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Getting cooler and I love it

Fall is finally coming and I am loving it.  I love to hunt.  Yes I do hunt with a primitive bow like my ancestors did. Yes I only kill what I will eat.  I’m sure someone will read this and wonder how I can kill Bambi.  Well Bambi is not real and hunting deer helps the herd to stay healthy.  Too many deer and there won’t be enough food for them.  They’ll get sick and diseased and slowly die off.  That’s not good.  By hunting them for food, you are keeping the herd stronger.

I hunt strictly by the rules.  I get my license and only kill bucks until doe days.  I prefer to get the old spike bucks so that you weed out the poor racks and build a herd in your area that is more likely to produce bucks with nice racks.  I put out mineral blocks for them through the summer to help make them healthier.  I do feed them apples and corn to bring them in to my stand but I also take care of them when it’s not deer season.  My ancestors taught me to respect the animals as they should be.

Deer season starts soon so I need to get out and practice a while to keep my skills sharp so I hopefully make a clean kill every time.  The last thing I want is for the animal to suffer any more than they have to.  IF I hit one and it doesn’t fall where I hit it, I track it down until I know the animal will either survive or I find it.  I don’t leave a badly wounded animal to suffer.  I would never do that.


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Historic sites and State Parks closing

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s office announced layoffs of up to 450 state employees and the closure of 25 historic sites and state parks. Fourteen state historic sites are scheduled to be closed October 1. Eleven state parks are slated for closure November 1.

Among these sites to be closed is the Black Hawk State Historic Site, in Rock Island, Illinois, which occupies much of the historic site of the village of Saukenuk. This was the home of a band of Native Americans of the Sauk nation. It includes the John Hauberg Museum of Native American Life. The state park is located on a 150-foot bluff overlooking the Rock River in western Illinois. It is most famous for being the birth place of the Sauk warrior Black Hawk. The disputed cession of this area to the U.S. Government was the catalyst for the Black Hawk War.

There is already so much of the Native American way of life gone forever and now this?  Why can’t the white man see what they are doing to OUR countries deep rooted heritage?  We all are now Native Americans and these things must be kept to teach our young of the way of life of Our nation.  Our nation we ALL call America which is made up of many tribes from all over the world.

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No Comments are coming

I often wonder if anyone is even reading this blog that I have taken to writing every now and then, I’m not even receiving any Spam, amazing as that sounds.

I know  I haven’t spent as much time as I intended to, but life does have a way of keeping one busier than they would like at times. I guess I need to get off my duff and start doing a bit more here and there. The weather is changing, the Holidays are approaching faster than I would like to see, but is inevitable, and with it comes all the nasty cold that will require a nice warm fireplace going full blast in the house.

The collecting of firewood seems to be the next major concern and chore that needs tending to it seems.

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The 2008 Olympics are here

So many topics to talk about concerning the events that are taking place in China, while hosting the 2008 Olympics this year. I usually enjoy watching the Olympics and have had opportunities to attend some of the games in the past, but never have actually made it to any of them.

This particular location that they picked for hosting the games, in China, has had it’s ups and downs, and it is the first time that I haven’t kicked myself in the rear for not making more of an effort to personally attend this most exciting and interesting event.

The air quality in China is a major issue and I can really feel for the participants that are having to deal with such a problem as not being able to breath properly while trying to perform the best that they have ever had to, in order to take home a medal. It has been a real eye opener for the rest of the world, and maybe now something will be done to make China a better place to live and breath in the future.

I wish them all the luck in the world, and I hope that the US can kick some butt and bring home a good amount of medals for us to rant and rave about, until the next Olympic games are held.

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The visiting of family grave sites

Yesterday was such a nice day for a change, the heat has been most unpleasant as of late, keeping most people inside and in the air conditioning of their homes or businesses, so having a nice for a change was a pleasant change of pace, and required some time of outdoor activity to enjoy it all in.

The wife has been wanting to visit the cemetery that most of her people are laid to rest in, I can’t blame her, it is good to go and pay your respects from time to time, good for the soul. So we went ahead and spent a good portion of yesterday’s afternoon doing just that.

We were pleasantly surprised to see how well maintained the graves were, last time the place was a mess and my wife was very upset about it, enough to call and complain upon her return home from her last visit. Upon our arrival we noticed a man on one of the John Deere lawnmowers, was busy mowing the grass to a bristly green stubble that tickled our kneecaps when we knelt at each grave site.

