In a unanimous decision rejecting the president’s request for an injunction overturning the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results there was this:
Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy, Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.
Charges require specific allegations and then proof.
We have neither here.
-Judge Stephanos Bibas, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit
*Bibas was appointed by Trump in 2017
This morning I picked-up the results of the first two deer we had processed by Door County Custom Meats.
Steaks, back straps, summer sausage, hot sticks and bratwurst all around.
Jill and I sampled the smoked stuff and pronounced it - Sehr gute wurst!
I worked-up a thirst repackaging and shrink-wrapping the bulk summer and hot sticks.
Freezer space is still available when the Marchant's Meats and Sausage order is ready for pick-up.
Raising a toast to eating more deer....
From our walk there was this.
Likely
constructed a lifetime longer ago than my own it served to
keep livestock in and not people out. A whitetail can clear this fence in a single bound.
I wouldn’t ordinarily wax poetic about old fence lines except that the Blonde Dog is both oblivious yet not impervious to barbed wire. There was shouting involved. But I digress.
In any event this old fence is slowly returning to the earth as are the dead and dying ash and elm trees that have grown-up in its slim shadow.
Hardly anybody pastures their cattle any longer – at least in my immediate neighborhood. And many fence lines have disappeared as farm fields have grown larger and more efficient. And, of course, pheasant populations have shrunk as their fence line habitat has.
The pasture this fence delineated several lifetimes ago has returned to the earth in a manner of speaking. No longer tamed by cattle and plow it is reverting to a wild state of trees and other vegetation now home to those creatures that make early succession forests their home.
The wooden posts of this fence were hewn from trees likely born more than 200 years ago. The wire manufactured almost 100 years ago – give or take. My guess is that this barrier will likely persist for a length of time after I have returned to the earth. So what’s another 50 or more years - give or take. Other species of trees will succeed the ash and elm. And there is a high probability that some future person will shout at their Labrador retriever to not charge through the barbed wire.
This is an old fence for sure. In human terms. To nature it is a blink of an eye. If
a fence could tell tales what might it give witness to in that blink?
You would think that after killing seven does last weekend during the gun opener that there would be no more deer on the landscape.
Nay, nay, I say.
Plenty on the trail cams from a brief survey of only a few SD cards yesterday
Jill reports counting eight more in the backyard of our neighbor to the east yesterday afternoon.
And from yesterday immediately before I fetched this card there was this.....
This song was composed by Bert Berns and and first recorded by Solomon Burke. It was released in 1962 and reached number 5 on the R&B charts and number 44 on the Hot 100.
This is a particularly nice acoustic cover by Marc Broussard.
Cry To Me...
From Pete Wells over at the New York Times there is this sage advice about napping today:
In our natural circadian rhythms, most of us experience a dip in alertness between 1 and 3 p.m. “If you can time your nap to happen at that time, you’ll get a really great restorative nap,” Dr. Alger said.
Digesting a big meal takes a lot of energy, which leaves you sleepy.
Coffee after the turkey may keep you from falling asleep. A cup right after you wake up, though, can help cut through the post-nap fog.
Rather than falling asleep in front of the television in the busiest room of the house, Dr. Alger recommends retreating to a cool, quiet bedroom. Draw the shades or wear an eye mask. Act as if you mean it.
Although it’s easier to bounce back from a 20-minute “power nap,” staying under for 60 to 90 minutes can bring you to a deeper, more refreshing stage of sleep. “The longer the nap, the more benefits you’ll get,” Dr. Alger said.
Naps taken late in the day can make it harder to sleep at night.
Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. This year it provides the requisite fodder for any number of people to manifest their Faux Facebook Outrage about CDC Guidelines Concerning Travel and Gathering and State Advisories About Gathering over the holiday.
Read you damn history people....
Deer Camp Tamale Pie
Recipe adapted from America’s Test Kitchen
Filling
Topping
¾ c
all-purpose flour
¾ c cornmeal
¾ t baking powder
¼
t baking soda
¾ t salt
¾ c buttermilk or regular milk
1
egg
Preheat the oven to 400.
Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet on medium heat. Add the ground venison breaking-up the meat with a spatula until just beginning to brown.
Stir-in the scallion whites, chili powder, oregano and some salt to bloom the fragrances – about a minute.
Add the beans, tomatoes (with their juice), corn and broth. Cook until slightly thickened – about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir-in the grated pepper jack cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.
To make the cornbread topping, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, scallion greens and salt. In a separate bowl whisk together the buttermilk or regular milk, egg and 3 T of oil. Combine the milk and egg mixture with the flour mixture.
Spread the cornbread mixture evenly over the filling (which is still in the skillet).
Bake – uncovered - approximately 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and it passes the ‘toothpick test.’ Rest ten minutes -l serve.
Pro Tip
Double this recipe for 6-7 hungry deer hunters and cook the whole shebang in a large cast iron dutch oven. The double recipe may take as long as 40 to 60 minutes to bake. This pairs well with frosty-cold beers.
The 2020 Deer Camp is now history so let the chronicles reflect that it was a robust attempt at a COVID-Compliant Camp.
To be absolutely clear there is hardly a sport that isn't better-suited to pandemic precautions than hunting. Deer hunting in particular. Everyone is socially distanced by hundreds and hundreds of yards, outdoors and communicating by radio. Easy peasy - right?
Alas, it is the social aspect of deer camp that makes things twitchy-sketchy. What I have characterized as the Camaraderie Factor.
Precisely how do you do engage in the social chapter of the interaction without turning the entire experience into a reckless super-spreader event that might mess-up the lives of your friends.
For Jill and me, virtually all of this year has featured no indoor guests under our roof to move-about in our living space. We call it our bubble. For sure we've hosted social gatherings on the porch or out on the driveway, in the woods or at a local park - all undertaken at a polite social distance. And outdoors.
Deer camp is an outdoor pursuit yet the camaraderie factor is always conducted indoors.
Same for lodging. Therein lies the challenge.
The proposed solution was to host the social aspect in the attached garage where everyone could be accommodated at a safe social distance and the air replaced by opening a window or overhead door. Two hunters chose to sleep on two separate floors at a house located nearby. One hunter slept in the garage and two hunters bunked in the machine shed. I slept with Blonde Dog on the couch. The powder room was available for use of the indoor plumbing - mask requested.
Unremarkably, some hunters in the usual group chose to take a mulligan this year - with plans to return in 2021 after a vaccine is universally available. I take no issue with this choice as life is replete with choices.
And whataya know - it may possibly have worked out.
The Weber grill was put to use, I had access to the kitchen, the cars were moved to the driveway and a couple of picnic tables replaced them in the garage with eight chairs and some picnic benches scattered-about. There was the back-up coffee-maker too.
Meals were served communally in the garage, sack lunches for hunting, masks worn when necessary, the garage fridge was stocked with food and drink and a fully-stocked bar materialized on the workbench in the machine shed. Lube and oil on the rocks.
It was like magic. My friends are improvisational geniuses.
Yeah, it was cold, inconvenient and without a daily shower in short order everyone began to smell like tarsal glands.
It was a general pain in the tukus.
Yet, it appears to have worked in a year when so much of our social life has been disrupted and deprived of us by the spread of the virus. We hunter-gatherers remain consummately social. No?
And it you reflect-upon the situation, as grim as it may seem, you may conclude that many of our familial ancestors have endured far worse deprivations.
Am I not correct about this?
Can we not rise to this current challenge?
The camaraderie factor was a refreshing tonic to this blogger in particular and I suspect it was to the rest of the participants as well.
And the hunting was pretty dang good.
Nobody is going hungry this winter.
Everyone left for home yesterday afternoon following a mid-day breakfast of Shit On a Shingle preceded by a Bloody Mary Bar.
To the uninitiated SOS will cure whatever ails you.
