Nature Calling

I left the woods with a deer in the back of my truck this weekend, but the only problem is that it wasn’t mine. My good buddy Scott sat in his stand for several hours over the last few weeks with nary a sighting of a buck with a big enough rack. Sunday was actually perfect hunting weather. Overcast, negligible wind, and a temperature between thirty and forty-five. You can’t get better weather than that, really. I had been battling a head cold or something all day and couldn’t shake a mild headache that I woke up with at five thirty that morning when the alarm told me it was time to chase the big boy. As I stood in the frigid air, it felt good, but I knew I had seen many days just like this where I felt better. My heart was there, but my body was not cooperating.

Scott’s stand overlooks a little clearing next to a small pond. He had seen several small deer and many doe, but nothing with a rack. That is, until Sunday afternoon. As we stood in the cabin, pulling on our warm weather gear, we both joked about the final trip of the weekend back into the area where we hunt. We had the normal discussion about where each of us would be going so that we’d have a general idea of where the other one was should we have to pull the trigger. I decided to go back where I had seen all the deer, even one shooter with more than six points a couple weeks prior. While I was putting an honest living in at work during the week, Scott and I got several reports from the elders of bigger bucks hanging out in the cedar thicket where I saw the bruiser, but nobody was lucky enough, or a good enough shot, to bring him home.

Back to our discussion, Scott sighed and said he would be back in his stand again where he had seen plenty of small deer. He sounded dejected,
“You know, I’ve been using the same bullets for three years and haven’t seen a single buck worth shooting.”
“Changing the Mojo, huh?” I said.
“Exactly, I needed a Mojo change.”

Apparently, the Mojo Gods were listening because we weren’t back to our respective spots for fifteen minutes before the sharp report of his .243 broke through the cold afternoon air. Fifteen seconds later, I hear a jubilant shout, “Whooohoooo!”

I knew it was Scott’s rifle when it went off, and the announcement was all I needed to know that his new bullets had saved the day. I was only about five hundred yards uphill and west of his stand, so I decided to walk down and see just how big his deer was. I trampled through the thick undergrowth to see Scott reaching down and dragging out a nice little six point. Not the bruiser I had seen a few weeks ago, but worthy of providing several good meals.
“Were you hand-feeding it when you shot it or what?”, I shouted.

The deer was lying a mere ten or so feet from his stand, but Scott later explained the deer had been standing over near the pond, about forty yards away, when he sent the .243 caliber slug into the deer’s lower ribs. He was dead and didn’t know it, but a bit of adrenalin let the guy run a few yards, toward Scott’s stand, before expiring. Seeing the huge smile that belied both relief and happiness on Scott’s face made the weekend trip worth it. I wasn’t feeling well, but just being out with nature and good friends combined for a great weekend.

El Toro

RRrrrrr, ssssssssssswwwwoooossssssshhhhhhh..Bahhhwwhhhuummmpppp.. Uh oh.. What is that? Oh no. There he was, entrails hanging out in all directions for the world to see. I kneeled down for a closer look, only to confirm the worst. Could he be saved? Patched? Sewn back together? There was nothing I could do. Mr. Giraffe had met his demise at the hands of El Toro. He was a good toy. He was enjoyed by some of the great puppies of the world. Well, two puppies, who are only great in K's eyes, but that's not the point. Guadalupe and Sandro (affectionately known as Lupe & Paunchy) were his biggest fans. For hours they would sit, contemplating the rough life of a dog in the Nash household, gnawing at Mr. Giraffe's head, tail, or whatever felt right and good at any given moment. They would always end a play session with him by lovingly licking his head, adding to the dried saliva collection and overall nastiness of the lovable entertainment. Curiously, Mr. Giraffe was devoid of any limbs. One little tail that was only days away from being detached was all he had, but they loved him nonetheless. Handicapped as it were, Mr. Giraffe provided countless hours of entertainment and oblivious joy. A stand in may be found, but a replacement?-Never.

I just wrapped up mulching the leaves in the back yard. Ugh. I'm not smart enough (or too lazy) to go buy a mask, so my mucus is appropriately peppered with the remnants of what was once full and green on our trees. The mower, a six and a half horsepower Toro mulching mower, did a masterful job of shredding them down to nothing. Unfortunately, one of the dogs (Lupe being the likely culprit) took Mr. Giraffe out to play when they were on a bathroom trip to the great outdoors. Of course, to avoid peeing on him, he was dropped in an innocuous pile of leaves. Unseen and unmissed by either myself or Karen, little could we know of the foreboding future of Mr. Giraffe.


Finished for now, I battled with the decision to move forth this morning. I knew I had better do it now, after mulching the front yard yesterday, because I wouldn't have time to do anything else in the back yard for another two weeks. This coming weekend, I have another date with my bruiser that awaits me in the woods of south Washington county. Up on the ridge, a bit beyond the hay rake he lies, not oblivious to the many hunters tramping around in the field in search of deer like him. The victor remains to be seen, but maybe next weekend, I'll have the venison to prove myself more cunning than he.
CZ

Quitter

Sometime before my last post, I struggled with the possibility of giving up writing in my blog altogether. Maybe incorrectly, I assumed that I was losing readers. I thought that a lack of comments meant a lack of interest. As soon as outside interest is gone, there will be no reason to post. Of course, maybe I’m to blame for getting a little too serious in comparison to some other light reading that my constituents might be used to. I know I’ve offended some with a few of my opinions, but that is inconsequential because if I’m not ruffling feathers on some issues that I discuss, I’m not making an impact and not making people think.

