I have made the trip from Philadelphia to North Carolina and other points south at least 100 times. 95-85-Rt 1 ad nauseam. So, when I had the chance to make the trip by myself a few days ago, I took the route I’ve always wanted to take. 95-895-81-Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.

It’s been about 12 years since my last trip to Shenandoah, but anytime I’ve been on 81, I have secretly and sometimes no so secretly begged and pleaded with the driver to take the detour through the park.

I left my house at 4:30am, and exactly 4 hours later I passed into the park. Between the rain, the fog, and the majority of motorists trying to get to their destinations through more conventional means, I had the drive with all of its scenic overlooks mostly to myself.

Well, at least the scenic overlooks that weren’t smothered in fog. Between 2100 and 3600 ft it was hard to see at some points, making the trees look creepier and lending to an overall feeling of driving directly into the twilight zone.

But then, it was time for the hike. I have hiked the AT in Shenandoah previously, but it was so long ago that I couldn’t tell you where. For this one, I chose Hawksbill Mountain, the highest point in the park at an elevation of 4050 ft. Starting off at the Hawksbill parking area, I headed south on the AT for about a mile before picking up a connector trail to take me to the top of mountain, overall elevation gain for about 600 ft. over 2 miles.

There is something so comforting about being on the AT. I see those 2″x6″ white blazes on the tree and no matter what town, county, or state I’m in, I always feel like I’m home.

An easy 3 miler, no challenging terrain, I took about 2 hours to do the loop from the AT to the Summit and back down the steep Lower Hawksbill Trail. Once I got within 100 yards of the summit, walking along the ridge of the mountain, I stopped and watched the clouds and steam come off the Blue Ridge Mountains. I could’ve stayed up there all day.

Global Home On The Range (sung to the tune of “Home On The Range” US western folk song)

— Snerd Lee Limbaugh

On the second Saturday in November I stood atop Winslow Hill and imagined myself as an autumn leaf, vulnerable, light as a feather, about to be blown away into yonder.  With hurricane force winds blasting in from the sea, the whole of Bowleaze Cove was a bubbling mass of white water.  As I tried to photograph the scene, with just a fraction of zoom lens protruding, my camera bucked and weaved like a rebellious stallion while the wind and the rain took its revenge on me.

Later that day I went to worship once again at the awesome reality of Chesil Beach in a force 10 when the waves provide the thunder and the spray the lightning.  Behind me the valley was brimming with rain and hunkering down for the worst storm of the year.

Three days later and I’m strolling due south across the centre of the valley.  The dogs are hunting and quartering in front of me.  On my left the deep shadows are playing games in amongst the strip lynchets.  On my right a wondrous and idyllic tableau is formed by the White Horse and a field full of sheep.  Underfoot is sticky and soggy as the rainwater drains down from the hill.  Ahead of me the A353 snakes across the lip of the valley and I wonder when the next motorcyclist will be severely injured up there.  It happens on a fortnightly basis and what does the Highway Authority do?  Absolutely nothing of course.  Dorset County Council sits on its fat, collective, complacent backside while young people are grotesquely mutilated on dangerous roads.  It is nothing short of blatant, inexcusable negligence.

So while the valley is a cure for many of the stresses and strains of everyday life, it is not apart from them.  In fact, I make a plea to all driving south down the A353 to look left towards the sea.  Paradise Valley is far too distracting.

Up on the hill, the yellow gorse flowers are back and I’m marvelling again at the hardiness of the sheep.  When Capone, Carla and I go up there for an hour and a half we come back and spend the rest of the day in heated shelter.  Recently, we’ve had as long a spell of consistently high winds as I can remember.  I hate to think what it must be like for those sheep at 3 o’clock in the morning!

In an hurrah to the height of the pheasant season, this morning Carla demonstrated the superiority of her nose and hunting skills.

We climbed up and over the hump that sits on the northern shoulder of White Horse Hill.  Coming down the far side is a favourite place for deer but Carla hunted high and low to no avail.