So, on balance this year's hunt was a skinnied-down flurry of approximately 48 hours of high energy big-game hunting and reconnection. It feels awfully damn good to have recharged my outdoor batteries.
Fingers-crossed that none of us is party to a contact-tracing effort in the next week and a half.
Stay-tuned......
These videos were taken recently while hunting from the Arm Pit Deer Stand at the edge of the swamp and creek close to the west property line.
This deer materializes at a distance of about a hundred yards (beyond bow range) and exits stage left and disappears into the woods in the field of view to the right.
Wouldn't you know it - that dang deer materializes roughly twenty paces from my tree and beds down right on the spot.
So, I watch this animal for about fifteen minutes and ponder my options. The most obvious is that when I climb down at sundown the whitetail is going to bolt. The wind is definitely in my favor. The deer is oblivious to my presence. If only I could shift that critter out of its bed and get it to move to a location where I could get a clean shot.
Reaching into my pack for a grunt call the mere faintest of rustling does exactly that.
Unfortunately, instead of moving to my left and into the clear the animal rises, scratches its chin and moves to my right and remains in the clutter of obstructing branches.
And eventually, unsure of the perceived menace, The animal stamps its feet, gives me the ubiquitous alarm signal of a tail wave and bounds-off and out of sight.
I suppose that is why these close encounters are called hunting. Otherwise, Jill tells me it would be referred-to as shopping.
It's the gun opener today. If you are hunting stay safe.
I'll post an update in the next day or so.
It's looking like we're going to successfully pull-off a deer camp this year.
Covid be damned.
It will be a skinny operation for sure with only about half of the usual suspects. Everyone is responsible for their own lodging and there will be no overnight guests or indoor meals. We'll be moving everything outdoors and to the garage and machine shed. Yeah, it sucks for sure yet with the virus exploding there aren't many other viable options.
I shopped for groceries and other supplies this week and am working thru my list of preparations for when the guys arrive before dawn on opening day tomorrow.
Not that I'm suspicious or anything - but per
tradition The music today is from the the Cowboy Junkies.
Never provoke the wrath of the Deer Hunting Gods by switching-up tradition.
This is a nice tune. Skydiggers
perform "To Love Is To Bury" with Cowboy Junkies on CMT's Dakota
Sessions. Filmed live at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto, ON in 2008.
Enjoy. And safe travels if you're on your way to camp...
The fox and the grapes is one of the classic fables from Aesop. And it remains timeless in the lesson it illustrates.
The tale is about a fox who sees a clump of grapes hanging from a tree and decides to eat them to quench his thirst. Trying mightily the fox cannot jump high enough to retrieve the grapes. The fruit remains beyond the fox’s grasp.
Frustrated and disappointed by this failure the fox doesn't want to admit that he's unable to achieve his goal. To cover for his big ego, shortcomings and damaged pride, he claims that the grapes were sour and he wouldn't have enjoyed them anyway.
If you encounter a whiff of deer pee redolent in the autumn air look carefully beneath any shoulder height tree branches close by. You may locate a bare patch of dirt in the turf that is trampled with deer hoof prints. This is called a scrape. Bucks create scrapes by using their hoofs to dig at the ground. Once the soil is stirred up they urinate on the scrape.
Bucks don’t pee the way we do. We try to keep it off of us. Bucks actually try to pee on their own legs. The object is to hit their tarsal glands in an effort to leave their scent on the scrape. Every deer has its own unique bouquet and the tarsal glands hold concentrated amounts of that spoor. As the breeding season - the rut - commences these scrapes are used principally to communicate as bucks begin to leave their bachelor groups and stake out their breeding territory. It is akin to posting a no trespassing sign on a property line. Eventually it will be used to communicate breeding readiness.
Another thing scrapes have is a licking branch - a tree branch will hang
above the cleared-out soil. Bucks will rub their forehead glands on the
branch and will also lick it with their tongue.
