Book Review: "Living Wild and Domestic"

It's an interesting experience to finish a book and think, "I could have done that myself." Of course, I couldn't have done it as well as Robert Kimber. He says things I think with far greater skill than I even manage to think them. I found his book, "Living Wild and Domestic - The Education of a Hunter-Gardener" at the library while browsing the shelves. It looked interesting, so I added it to my pile of take-homes. And read all the others first.

Rarely does a hunter express the dichotomy of loving to hunt while hating to kill with anything approaching Kimber's finesse. Anyone who hunts successfully knows the dilema. There is - or should be - a bit of sadness attending to putting game on the table. It's a serious thing to take a life, even when it's going in the stew pot. It's the same with animals raised for meat. To get dinner on the table, the animal has to die.

Even an unrepentant carnivore like me wants some vegetables to go with the steak. Kimber's wife is the gardener in his equation. It's been about 5 years since I've been able to plant a garden...I miss it. Growing your food makes you responsible for your dinner in a way that going to the grocer does not. The care put into digging, planting and tending is revealed in the harvest. The big thing I miss about Missouri is standing in the garden in the hottest day of summer with fresh tomato juice dripping off my elbow as I eat the first Brandiwine right there.

If you are concerned about your food, where it comes from, and how it gets to the plate, this is a good book to read. If you hunt and/or grow your own food (animal or vegetable) it will sort out your feelings about your actions. If you buy all your food, it might help you understand why some of us do it ourselves.

Tracking Myself

I stumbled on to Tom Brown, Jr's book "The Tracker" back when it was first published. I can trace my path from where I am now right back to that book. It's a convoluted trail I've left. I almost never take a straight path to anything.

In his wonderful book, Tom tells the story of being mentored by a friend's elder Indian grandfather in the art of tracking - and the art of living. It's an exciting story, and I remember reading in People Magazine some time later that he was holding tracking classes in New Jersey. I so wanted to go spend a week in the woods with Tom Brown, Jr.

I'm a hunter...always have been, always will be. I could see the practical applications of learning from the master. My ex, the Rat B*****d, thought that he could teach me everything I needed to know about tracking. And his outdoor skills are pretty good. He doesn't have a clue about the true art of tracking.

The first time I realized that I was on the way to reading the woods, we were hunting whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in western Missouri. It was cold, the wind was blowing, and the deer were not moving much. Needing to walk to keep warm, I followed a deer trail into the deeper into the trees along the dry creek bed. Soon, I was on a reasonably fresh deer track. The regular pattern of hoof prints suddenly changed - in my imagination, I saw the deer slide to a halt, then jump several feet to the right of the path and kick up mud as it ran away...I wondered what caused the deer to bolt. It didn't take me long to locate the largish canine tracks - to this day I can't decide if they were coyote or farm dog - which intersected the deer trail. I laughed out loud when I "saw" the whole event as if I'd been there the moment the deer realized it was being stalked by a predator. That's the moment I became a tracker.

Since then, I've followed all sorts of tracks, hoping for a similar experience. By reading more Tom Brown, Jr. books, and those by Paul Rezendes, James Halfpenny and others, I taught myself the rudimentary skills of tracking.

In June of 2006 I was on-line looking for a list of Tom Brown books to give to the ladies who were going to be taking a tracking class that I was coordinating for a Women In the Outdoors day. I never did find a definitive list, but I did keep running into links to the WAS web site. It wasn't until early July that I e-mailed for information...I was intrigued by the Residential Program, which offered tracking as one of the skills of a naturalist. Of course, there was no way that I would be able to do it...I was too old, to broke, too out-of-shape, and too timid.

Check back to see how I changed my mind and came to Washington.

Note: I didn't see the swans today, but Alexia, our office bird expert says that Trumpeters are more common than Tundra Swans here...