Out into the main field where the stubbl;e is thick from the last crop of barley and suddenly she’s put up a hen pheasant, fluttering back up to the hump.  Then there are three breaking from cover, another back up the hump and two curling round towards me.  The third is rising, screaming, soaring as I swing right through it and see a clear 20 feet of lead before I pull the trigger.

Another is up quartering me from right to left, accelerating and rising, actually beneath me due to the lie of the land but tumbled cleanly out of the air as another pair break right and the last one falls to my second barrel.  Carla looks bright, fulfilled and chuffed to bits.

Of course no dogs, birds or people were injured in the making of this film that plays only on the ultimate high definition, widescreen inside your head.  Everything except the birds and the dog were imaginary!

Yes! Time for more Japan Pics!

The next day we took great tours of Kyoto and Nara, both old capitals of Japan. Tokyo was very modern so it was nice that we got to see more traditional buildings around town.

The countryside was beautiful.

At a stop some kids saw us and were so excited to see foreigners that they stopped and started waving at people on the bus. Like I said, Japan is full of nice and friendly people.

Getting closer to the temple.

On the way there we saw a very old gate. The tour guide said this is the oldest gate in Japan. It was made somewhere around 700 AD.

The entrance to Todaji temple was near a deer park and they let the deer roam around everywhere. There is a legend that when one of the deities came down at this place to help the people of Japan, he arrived riding a magical deer. When he returned to the spirit world he left the deer. The Japanese believed that these deer are actually descents of that very deer, and they can be found roaming freely around the park. It’s actually illegal to hurt any of these deer because of this.

You can buy cookies and feed them to the deer and if you do, be prepared. You will be quickly stormed and attacked. The deer will swarm you and bite until you have no choice but to drop the cookies and run. My wife learned this first hand.

Insanely massive wooden carved statue at the entrance gate. There is one at each end. This one represents the omega or the end.

Todaiji temple. The roof weighs over 2,000 tons.

Inside the temple is a HUGE Buddha. The second biggest statue in the world, just behind the even huger Jesus statue in South America. You can fit 47 people standing up just in the palm of his hand. Crazy.

The Buddha statue is surrounded by tall carved statues that guard Buddha from evil spirits.

Inside they had a model replica of the temple.

This hole is the size of one nostril on the Buddha statue. They say that if you can fit through it, then you were blessed to go to heaven. Guess if your an adult your screwed.

Later that day we went to the stone lantern park.

The park was made up of thousands of stone lanterns. Only a few nights a year do they light them all. Imagine all these centuries old lanterns lit up at once. Something to behold.

After the walk through the park you enter a Shinto Shrine.

Where they still have Shrine Maidens!

After another day in Kyoto we headed back to Tokyo. First day back we went to hippest place in Japan. Harajuku!

This was the place for shopping and fashion in Japan.

Even cooler at night. More crowded too.

Speaking of crowded, next we went to Shibuya, a district in Tokyo containing the busiest intersection in the world. The Shibuya 109 building has been in countless anime and games such as Death Note and the World Ends With You.

Still don’t believe me it’s the busiest? It pretty much looked like that at every light.

Shibuya had a club Sega!

And another Ultraman Ad! Holy crap I love this country!

Shibuya looked a lot like times square, but bigger, taller, and tons of cool and creative ads. That’s typically how shops are in Japan. One store might be on the 3F, but a completely different on the 6TH.

More big bright buildings in Shibuya. At this particular intersection they played video game music during your crosswalk. I think I heard Mario Bros. and Mega Man.

Sadly this ends part 2 of the tour of Japan.

Next time Tokyo Tower and Akihabara, the otaku mecca paradise for people who love anime, music, figures, and video games. Also see the king of monsters himself, Godzilla! You can’t miss it!

]]> http://huntersagainstpeta.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/researcher-in-mn-is-the-target-of-animal-rights-activists/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:54:58 +0000 huntersagainstpeta http://huntersagainstpeta.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/researcher-in-mn-is-the-target-of-animal-rights-activists/

NYT says more urban folks learning to hunt for safe, low carbon-impact meat-

The Urban Deerslayer. By Sean Patrick Farrell. New York Times.