Even though these scrapes serve much the same function in the whitetail world as a mailbox
post or a fire hydrant does for dogs it would not be unusual for them to be visited by more than one buck.
More than one buck has been passing thru here to pay a call and leave a message.
Here is a short, silent, IR mode video vignette captured recently. It is an excellent illustration of the role of the licking branch.
I touched-upon this subject very briefly in Sunday morning's post.
I seem to recall a time when people were getting a chuckle over people who considered Barack Obama their Messiah.
Recently, large numbers of people have been getting a chuckle over large numbers of people who consider Donald Trump their Messiah.
Now that Joe Biden has won the 2020 election fair and square I'm sure his flock will swell with followers too.
I marvel at the the people who sure seem to be easily
influenced by all of these Messiahs that walk among us. Not a single one of them can cure lepers, raise the dead, turn water into wine or walk on water. Slim pickings they are for the second-coming.
My conclusion is that a significant number of my countrymen are just garden-variety idolaters.
Yesterday a few thousand of Donald Trump’s supporters came to Washington DC to revel in Trump’s lies and (without offering any evidence) to claim that the election had been stolen from their Messiah.
They were even treated to an apparition when Trump performed a drive by with his motorcade.
And in a particularly fascinating and hilarious departure from reality Trump spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, served-up her own silly departure from reality.…
More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support - she tweeted.
Exaggerating the crowd size by a factor of more than 200 - I guess she cannot count either.
But I digress.
This past week
the Covid death toll rose above more than 1000 lives of our fellow
countrymen each and every day. Think about that - more than a thousand Covid deaths every day.
In only one week more than 750,000 newly diagnosed cases were added to the soaring total.
The economy is floundering like a ship on treacherous shoals with bankruptcies breaking new records every week, unemployment claims still at historic record levels and evictions being readied just in-time for a winter of homelessness.
In the face of all of this will you find Donald Trump in attendance in a house of worship this morning praying for guidance
to lead our country out of this maelstrom?
Nay nay - I think not.
Likely no different than yesterday he will be golfing at Trump National in Virginia.
Seriously, to my trusted and loved friends and family that are Trump supporters, do you accept this as excellence in leadership?
Edit to add: Yes. A day of golf.
Cooks in logging camps were indispensable to the success of the operation. A cook who could provide good, hearty meals kept the crew happy and contributed to the success of the company. A bad cook could cause discontent among the men and cause them to quit and move on. Workers were said to weigh the quality of the camp cook equally with the pay offered when deciding where to work.
The camp kitchen was the absolute domain of the cook and entry was forbidden unless invited. Moreover, cooks wielded enormous power – and many a foreman demurred if confronted by a cook angered by an unreasonable demand.
The loggers ate enormous quantities of food - an average of 8,000 calories a day to maintain the stamina for a 10-hour shift. Riggers, fellers, and buckers are said to have expended 8 to 12 calories per minute with heavy gear - foul weather adding to the caloric burn.
The cook arose at 3:30 in the morning and had breakfast ready before 6:00. A blast on a cow horn, beating on an iron triangle or a gong made from a circular saw blade signaled mealtime. Cooks demanded silence at meals - a rule intended to facilitate the eating process. No talking was allowed at meals, other than to ask for food to be passed and most meals were consumed within twelve minutes.
A good logging camp cook could routinely produce meals that compared favorably with those served in the finest hotels. A survey of logging camps at the turn of the century found the following items frequently served:
Pancakes, boiled potatoes and beans were ubiquitous; nevertheless, there was also fried salt pork, corned beef, ham, bacon, pork, roast beef, venison, chicken, oysters, cold cuts, barley, macaroni, boiled oats, sauerkraut, fresh and canned fruits, berries, jellies and jams, pickles, carrots, turnips, biscuits, breads, pies, cakes, doughnuts, puddings, custards, condensed or fresh milk and strong black coffee. Good hearty fare.
At the apex of the lumbering heyday – lumberjacks were likely the best-fed workers in the country.