The granite markers all looked good, their blue-gray color still as peaceful and strong as the day they were placed in the earth. The stones feeling cool and smooth as you trace your fingers over them and feeling each letter and number that is etched in each person’s headstone, telling the names and dates of the deceased.

I’m glad to say that the wife held up pretty good through out the whole time, as we wondered from grave site to grave site, after grave site, her only regret was not bringing enough flowers to put on each and every grave of all of her relatives that we found. I promised that we would be more prepared at out next visit, which hopefully won’t be for another year or two, or three…..

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Gone Fishing

I’ve been out fishing for the past week with an old friend from my high school days. We packed up our camping gear and went deep into the hills of Cherokee Canyon in southern Virginia, to our old fishing hole, which to our surprise looks pretty much the same as it did some thirty years ago when we used to go there as kids. Needless to say, for a mans vacation geared towards relaxation it was a huge success.

Although the fishing itself was not as big a boom for our collective freezers, we did manage to come away with some forty or fifty good sized fish. We caught a few trout, some spot, sunfish and both small mouth and bigmouth bass.  Nothing of record breaking size, but we were pleased just the same. We had our best luck on the fourth day there when the bass starting biting. We got rained on quite a bit but it was more fun than a hindrance of any sort. As a matter of fact, except for the one time the tent fell in during a downpour and soaked us to the bone, it was a very relaxing experience.

We spent most the evenings dining on our days catch and reminiscing about the old days. On my return home my wonderful wife told me I smelled like a fish market on a hot day! But she was happy that I’d had a good time. She herself had a wonderful week as well from what she’d told me and mentioned that next time she would like to accompany us along with a couple of her friends she Iearned also enjoy fishing, although they prefer fly fishing above other styles. One of her friends even offered to teach me how to tie flies. Looks like the next fishing trip is going to be a real hoot, I just hope the girls don’t show us fellows up to bad when it comes to fly rod fishing.

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Grandmother is at it again.

The wife and I have been discussing grandmothers latest decision to stay where she is at rather then to move in with us. She says she has been on her own since she was knee high to a grasshopper and doesn’t see any reason for me to worry about how she’ll be getting along. It’s a good thing we’ve relatives nearby or I’d have grandmother really ticked off at me for moving her out of where she is now and into a guest room at our own home. Sometimes what we think is the right thing to do isn’t right at all for the concerning party.

Grandmother is a hardheaded old woman with strong opinions about how things should be. but she did promise that if it got to the point where she can no longer take care of her own personal needs, she’d give me a call before she’d ring my sister because she believes sis is just out to get the family land or some such thing. She told me every time she confides in sis about something the girl gets, “all whacked out” about everything! Grandmother is a hoot at times and I must agree with her about sis’s overreacting to nearly everything these days. The girl does have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion to say the least.

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Kid found a link to the past

Our oldest girl called us from California where she and her college roommates have rented a place on the beach for two weeks while they’re on school break. She was excited to find that their neighbor actually knows me and her mom very well. Turns out  they had rented a small apartment on Mission Beach right next to an old friend of ours from back when we traveled around the country.

Now I’m sure that me and the Mrs. will get to here all about what our friend tells our daughter about us in the old days. She was never really very enthusiastic about stories of our past when she had to hear it from us, but she seems really excited about finding out that we really did have a life before kids from someone else. Maybe it’s because she’s three thousand miles away and ran into someone that actually knows her parents that she’d never met before and totally by accident.

Kids, they can be amusing.

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Top Ten Words Not To Use On Your Blog Title

I am finding myself looking around at other people’s blogs and finding out some wonderful information that I am finding useful in my newbie stage of blog writing. One such site that I visited today tells of the Top Ten Words Not To Use In Your Blog Title and they are the following words, according to a blogger on the web-site of Businesslogs.com

The top ten names to avoid:
* blog
* life
* weblog
* world
* from
* journal
* news
* thoughts
* with
* daily

Interesting food for thought that I wanted to share here.

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Family…

Been kinda busy last couple of days. I’m getting ready to take a few days off work to go see Grandmother and maybe see if it could be possible to have her come live with us instead of having to stay in such a place as a Nursing Home. Wife and I are still discussing the pros and cons of the possibility especially as to what her medical needs may be or develop into.

Family means a lot to me, even if it is my adopted family, they are the only family I knew growing up and did well by me. It is not like my people to put away our old where they cannot be seen or heard. We are connected to our past through the elders and it is our heritage itself we pass along with the wisdom only gained by experience and what we learn from them must be taught to our young and them to their young. Only in this way can a people survive the onslaught of time. We must do right by those who have done right by us, we owe them that. We owe ourselves that.