when I will know that one or more of the cats didn't come home for dinner and then hear the coyotes off in the distance and I say a silent prayer to whatever god might protect wayward cats. It isn't that I don't love them and wouldn't like to protect them, but I have come to realize that they are a breed onto their own...wild, yet accommodating and affectionate when the mood strikes. I simply co-exist with them and appreciate them when they arrive. There should be more relationships like this in the world.

Sometimes it is nicer not knowing exactly what befalls them. We have found our share of them on the road after an unfortunate encounter with a car or truck. The sudden knowledge stabs right to your core as you realize that one of your friends has been run down. It doesn't matter that "it is only a cat" because to those of us that love them, they are family.

Occasionally, they simply disappear and we don't know where they go. I had a cat on the farm when I was going to vet school named Tanner - he was a big cream colored, bowlegged boy that had been there from the day we bought the farm. Two years into our stay on the farm, he disappeared sometime in early January. I missed him. Not that I depended upon him for anything, but I missed him trailing around after me while I was outside. Cats have a funny way of just wanting to be with you. They don't want to lick your face or play ball like a dog does, they just want to hang out. Generally, they hang out and sleep, but at least they are there for you.

This last fall I was digging potatoes and had to physically move two of them from their warm nests that they had claimed among my potato plants.

Anyway.....back to Tanner.....I was standing outside on sometime near the middle of April, and as I looked across the plowed field I noticed a cat trotting toward the house. He was big and cream colored,....and bowlegged just like.....Tanner! I called his name and the trotting cat broke into a run across the field. It was like The Incredible Journey with me falling to my knees and Tanner running to sit in my lap, purring as though he had never left. I have no idea where he was or what took him away, but I was glad he was home. Glad, and amazed, and awestruck! Four months he was gone! Where did he go and how did he get there? How did he know how to come home? The questions never have answers, they never tell their tales.

I am always sort of flattered that a farm cat would want to spend time with me. They are such amazing animals and I am often in awe of their abilities. They don't need us, they can take or leave humans, they have the ability to hunt and feed themselves easily and yet they seem to enjoy spending time with us. I have a hypothesis that they are as entertained by our crazy human antics as we are by their feline ones and we are both just waiting around to see what the other one might do next.