I guess another part of the reason I felt a lack of love was the fact that my blog stopped delivering emails to tell me when people posted comments. I’ll have to investigate further because I was able to read several comments today that I had no idea were there. Mom alerted me that my beloved sister’s comments ‘made her contacts float’. Thanks, Mandroni, you know I’m thinking about you always and hope that, above all other things, Tony is delivered back to you with nary a scratch. We recently found out that Tony is officially ‘in country’ and won’t have an APO address until he comes home in December. Evidently, things will only get uglier in Afghanistan for the time being. I just know they better send Tony back on time. My Georgia Peaches anxiously await his return. Brigid even posted, and I’ll always remember her for the kind words when Yuengling passed. She understands the power of the unconditional love one gets from great pets. She holds a prominent place on my list of regular reads with Breda. This is my ‘chicks with guns’ blog entertainment. I wholeheartedly recommend both blogs to those that love the finer things in life as much as I- good food, good guns, a good read, and a free America. Of course, when Brigid’s comment revealed an IQ identical to the level at which I’ve been tested, it surprised me at first, but it became clear to me why I still regularly read what she and Breda have to say. My tolerance for blather is almost nonexistent, and that could probably be considered a fault. Sometimes one has to wade through the swamp to get to the beach. Their beaches are sunny, warm, and have plenty of white powder sand. I still learn something new every day, and I hope never to see a day that I add nothing to the library in my head. For now, I’ll be a writer, a gunmaker, a good husband, son, and brother. I’ll just do what I can to put my stamp on the earth and make my home in the hearts of those I love. CZ

Idle Thoughts-albeit a fast idle.

Intelligence is a funny thing, and some people obviously have a lot more of it than others. There are different aspects to discussing intelligence, such as common sense and what is generally accepted as the ability to measure the capacity for human intelligence. This would be widely known as the intelligence quotient, or IQ.

Let me preface by explaining that in the business in which I choose to make a living I get to see a very broad dynamic of people who correspondingly cover a wide spectrum of respective intelligence quotients and the capacity to learn and speak with an ability to get their points across in a clear and concise manner. This would cover both people that come in as customers and people that are hired. I recently hired two guys that I would consider sharp. When I say sharp, this would mean that their capacity is above normal, with 100 to 115 points generally being accepted to be the average intelligence quotient on standardized tests. I would say these two are above normal by fifteen or twenty points respectively. My most recent hire has intrigued me the most of late, simply because he is one of the few people that I’ve ever met that can hold their own when discussing anything from the histories and beliefs of the myriad religions of the world (even with our respective beliefs being nearly opposite), all the way to the merging of Einstein’s theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics as discussed and extensively studied by Stephen Hawking with respect to time, space, black holes, and how they relate to each other in the continuum. With my other hire from a little more than a year ago, I can discuss -at great length- camshaft lobe separation, degrees of duration, valve lift, and the effects of a crossover pipe in the exhaust of a Generation III Chevrolet V8 and what they all can do to contribute to increased horsepower and torque.

I have to fight the inclination to get into discussions with these two because it is my job to make sure they are being productive and earning the salary that the owner of our establishment has graciously given me the authority to dispense. It is rare that I can talk to anyone that gets my mental juices flowing, and these two have done that in many different ways. I have to both learn and teach simultaneously. I have to learn how to properly manage these two dynamic and active personalities, but I also have to teach them how to do their jobs in the most efficient manner possible. This is easy to do (put my foot down) when they get into a deep discussion about music, MySpace, or whether or not Dumb and Dumber should be on the never ending list of good movies. Keeping them busy is a balancing act, and one with which I must concede, I don’t have an abundance of experience. Anyone that knows me well will tell you that I will always be in pursuit of knowledge, even if it is as simple as learning how to keep others busy. There’s an innate human desire to be the good guy, held in high esteem, and at the same time, garner respect. I have to be the bad guy when those discussions get a little out of control and impair efficiency, but it’s a lot harder to do when the discussions intrigue me and get the engine in my brain revving like the wicked purr from an eight cylinder Ferrari engine.

I was guilty of falling victim to the latter this morning when Nikola Tesla and the highest recorded IQs were brought up. Curiously, Tesla wasn’t on any list I found in a short Google search. It’s been widely touted on the web this election season that Obama has an IQ of 124. I’m not sure if he’s actually taken a standardized test for this, but I would venture a guess that the estimate is close. This would put him in the above average to gifted range, and a tad outside of the genius range which starts around 145. Whatever his IQ, I just hope he does a good job of occupying the most important seat in the most important house in the world. Meanwhile, I’ll just have to strive to be one of the best managers money can buy.