Took a walk with the dog in the woods about three miles outside of town, where the snow had finally melted although the landscape still displayed the look of mid November, brown and gray and lifeless. About a mile and a half along a logging road we came upon a porcupine in a culvert feeding on one of the few shoots of new grass. This particularly individual showed absolutely no fear or concern that we were approaching, and only raised its head to gaze at me when I deliberately made noise and moved into its line of sight. By that time I had picked up the dog to prevent her from getting too close, for she had had an encounter with a porcupine several years ago after which I had had to yank a half dozen quills from her snout. Together we stared at the porcupine as it nonchalantly chewed the grass five feet away from us, for it had learned from experience that it possessed few enemies-including us- willing to brave its needles. At length we left it where we found it, and I marveled at what a slow, clumsy animal it was-slower and with poorer eyesight than an opossum I thought-but obviously adept at surviving in the harsh mountains.
As we were walking back we were passed by two men shouldering rifles, one of whom said “Out walking with your killer dog I see”…for people commonly misjudge Chelsee’s prowess because of her small size, not realizing that her terrier half easily outruns many breeds twice her height. I replied that she was a “great little dog” to which he began boasting that there was a least one coyote that would not bother us because “I killed it three weeks ago!” Apparently the two of them were on another coyote hunt, and when I remarked that coyotes had never bothered us, this particular fellow remarked a second time, with obvious pride, that he had shot one, as though to him the animals were the devil incarnate.Sometimes coyotes were hazardous to small dogs and chickens when people encroached on their living space and them on ours, but to deliberately hunt them down in their wild habitat bordered on sadism in my opinion. In my youth I too had shot my BB gun at birds and frogs and grasshoppers and felt no remorse, but I was as ignorant at the age of 15 as some men my present age remained,and I eventually had concluded that killing for ‘sport’ merely reflected a state of emotional and spiritual immaturity. During our five years of walking the dog and I had only encountered a single coyote, and that animal wisely had maintained a distance of fifty yards from us as it slowly retreated. Like most member of it’s species it had been more curious than threatening to us, and intelligent enough to be wary of humanity’s dangers. When the two men turned onto another trail and we parted ways, I was glad that they would not encounter the aforementioned porcupine, because I assumed that one of them would have gladly shot the hapless animal and called it fun, or fair game, or some other such nonsense.
By contrast, hunting for food rather than consuming a pen raised animal showed a respectful understanding of the natural ecology of the woods, and in that regard many local gun owners were far savvier about the real world than people isolated in metropolitan areas. As the federal government and corporations confiscated more and more power from individuals,those who "cling to guns " appeared wiser than many of those who feared them.
This is a Blue Spruce that my mother had planted some 19 years ago after using it as a Christmas tree. Although I lament killing any living thing, I have no particular attachment for this particular tree so Beth and I have agreed to do new landscaping.Where the tree had stood likely will be bird feeders and baths and flowers and grasses-maybe a fire pit-and whatever else we need to create a new sanctuary.