Molasses cookies were always a favorite – an uncomplicated yet almost perfect balance of spice and hearty sweetness in a simple cookie.
Lumberjack Cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 - cup sugar
1 - cup shortening
1 - cup dark molasses
2 - eggs
4 - cups all-purpose flour
1 - teaspoon baking soda
1 - teaspoon salt
2 - teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 - teaspoon ground ginger
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a food processor cream together the sugar and shortening.
Add molasses and eggs.
In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and stir-in the contents of the food processor.
Work the stiff dough with a wooden spoon.
Put ½ cup sugar in a small bowl.
Pinch-off a piece of dough and roll into a 1-1/2-inch ball. Roll dough ball in sugar until covered.
Place dough balls on parchment paper-covered cookie sheet spaced 3 inches apart.
Bake for 30 minutes – give or take. Yield is about 4-dozen cookies. The dough will keep for a week or more in the refrigerator.
When you have wild-caught, freshwater yellow lake perch, you should make pan-fried fish for dinner.
Looking forward to having some of you over for Friday fish next year.....
Predictably Donald Trump lies (again) with a wild internet claim that Dominion voting machines rigged the election. The circus act continues…….
Double-yolk egg for breakfast negates all the bad karma and negative waves associated with a 2020 Friday the 13th.......
Written by Jeff Lynne in 1971 this song was originally recorded by The Move of which Lynne was a band member.
It was popularized by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) when the group performed live during 1973 thru 1975. Lynne contributed with the lead vocals for these performances. A studio recording was made in 1976 and released in 1977 on ELO’s album A New World Record.
Crank-up the
volume for Jeff Lynne and Do Ya….
Here
it is - almost the middle of November and we’re continuing to indulge
in garden tomatoes from the plants I pulled the first week of October.
In Social Identity Theory there are a couple of phenomena known as BIRG - Basking In Reflected Glory, and CORF - Cutting Off Reflected Failure.
BIRGing and CORFing represent two strategies people employ to enhance or protect their self esteem. An easy-to-understand example is the manifestation of this in sports fandom.
BIRGing, refers to the inclination of an individual to associate themselves with the successful and the celebrated. Researchers have provided evidence that following a winning football game fans were more likely to wear clothing that endorsed the football team. They were also more likely to use the pronoun 'we' to describe the events of the game as compared to fans after a losing football game.
In the case of a loss fans frequently distanced themselves from the football team - cutting off reflected failure – or CORFing. These fans were less likely to wear clothing endorsing the team. Unremarkably, when asked to describe the events of the game they were more likely to use the pronoun 'they' in their descriptions.
There are political ramifications as well – often reflected in how long people choose to keep their lawn signs out, their bumper stickers on a vehicle and their social media activity.
I’m sure that your eyes are glazing-over at the musings of an old man so I will close this post with another pertinent phenomenon.
The capital markets really, really like divided government. Wall Street abhors uncertainty – feigned drama in particular.
So, if you are retired and living on your investments or are saving money in a 401k, taking calculated risks in building a stock portfolio and have a long term view and faith in the American Experiment you have very good reason to remain righteous and hopeful.
Psychobabble about fragile self esteem is thin currency - and won't even buy you a beer.
Move along now.
There’s nothing further to see.
According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution it would appear that Joe Biden won those counties that account for 70% of the US GDP.
Those cities are where the country’s most productive workers and companies are based, even if Trump, despite his focus on the economy, has portrayed them as uniformly troubled rather than the foundation of US wealth.
That's a fact.
My
dad was a conscript who landed at Utah Beach as an infantry
replacement. He was a heavy machine gunner in a weapons platoon in M Company, 47th Infantry Regiment with the Ninth Division.
He’s been gone for awhile yet it’s good to remember him today as we celebrate the service of our own and allied veterans.
The most important veteran in my life - my pop - Howard Gaertner.
Location - a forward aid station somewhere in France immediately west of the Meuse River – September 1944.
Raising a toast to all of you who served.
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