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Jesus fucking Christ, what to say today? I've hit one of my low ebbs, a day where I feel worthless and sick. I'm not motivated to do anything, and I need to start moving. Just writing this is a struggle. I don't even have the brains for playing Civilization VI. What I really want to do is slump in front of the TV and watch Law & Order reruns until my eyes bleed.
Part of it is the winter blues. While we don't get WINTER like much of the rest of the nation, we do get short days, less sunlight, and colder temperatures that increase the levels of pain I feel. All of that triggers my urge to just hunker down and hibernate. Sadly, not being a bear, I can't really do that. Pity. I can see myself gorging on burritos through the summer for a long, gassy, winter nap.
I know that bears don't actually hibernate in the classical sense but instead can sleep for days with brief periods of activity, like shitting in the woods. Of course, with the government shutdown affecting our National Parks, the bears are now competing with idiot humans for the best shit in the woods spots. My money is on the bears.
Speaking of bears, there's now an active effort being made to re-introduce the Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) to California as a replacement for the now extinct California Grizzly (Ursus arctos californicus.) As the Grizzly is the bear on our state flag, it would be nice to have a sustainable population back in Sierra Nevadas and the lower Cascades. Hopefully, they would eat some of the morons in our state and improve life in the Gold Country.
Yes, I'm a firm believer in moving us down a step on the predator ladder. I love wolves, bears, mountain lions, and all other apex predators. While driving for Super Shuttle I found myself facing a mountain lion as I searched for an address back in the Coast Range foothills early one morning. A beautiful animal, it had to be five feet long. It briefly froze in my headlights before slinking into the treeline. Considering most of my wildlife encounters were with skunks, this was a pleasant change.
I've also had the pleasure of hearing a mountain lion scream while camping. This was while I was still in Boy Scouts, and we were camping at Arroyo Seco. At O'dark thirty we all got woken up by the most demonic sound. Half roar, half pissed off steam engine. And it was close. It roared a few more times, and we could tell it was circling our camp. Next day, we found the remains of a deer several yards from our campsite and tracks that told the tale of one cat chasing off another from the kill.
Which brings us to deer. I like deer, and understand the need for deer hunting. We've destroyed the natural balance of predators to prey, and the deer are too dumb to notice that the wolf packs and big cats are gone. So we need to thin the herds, but see my comment above about reintroducing natural predators.
Much of my experience with deer came at Fort Benning, Ga. The training areas were a deer sanctuary, as hunting wasn't allowed on post. So almost every training exercise meant seeing deer. One of my platoon sergeants taught us the skill of tapping deer. This is sneaking up to a deer close enough to touch it. As deer have three modes: eat, fuck, and avoid predators, this was extremely hard. It was some of the best field craft training I ever had. I managed to touch a deer twice out of about 15 tries.
The other really cool encounter with deer came when my squad was moving along what can be described as a sunken trail. We had about two to three feet of red dirt earth on either side of this trail that wound its way through a fairly dense patch of pine forest. I've forgotten why we were doing this, probably a reconnaissance or setting up an ambush. But we heard a drumming sound, and my squad leader signaled for us to hunker down against the higher side of the trail. The sound got louder and suddenly a herd of deer were leaping over us. It was amazing. To see such magnificent animals in full exertion at such close range! One hoof hit my helmet. Not hard, but enough to rock me a little.
I had no idea where I was going when I started this and ended up talking about animals. Sometimes, you just let your brain wander.
Part of it is the winter blues. While we don't get WINTER like much of the rest of the nation, we do get short days, less sunlight, and colder temperatures that increase the levels of pain I feel. All of that triggers my urge to just hunker down and hibernate. Sadly, not being a bear, I can't really do that. Pity. I can see myself gorging on burritos through the summer for a long, gassy, winter nap.
I know that bears don't actually hibernate in the classical sense but instead can sleep for days with brief periods of activity, like shitting in the woods. Of course, with the government shutdown affecting our National Parks, the bears are now competing with idiot humans for the best shit in the woods spots. My money is on the bears.
Speaking of bears, there's now an active effort being made to re-introduce the Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) to California as a replacement for the now extinct California Grizzly (Ursus arctos californicus.) As the Grizzly is the bear on our state flag, it would be nice to have a sustainable population back in Sierra Nevadas and the lower Cascades. Hopefully, they would eat some of the morons in our state and improve life in the Gold Country.
Yes, I'm a firm believer in moving us down a step on the predator ladder. I love wolves, bears, mountain lions, and all other apex predators. While driving for Super Shuttle I found myself facing a mountain lion as I searched for an address back in the Coast Range foothills early one morning. A beautiful animal, it had to be five feet long. It briefly froze in my headlights before slinking into the treeline. Considering most of my wildlife encounters were with skunks, this was a pleasant change.
I've also had the pleasure of hearing a mountain lion scream while camping. This was while I was still in Boy Scouts, and we were camping at Arroyo Seco. At O'dark thirty we all got woken up by the most demonic sound. Half roar, half pissed off steam engine. And it was close. It roared a few more times, and we could tell it was circling our camp. Next day, we found the remains of a deer several yards from our campsite and tracks that told the tale of one cat chasing off another from the kill.
Which brings us to deer. I like deer, and understand the need for deer hunting. We've destroyed the natural balance of predators to prey, and the deer are too dumb to notice that the wolf packs and big cats are gone. So we need to thin the herds, but see my comment above about reintroducing natural predators.
Much of my experience with deer came at Fort Benning, Ga. The training areas were a deer sanctuary, as hunting wasn't allowed on post. So almost every training exercise meant seeing deer. One of my platoon sergeants taught us the skill of tapping deer. This is sneaking up to a deer close enough to touch it. As deer have three modes: eat, fuck, and avoid predators, this was extremely hard. It was some of the best field craft training I ever had. I managed to touch a deer twice out of about 15 tries.
The other really cool encounter with deer came when my squad was moving along what can be described as a sunken trail. We had about two to three feet of red dirt earth on either side of this trail that wound its way through a fairly dense patch of pine forest. I've forgotten why we were doing this, probably a reconnaissance or setting up an ambush. But we heard a drumming sound, and my squad leader signaled for us to hunker down against the higher side of the trail. The sound got louder and suddenly a herd of deer were leaping over us. It was amazing. To see such magnificent animals in full exertion at such close range! One hoof hit my helmet. Not hard, but enough to rock me a little.
I had no idea where I was going when I started this and ended up talking about animals. Sometimes, you just let your brain wander.