“The land was not to blame. It was up to the individual to decide whether to live here or not…” Chingiz Aitmatov
Month: October 2018
Ever Closer
It’s coming … I have lost the mustache because it made me look deader than old. Using this pic:
The Hawk
Until last week he was the worst hawk I have ever owned, the worst hawk in the world, a complete malimprint, the only one i have ever owned save a crazy redtail in 1967. My first wife Bronwen Fullington reminded me of him when I told her of this one; she well remembered the time …
The Artist’s Son: for my Father
A version of this appeared in Anglers last year, but in a low- toned gentle version that made my Dad simply a sad nice guy. Fact is, Joe Bodio was not a sad nice guy. He was a passionate conflicted sometimes brilliant guy who first taught me to love his passions- fishing, hunting, art– and …
Kaa’s Hunting– Eli’s version
My step- grandson Eli turned 7 the other day, and I am gratified that he is becoming a proper “Rudyardite” (see Kipling;s own “The Jane[Austen]ites” for clarification). The Jungle Books are full of violence, predation, and even war (“Red Dog” ) but they give a child a chance to see that while evil and violence …
Big Snake
A bull or “gopher” snake crosses our road at sunset to deal with the plague of mice that resulted as we shut down the big pigeon loft. Or so I hope.
Is Felis concolor the Boojum?
“He had softly and suddenly vanished away For the snark WAS a Boojum you see…” In Memoriam: David Robinson Update: it WASN’T a Boojum.Investigation continues….
I still like Gyrs
And near Gyrs and hybrids of all kinds and Sakers– “Itilgas”– best. Unfortunately most of my hunting pics were swallowed by the computer, so these are rather domestic,but I hope to reclaim some when I switch over.
What Remains #2
Since my Parkinson’s I have been left with a very small collection of interesting guns. It is more a scholarly or utilitarian collection than a pretentious one. A few are on lifetime loan rather than owned. Together there are enough he I can shoot anything from bad people to delicious birds before I die. There …
Genealogy
My sister Karen was astonished when she took one of the popular genetic tests; things are not the way our parents told us! Instead of the typical Boston mixture of an Italian father and an Irish mother, as we’d always been told, things turned out to be a lot more complicated. To begin with, we …