Your perspective is refreshing…Nature is my sanctuary & one reason I live in the country (I’m a retired nature artist). Once I left city living, I came to realize going back would be a slow death for me. I admire your inner drive to check out the bird hunting solo. You’re an inspiration. I have a frustratingly poor sense of direction, even with gps, which I find slows me down a bit, but your experiences are very inspiring for me to push my own envelope. Thank you.
Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing. I am a retired superintendent and your remarks of the addictive, and destructive, aspects of our technological world upon our youth I have witnessed too often. Grateful my children were raised loving to hunt, fish , and cook. When life gets challenging they go to the woods, they go to the lake, they go to their recipe books and live happier lives. Thanks for a great start to my day!!!
I've also struck out on mountain quail so far this year! And New Mexico grouse. But it's still fun as hell and I have a 2 year old GSP that is even more eager than I am to get out.
Well written Holly. We hunt for meat as a bonus…the real thrill is being out in the bush with your senses alive. I love the thrill of hearing grouse clucking and scratching in the underbrush. Following moose or elk tracks and listening for the snap of a twig as they glide through the bush. Some years we get only a few birds other years we fill our freezers but the experience is what counts. We are geriatrics who can still put on a few miles in the bush but this year we were thrilled to have our great grandson help with our hunt. It was easier to have him help pull a moose out of the bush! It is a privilege to pass on knowledge of the outdoors. You have to hone all your senses to find not just game but mushrooms, berries,edible plants and fish. We are fortunate to hunt in northern BC where it is rare to even see signs of other hunters. Keep writing and hunting. It’s a base of sanity in a crazy world…
I resonate so strongly with this, and with the peace and pleasure that comes from being out in the nonhuman world -- in part because it's so restful to be away from the screaming dystopia, and in part because I need reminders of all the beautiful satisfying things that still exist and remain worth fighting for amidst all the noise and greed and exhaustion.
Strangely enough, we just came back from two completely blissful weeks in Buenos Aires, where I had one of the most intensely magical city experiences of my life -- it gave me a wonderfully refreshed sense of all the *human* things that I love (bookstores, exquisite architecture, staying out dancing all night, 2am philosophy in a crowded coffeeshop). Sometimes I forget that humans can create incredibly cool spaces and experiences as well as wretched ones, and I was really grateful for that taste. But boy, it would be HARD to feel that way if I was in it all the time and not just passing dreamily through once in a while, and I am so thrilled to be home in the woods and heading into the autumnal splendor of ducks, mushrooms, and baynuts-acorns-nettles-wild onions-olives-etc that flush the California landscape in fall...
Holly Thanks for this. I will share it with my family. You captured the intangible ROI we get out there and steeled my commitment to more hunting and less working (I am blessed with some choice there). Your comments about the ills of the world are perfectly said without fanning the flames of contentious debate; and that’s not easy! Well done and much appreciated
Being a hunter that lives in a big city I feel these extremes very intensely! It’s shocking the differences in my mental state between being in the woods and being in “civilization”.
This piece really resonates with me. I find it quite easy to shake all of that stuff off when I'm in the woods hunting (whether it be for mushrooms or game) and I wish others could do the same. I'm not one to run and hide away from everything, but short spells of purposeful removal from it all are necessary to retain my sanity and there's no better place to do that than in nature. Also... October morels!!!!!?
There is nothing like the great outdoors to provide a respite from day-to-day stresses and global chaos. Especially while hunting, the focus and attention required in the pursuit really give the mind a reprieve because you can’t be thinking about what’s going on at home and expect to bag a bird or take a buck. And bringing something home prolongs the reverie as one cleans, butchers and cooks one’s take…even if it's just mushrooms (what a find!).
I am a female hunter in my early 50s living in California and sometimes I think I am the only female hunter in the state (aside from my daughter who I raised to hunt with me). Thank you for sharing your stories and for making me feel a little less alone in my passion for all things hunting.