Fewer and fewer people have been learning to hunt, to the dismay of many. Hunting is generaly taught as part of a family tradition or with young friends while growing up.

The article writes of what might be an unexpected source of new hunters — urban adults who want a more honest connection to their food and/or worry about the hormones, fat, and other contaminants of factory farmed beef and pork.

My personal belief is that unless you have killed and eaten an animal, caught and gutted a fish, you don’t understand the value of meat. You don’t understand the difficulty getting high quality protein, nor what much of human history has been like.

Much of Eastern United States is overrun with whitetailed deer due to environmental changes that have lifted natural restraints on deer populations. Some urbanites are well situated to shoot a deer.

There should be a word of warning, however. First, if you can’t shoot your deer locally — if you travel many miles — your meat acquisition does not save a lot energy. Secondly, if the deer graze contaminated zones, the meat might not be safe. Third, bullets fragment. If you use lead bullets, there will be lead in your venison.  Use of ground venison maximizes the amount of lead. The type of bullet makes a big difference. Lead shotgun slugs and encased (jacketed) lead bullets leave the fewest fragments. If you hit large bone, there will be more fragmentation. Best, use copper bullets or go bowhunting.

Dad bagged this nice 8-point white-tail buck at a little after 5 PM on Thanksgiving Day.

The deer was shot from the hayshed, which provides a clear view of a pasture that includes a very steep hill that then drops off into the woods. Between the woods and the pasture is a stand of evergreens that are being raised for Christmas trees that provide a good windbreak in the worst of the winter.

The deer tend to cross the pasture just outside that edge habitat, providing a pretty clear shooting range.

He had seen a doe with two fawns enter the pasture. These are local deer that always seem to always be there just as it is getting dark.

Then another large doe came trotting across the pasture just outside that edge. She was trotting quickly, which usually means a buck is right behind them.

And this one was.

This doe was in estrous relatively late in the season, and this buck, who had probably spread his genes into most of the other does around here, wasn’t wasting another opportunity to do so.

Now, for those of you from more trophy-hunting centered states probably won’t think much of this specimen, but for West Virginia, it’s a pretty large deer.

Deer are managed here more to provent nuisances and overpopulation than to produce giants.

It is supposed to snow tonight, so that may have made the deer more active than normal. Normally, these larger deer know fully well that they are particularly sought after during hunting season, and they avoid people at all costs.

Or they go to the local park, which is only about a half mile away.

Or they go to town.

Any place where they can’t be hunted.

The big deer seem to know this.

They didn’t get big by being stupid.

But every once in a while, one slips up.

And that’s what happened to this one.

Last night I didn’t want to sleep in my apartment, even though I have it for a few more nights. I wanted to sleep in the van, so November 25 became my official First Night. Here’s what my bed looked like:

Now I can’t truly say that I’m a vandweller yet: I still came home to have a shower (and see? I’m still calling the apartment ‘home’). The metamorphosis is a gradual one… but it’s definitely begun!

Some lame news though… a chip that appeared in my window last week has now grown to a 2″ crack, which is too big to repair, so now I need a new windshield. The idea of taking my home to a repair shop is kind of unsettling.

Santa Claus is missing and Christmas is doomed! You`re Private Detective Arthur Knight, and you are the only one who can solve this mystery. Travel to Christmasville, where you`ll find help in the form of the Abominable Snowman, Reindeer, and Elf! Help these amazing creatures discover the truth about Santa Claus in this eye-popping Hidden Object Christmas adventure for the entire family!

Intriguing story line.

Wonderful music.

Merry mini-games!

System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista

CPU: 600 Mhz

RAM: 128 MB

DirectX: 8.1

Hard Drive: 52 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

Christmasville

“What Carbon means to Farmers”

Great evening good presentation and heated debate afterwards. Thanks to all the speakers  Dr Glenda Thomas Director FWAG Cymru, Dai Davies President NFU Cymru, Andrew RT Davies AM and our panel chairman Julie Thomas for a very enjoyable evening. There was definitely some food for thought and I am certain some CO2 released in debate. I am sure that our carbon sinks on the farm offset this.

