Rules of Hunting

The rules of hunting; we all know them; blaze orange, unload the gun before putting it in the truck, be sure your target isn’t wearing a hat, don’t shoot from the road, oh yes, buy a license, don’t shoot wolves, also no cows, track the wounded, don’t target practice on stop signs. Don’t shoot after dark; kinda odd instruction when you think about it, being enough people get shot in broad daylight. As for rules, that’s about it. There is a bit of legislative tinkering about not using machine guns, neither chain saws, or heat seeking missiles, despite field dressing is more rapid. That’s the whole shebang, avoid drinking while carrying a loaded cannon, but otherwise you’re good to go.

My family has rarely participated in the hunting thing; to be blunt, we were farmers with way too many more important things to do. My father did own a gun, a single shot Stevens rolling block used to knock over cows. Truth is, my father was jealous of the nine day deer season as just happened to coincide with the last best chance to pick corn occasioned by his hyperdyne Wood Brother’s single row. As went at the corn fields one row at a time in conjunction with an Allis Chalmers tractor, if my memory serves me, second gear half throttle. That tractor was our hunting equipment, painted in a bright, if not obscene orange. Those tractors are now called open stations, no cab, no windshield, no roof, no heater, nothing for preservation of the soul but what you can load on your back. A tractor spent at corn picking is the coldest damn place in the solar system except for Pluto, and they share the same orbit. We learned to drive tractor at an early age so we could in this last field campaign of the season do our share of riding that cold hearted Allis Chalmers. Deer season, a.k.a. holy week, didn’t have a prayer to liberate us.

The prospect of becoming hunters did not change much as we in time became farmers, inference being how the late autumn harvest meshes seamlessly with early winter chores. The corn combine does have a cab now, also a heater, a radio and six rows at a time, but the field is wider. As a potato farmer I discovered what a wonderful venue opened to the market when the bulk of my comrade farmers closed down their grading sheds for the duration of “holy week.” By the end of deer season my storage bins were empty and I was ready to put up for winter, all because I held court those nine holy days. I might add, at a slightly better price than had been the case the week previous.

As a land owner I notice how much more I am loved during hunting season than I am loved the rest of the year. I have more friends than I can otherwise account for in shared fondness of Guinness, Robert Burns, and telescopes. During deer season I have friends who stop by the farm, and those who don’t stop but wave as they go by. If we meet they extend their hand very warmly saying, remember me? “Class of…” “Live down the road from my cousin…” “bought his car at the same dealer…” “know my family…” as means by a natural logical deduction that he and his party have automatic permission to hunt. “’Cause we’re pals,” seems his cousin and my cousin went to the same school in Des Moines.

Truth is we are not pals. This exactly is my dismay with the rules of hunting, be it deer, upland, bow, trap grouse, pothole duck, rabbit, coyotes, coons, hounds, black powder…problem is they don’t start at rule number one. Yes, the brochure does suggest getting permission. I suggest the brochure is out of date; by my clock this is the 21st century. An acre of production land on the north end of nowhere sells in the neighborhood of 2,000 – 4,000 dollars per, if you can find a parcel never mind afford it. If the land is more toward the south end of nowhere the price doubles. As to commodity prices, they haven’t changed that much since they put a 283 V-8 into a two-tone ’55 Chevy. A new combine runs $200,000, tractors about the same, fuel, tires, fertilizer, don’t even mention health insurance. To be a farmer in the 21st century is to know first hand the sensory outlook of a threatened species. Yet it is this old matrix of the farm sector as yet holds the majority of natural lands; woods, marsh, wetland, these in some ardent if uneasy balance with production lands. Professionals call this intermediate stuff of agriculture, habitat. If there is an underlying social cause in the favor of family farms, it is that family farms honor, keep and tend this spectrum of lands: field, woods, marsh, hedgerow. The routine of the more industrial/corporate farm is to divert or convert non-ag lands to underwrite their economic efficiency. It is for the old-timey farms, the ones handed down generation by generation where the sincere attachment to the “non-tillable” is fervently rooted and remains yet. Keepers of wood and marsh, because they and their kind have always been of this wonderful old catechism. Perhaps they yet burn wood, mill some lumber, make furniture, perhaps they just whittle. Down deep they understand basic land health is in the multiplicity of forms, cover and species. It is aquifer and re-charge, it is wind modulation and planetary cooling, it is disease control, insect barrier, it is a fair and honorable distance from your neighbor, besides it is pretty to look at. In most areas of this nation these woods have become more valuable real estate than the production fields, the hyperventilating desire of developers and down-state hunters alike. With some real sacrifice the farm sector is saving this complex of land and its connotations, preserving it from that final diminution. Often it is only the generations held honor of the farm family that prevent it from enjoying a profitable sale of these parcels. In that eventuality the loss of another piece in the matrix of the natural world.

As brings me to Rule Number One, the first rule of hunting, it has nothing to do with permission as much as commission. What I am going to say will insult some, for that I am sorry. Truth is rule number one has been ignored too long, it’s time for the burden of keeping be shared. The modern hunter whether individual or group owes the farm sector more than a nice hello and the word please. Simply put, what is required is sweat equity. The first rule of hunting begins in August when the oat straw needs baling and putting by in the haymow. The first rule is to show up at an opportune moment, with work gloves. Then there’s a fence to mend, the far side of the barn needs paint, which they sell at moderate price in five gallon buckets at Fleet Farm. To the list add; planting trees, washing tractors, a roof needs shingles, change oil, fix fence, repair some windows, the field truck needs turn signals. And as to the potato harvest…my farm raises potatoes, sweet corn, snap beans, field corn, oats, wheat, soybeans. There are times when I don’t want company and most certainly not incompetent company, but there are times when another hand even if dim-witted would be apostolic. I don’t care if it is left-hand and all thumbs, if it is but willing.

First rule of hunting: participate. Not in the guns and cartridges, not in the deer truck, the duck stamp or the non-lead shot, not in holy week, but participate in the land, in its tradition, its keeping, its survival. In the end you may well find yourself belonging to something beyond the hunt, instead becoming a member link in this stuff we call land.