Nicely written, Holly - nature as refuge from our chaotic, manufactured dystopia - if only temporarily.
Your perspective is refreshing…Nature is my sanctuary & one reason I live in the country (I’m a retired nature artist). Once I left city living, I came to realize going back would be a slow death for me. I admire your inner drive to check out the bird hunting solo. You’re an inspiration. I have a frustratingly poor sense of direction, even with gps, which I find slows me down a bit, but your experiences are very inspiring for me to push my own envelope. Thank you.
Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing. I am a retired superintendent and your remarks of the addictive, and destructive, aspects of our technological world upon our youth I have witnessed too often. Grateful my children were raised loving to hunt, fish , and cook. When life gets challenging they go to the woods, they go to the lake, they go to their recipe books and live happier lives. Thanks for a great start to my day!!!
I've also struck out on mountain quail so far this year! And New Mexico grouse. But it's still fun as hell and I have a 2 year old GSP that is even more eager than I am to get out.
Well written Holly. We hunt for meat as a bonus…the real thrill is being out in the bush with your senses alive. I love the thrill of hearing grouse clucking and scratching in the underbrush. Following moose or elk tracks and listening for the snap of a twig as they glide through the bush. Some years we get only a few birds other years we fill our freezers but the experience is what counts. We are geriatrics who can still put on a few miles in the bush but this year we were thrilled to have our great grandson help with our hunt. It was easier to have him help pull a moose out of the bush! It is a privilege to pass on knowledge of the outdoors. You have to hone all your senses to find not just game but mushrooms, berries,edible plants and fish. We are fortunate to hunt in northern BC where it is rare to even see signs of other hunters. Keep writing and hunting. It’s a base of sanity in a crazy world…
I resonate so strongly with this, and with the peace and pleasure that comes from being out in the nonhuman world -- in part because it's so restful to be away from the screaming dystopia, and in part because I need reminders of all the beautiful satisfying things that still exist and remain worth fighting for amidst all the noise and greed and exhaustion.
Strangely enough, we just came back from two completely blissful weeks in Buenos Aires, where I had one of the most intensely magical city experiences of my life -- it gave me a wonderfully refreshed sense of all the *human* things that I love (bookstores, exquisite architecture, staying out dancing all night, 2am philosophy in a crowded coffeeshop). Sometimes I forget that humans can create incredibly cool spaces and experiences as well as wretched ones, and I was really grateful for that taste. But boy, it would be HARD to feel that way if I was in it all the time and not just passing dreamily through once in a while, and I am so thrilled to be home in the woods and heading into the autumnal splendor of ducks, mushrooms, and baynuts-acorns-nettles-wild onions-olives-etc that flush the California landscape in fall...
Holly Thanks for this. I will share it with my family. You captured the intangible ROI we get out there and steeled my commitment to more hunting and less working (I am blessed with some choice there). Your comments about the ills of the world are perfectly said without fanning the flames of contentious debate; and that’s not easy! Well done and much appreciated
Being a hunter that lives in a big city I feel these extremes very intensely! It’s shocking the differences in my mental state between being in the woods and being in “civilization”.
This piece really resonates with me. I find it quite easy to shake all of that stuff off when I'm in the woods hunting (whether it be for mushrooms or game) and I wish others could do the same. I'm not one to run and hide away from everything, but short spells of purposeful removal from it all are necessary to retain my sanity and there's no better place to do that than in nature. Also... October morels!!!!!?
There is nothing like the great outdoors to provide a respite from day-to-day stresses and global chaos. Especially while hunting, the focus and attention required in the pursuit really give the mind a reprieve because you can’t be thinking about what’s going on at home and expect to bag a bird or take a buck. And bringing something home prolongs the reverie as one cleans, butchers and cooks one’s take…even if it's just mushrooms (what a find!).
I am a female hunter in my early 50s living in California and sometimes I think I am the only female hunter in the state (aside from my daughter who I raised to hunt with me). Thank you for sharing your stories and for making me feel a little less alone in my passion for all things hunting.