Outcome was that farmers need to promote the positive effects on climate change and advertise the reductions we have made so far.

The startling fact that the carbon footprint of the potato is most when in the home and being cooked …….

This subject will be continued at future events I am sure.

Farm visit by Jill Evans MEP  at the neighbour’s on Friday

NFU GLAMORGAN ON FARM MEETING – FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2009

I write to extend an invitation to you to join us for our forthcoming meeting with Jill Evans MEP.  The meeting will be hosted by Mr and Mrs S Williams at Pantycornant farm, Blackmill, Bridgend. The meeting will start at 11.00 am this Friday, 27^th November.

This meeting will provide us with an opportunity to discuss European issues with the member of the European Parliament, such as food labelling, EU budget/CAP Reform, Climate change and sheep EID.

Dai Davies and Edmund Bailey will also be in attendance.

Please note this is an open meeting so please do encourage friends/neighbours to join us. Please see directions below. 

Yours sincerely,

Stella Owen

Farm Policy Adviser

NFU Cymru

Directions: 

From West (Sarn) : Head for Blackmill (A4061), Turn right for A4093 Tonyrefail, continue on this road up to Glynogwr. Go past a church on the right hand side – after 100yards turn left onto a lane – continue until you reach the farmyard.

From East: Get off M4 at junction 34, take A4119 for Tonyrefail, take A4093 (Gilfachgoch). On entering Glynogwr, see bungalow on the right and turn right onto the lane – continue until you reach the farmyard.

I tested them on my way home tonight, and I have to say that they work well. That makes me happy, considering I tested them to avoid smashing into a deer caught on the wrong side of the tracks.  The deer made its way to the other side with a good twenty or thirty feet to spare, and my car made it home without extra dents. Talk about something to be thankful for – brakes!

     Ever since we installed our pond, I have been waiting for the critters to show up. This summer the deer arrived after four years of absence. They cleaned the yard of every newly planted Hosta.  A possum has dug up the lawn looking for grubs. Squirrels have planted corn seed all about the yard. Slinky the garter snake slithered into the rocks around the water fall.  A red tail hawk often swoops through the yard after a squirrel or dove. The place is a veritable zoo at times. 

      I thought things would quiet down now that the leaves have fallen and the flowers are all gone. Last Sunday morning, I sat having my coffee reading the paper. I could see the window from the corner of my eye when it happened, A huge shadow swooped across the window. At first, I thought is was the hawk. I jumped up to see if he nailed a squirrel. Nope. I looked up at the pond, there he was, Big Bird in person. A great Blue Heron had spotted the goldfish. Before I could say “Peg come see,”  the bird had a bulge moving down it’s long throat. He nailed my largest, fanciest goldfish. He saw me, and took off looking like a prehistoric pterodactyl.

I left to deliver Thanksgiving food baskets with my Lions Club. I got home a couple of hours later. Peggy greeted me with “he’s been back three times already.” Later, I saw him again, but as soon as I made a move for the camera he flew off. It is three days later, and we have spotted him at the pond every day. My friend Al told me he would stay until he has cleaned all the fish from the pond. I hope it freezes tonight so he will migrate south.

All photos shot with Nikon D300 with 120 – 400mm Sigma f/4.5-5.6 DG APO OS HSM lens. Edited with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS4. Noise controlled with Imagenomic Noiseware Professional. All shots were handheld. shot in Aperture priority.

Last 2 shots f/5.6 @ 400mm 1/50 sec. iso 640.

f/ 5.6 @ 400mm 1/30 sec. iso 640.

f/5.6 @ 330mm 1/1000 sec. iso 400.

f/5.6 @ 400mm 1/1250 sec. iso 400. Hot tired squirrel.

Yes, it’s been spotted. It was mistaken for a black dog.

It’s one of this year’s fawns. If I can get a photo of it, it will be posted!

The NYTimes reports on The Urban Deerslayer.

Best line:

“They eat my garden, so I thought maybe I should eat them,” he said.

And I’m of mixed emotions.

Great that people are getting in touch with where their food comes from, how it is killed and what it takes to eat meat.

But I think I preferred hunting before it was fashionable.

And it’s no coincidence that the two main species profiled in the article — white-tail deer and wild boars — mingle well with people, aren’t threatening and don’t require large tracks of land to survive.

The club may be called The Bull Moose Hunting Society but no one’s hunting moose. These are easy hunts, close to the city, not too spicy.

This is my favorite time of the year. The air is cooler, potential for snow is in the air, wood stoves are burning, and hunting seasons are in mid-swing.

Thanksgiving seems to me to be tied to a wonderful heritage of self-sufficiency that has been all but lost in most Americans. The idea of growing your own food, hunting for your own food,  or raising your own food is mostly an interesting oddity to most Americans these days.  People are just so used to ordering food from a restaurant menu or seeing it all neatly packaged in plastic at the super grocery store down the road.

The personal interaction with agriculture is lost. The appreciation of a sacrificed life, or the toil of the earth is distant. I am thankful for being able to live where I do. It gives me plenty of opportunity to appreciate healthy homegrown and harvested foods. These foods not only cost less, but are much more healthy for your body as they do not contain all kinds of hormones, antibiotics, or chemical sprays.

I also love this time of year because my family is together under one roof. The conversation that fills the air is wonderful. Watching the kids play with each other, some excited about hunting in a few days, puts a smile on my face.

I will be traveling a few hours to my brothers house for the thanksgiving meal, and then returning with  another brother and his children and another one of my nephews. My home in North central PA turns into “Deer Camp” for the next few days after thanksgiving. Its a time of year that I favor most and just wanted to share my thoughts about it with you.

Hunting Success

For all of us locavores I just read this article in the NY Times. As I have been saying all along, the harvest goes beyond the boundaries of our property. My only concern here is that, if all of us decide to take this route, we might just add to the depletion of yet another natural resource unless we do this with care and an understanding of the balance of the natural cycles. Just as we nurture the plants in the garden, we need to proceed with sound observation and understanding. We can become “gardeners” of all the earth. Read carefully.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/dining/25hunt.html?_r=3

Dear Bill,

I’m sitting having my coffee here at the crack ‘o dawn. Well, that’s an exaggeration, as the dawn hasn’t actually cracked yet. My sweetie husband had us both up at around 5:00am as he’s going hunting with our younger son, who will have had his wife up early as well I suppose.

Not everyone likes the idea of hunting. They think of Bambi’s mother and fret. Younger daughter out in California opines on the phone, “I don’t understand what’s happened to our family! How did they become hunters?” How indeed. I don’t know. I’d prefer they were gatherers, myself. My sweetie husband says to think of deer hunting as a more direct way to do the grocery shopping, but neither he nor younger son ever go blueberry picking I notice. I suppose that isn’t as bonding. 

My sweetie’s new to this scene. He, with the help of younger son, went out and bought hunting gear–a camouflage suit along with a bright orange vest. The law requires that you wear the latter so you don’t get shot by mistake.

My sweetie wonders if the bright orange won’t scare off the prey.

“Don’t worry,” says younger son, “deer can’t see orange.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” says my sweetie sensibly, “why don’t we wear orange all over!”

“Dad, you don’t want to look like a dork, do you?”

No, he doesn’t. He just wants to come out of the woods alive. I want him to as well.

The other night younger son went hunting on his own. He sat in the rain for hours and hours waiting for a deer to appear. Nothing. Then he nearly hit one on the way home in his car. And yesterday afternoon a little herd came walking down our driveway as they’re wont to do. They began to nibble the grass on our front lawn. This always makes our Scottie dog Maggie go berserk. She barked and barked till I was finally driven to knocking on the window, hoping to shoo the deer off. They would have none of it. They saw that I was wearing a pink fleece and jeans, not camouflage and orange, and stared at me with astonishment and disdain. What’s her problem, anyway?

This second photo was taken last winter but you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Well, fine. There are wild turkeys galore out there too, but I’m not taking any chances.

I bought our bird yesterday at D&W. It’s safe in the fridge waiting for Thanksgiving.

Love!

Momma

Please join us tonight presentation from Dr Glenda Thomas on Carbon Capture, carbon footprints and it’s place in Glastir.

Q & A session with Andrew RT Davies AM (& dairy farmer), Dai Davies NFU Cymru President(dairy farmer) Dr Glenda Thomas (Director) FWAG chaired by Julie Thomas BSc Agric MBA (livestock Farmer, Simply the best training)

looks to be a good evening starts 7.30pm prompt

directions www.lakesidefarmpark.co.uk

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=lakeside+farm+park&hl=en&cd=1&ei=X_kMS7uQJZfQjAe1jKTUBw&ie=UTF8&view=map&f=d&daddr=Glynogwr,+Blackmill,+Bridgend,+CF35+6EN&geocode=CSvpVEb_vcMiFfbxEgMdMIjK_w

Sunrise on Wetlands and Geese

After a frustrating weekend of mostly rain, intermixed with the false hopes of brief clearings, I finally got out Monday morning to my local wildlife refuge for some photography and to clear out the staleness in my lungs and head. I also wanted to try out my new Wimberley tripod head before leaving for Costa Rica this weekend. I was even blessed with a sunrise when I arrived. There is not enough water yet for a great reflection, but at least the Dusky Canada geese obliged me by blasting off once I got my gear all set up (they usually choose to go while it is still dark and I’m not ready yet). I am starting to hear reports back from Bosque del Apache in New Mexico where this kind of shot is a ho-hum, daily thing this time of year and was starting to feel kind of left out, so this helped.

Sunrise on Baskett Slough NWR

I was really starting to love the clouds, so once the geese cleared out of the damned way I switched to vertical to get the clouds in the shot. Interestingly, this file had a lot of color artifact in the sky when I converted the RAW file in Adobe Camera Raw, so I started over and converted it in Capture NX2 and there was no problem.

Black-tail Buck

When the sunrise was over I headed up a trail to try to find a forked horn buck I’d been seeing earlier in the fall. I found this three-point, instead. He apparently drove the forked horn off because I never found him. This guy was a wee bit nervous, but didn’t want to leave the ladies he has been courting so had to tolerate me because the does and fawns all know me (HIM again!) and won’t even move off the trail to let me by half the time. I was cursing the oak branch above him until I saw that it was out of focus enough to actually look very painterly. I love the pastel background!  What a great way to spend a Monday morning! Maybe that new Wimberley head has some kind of good karma in it.

From a forwarded e-mail: (Aha! I found the real story online: http://cityrag.blogs.com/main/2007/01/a_true_story_of.html)

Bambi & Thumper ….really do exist!

Image Credit

What an incredible photographer  to have caught these shots…

Trying to learn how to do a smal normal map for testing purposes for 1 vehicle and 2 player models and 2 weapons with two ammo placments and two spawn points. EPIC FAIL! >_<; oh and GOD FORBID anyone lend a fu**ing hand! Frustration is so much fun. …….NOT!

But it has to be done, If we are to realize our vision of a gaming studio? We need to buckle down and do the math, no matter how hard it can be. MUST try to strive to learn how to get the code to work properly. Distributing the existing assests among the team and some of the NEW concept designs I've been playing with and some of the vehicles I've had in mind.

So far everyone is on board and may even have some new members as well. My hope is a fellow forum member named Phoenixwing from BuF comes onboard as well. His skills as a coder are remarkable, and he'd be a true assest to the team. That and I could learn a few things from him as well.

Off topic I walked out this morning after work at midnight and drove home at that same intersection I kid you not was a buck with a 3.5 Antler spread on the corner. I went across slowly enough so not to spook him but quick enough I could hit the gas to avoid him too. but as soon as I crossed thru he just strolled across the street as the walk like came on. One of those odd moments again.