Violent and Vile Vegans and Vegetarians

 Judgemental:

Adj, of or denoting an attitude in which judgments about other people's conduct are made.

Thesaurus entry:

condemnatory, self-righteous, censorious, pharisaic, critical

The critical question in an Omnivores Dilemma was, “What to eat?” It is not an easy question to answer and Pollan himself does not completely answer it. He follows up nicely in his next book, “In defense of Food” with some good answers. Pollan spent years of his life, researching thoroughly, writing brilliantly, and his best conclusion was a tentative, “eat food, mostly plants, not too much”. So how is it that novices with far less acumen than he feel justified in spouting off about how evil meat eaters are? Oh, can you tell? I just got accosted, again, by ANOTHER vegetarian. It begs all kinds of questions, some of which follow from the Omnivores Dilemma. What to eat? What to do about it? How to respond to inflammatory, personal attacks about dietary choices? And how does one address the judgmental among us, or attempt to correct for their behavior? And is it even possible if one wants to avoid hypocrisy? I want so desperately to judge the judgmental! But I just end up judging myself.

Let’s try and avoid that and start here with something that we can all agree on: everyone must eat something. Oh, wait, there are breatharians, so I guess we can’t ALL agree on that. But they are few in number (for obvious reasons) and they are not long for this world (for obvious reasons). Oooh, that was a little judgmental I think. So, let me reframe that. Let us assume for the time being that breatharianism is a valid position to take. But let us also consider that, as breatharians say, one must attain a high level of transformed consciousness in order to be nourished by light. Let us assume that most of us are not currently nor will we ever likely reach that level of spiritual exaltation.  There, was that nice enough? All my breatharian readers, be sure to comment.

Ok, so MOST OF US need to eat. But what else can we agree on? Perhaps we can agree that there are mountains of research and opinion on the question of what to eat from a health perspective, from an environmental perspective, political and ethical. There is so much out there that not even Michael Pollan himself can synthesize it all so can we all agree that not one of us reading this blog is a true expert on the issue? Can we all have a little humility around this subject? We can agree then, I hope, that if we all were willing to look at the available studies, that we would find there is little agreement among them. There are convincing arguments that animal protein is the problem (convincing to some, but not to those who don’t buy correlations as causation… Doh! There I go again!). Others argue fat is the problem (the lipid hypothesis).  There are arguments that grain is a problem (for the environment there can be little doubt, but for our health? Harder to be sure). I was recently alarmed to find out that rice, a grain I formally thought was safe, has arsenic in it. It becomes a concern when rice ingredients are concentrated into a processed food product (like the gluten free ones I buy for my kids all the time). Then just the other night I met a girl who reported, with fear in her eyes as she looked at the crackers on the table, that she was deathly allergic to rice. Geez, I said. I had no idea! Her example raises some interesting questions and underlines the fact that we just don't know everything there is to know about this. 

Meanwhile most of the health studies don’t control for the multitude of confounding factors, such as exercise, class, race, zip code. And few if any studies look at more than one set of criteria at a time (i.e. environmental health AND personal health). Look, this is not an easy thing to make a decision about! Can we agree on that?

Can we also agree—those of us who even care to look at such things—that our food supply is seriously messed up? Can we agree that there are too many fossil fuel inputs for our food, no matter what we eat? It takes too much fuel to get organic vegetables to market, because they are still grown in a capitalist, globalized world-system that prizes forms of efficiency (mono cropping, poor worker conditions) which ultimately are eating away at the planet. But I got news for you. An organic banana from Costa Rica gets to my belly with less fossil fuel debt than an apple grown 100 miles from here. Yeah, I know. Pretty amazing! It takes more gallons of water to get a CAFO cow to market than I use in a year of showering! (Lets just not joke about how often I shower! You KNOW what I am driving at!) But that doesn’t apply to a grass fed cow, much less one that is raised through rotational grazing that science can show is actually GOOD for the environment. But I digress. These are things that might inspire argument.

Instead of arguing can we agree that the choices that people make about food are deeply personal? Can we agree that no one deserves to have their choice berated? Can we agree that berating people about anything is an ineffective form of social change? Can we agree that to berate someone, about anything, is a form of domination, or as Pierre Bourdieu would say, “symbolic violence”? Uh Oh! I just came DANGEROUSLY close to accusing that vegan I heard from this morning of beating me up with her words! Boy this whole hypocrisy stuff is really challenging!

The final thing I hope that we can all agree on is that no matter which particular diet is better for your body, better for the environment, or better for your soul, worrying about our diet may not be the most important thing that we could all be focusing on right now. You might say we have bigger fish to fry. Oh, wait. That came out wrong! The point is, that if the mounting, interlocking and cascading problems of peak oil, peak soil, peak gas, peak fisheries, peak water (this, by the way, may be the biggest peak to surmount) and peak warming are as bad as even the most sanguine of scientists say they are, within the lifetime of everyone my age or younger, we are going to have to really do something about our food supply.

Nobody can actually claim beyond scrutiny that one form of eating is remarkably better for you than another. That is so long as we rule out highly fatty, highly sugary, highly salty, highly processed food. So long as we agree that food means something that grows in the ground or directly eats something that grows in the ground, then there isn’t much difference in the quality of life you will receive, so long as you don’t eat too much of it. I mean, there isn’t a known diet that reliably kills you at 35, while another known diet reliably lets you live to 100. We are arguing around the margins here. We are quibbling about a few years lived or lost, a few pounds gained or shed, and pretending that food is the thing that makes us happy. So why do we choose to argue about about these details?

Instead of arguing I would suggest that we focus on the the following. If you are a meat eater please be advised that we won’t be able to raise meat the way we do today for much longer (and I’m talking about corporate farmed CAFO type meat). The ecological system will not bear it. We raise meat the way we do by raising grain the way we do, and in only a little while longer now that practice will come to a dwindling halt as well. That means you, you carb hungry vegetarian. We cannot continue to grow most of our Nation’s tomatoes, strawberries and grapes (not to mention dozens of other fruits and veggies) in California and ship them all over the world and expect that system to work in perpetuity. California is headed for another dust bowl as we extract and export it’s soil as fast as we can, truck it away in the form of avocados using hydrocarbon fuels to far flung corners of the globe. Attention all vegans! Your food supply is in danger! Shit. I love avocados. What am I gonna do!? Can we all agree that avocados rule!?

Ok, so I might have to give up avocados, and bananas for that matter. But instead of arguing, can we all agree that what we need to be doing in this country is growing more local food? Can we agree that with only 2% of the population even knowing how to farm (and most of them are over 50) we need to train-up a whole generation-plowshare? We can all agree that we need more carrots, and broccoli, and artichokes, whether we eat meat or not. Can we not? And since I know that you ovo-lacto vegetarians want to eat omelets, and you vegans are going to need fertilizer for your beats and beans, can we agree that we are going to have to have a few chickens? A few rabbits? A few goats? And since we are going to have those (and horses for transportation if you are REALLY a doom-and-gloomer) can you ethical vegetarians lay off while we meat eaters make use of those animals at the end of their productive life? If food is in short supply then let's not let that stored solar power go to waste, ok? And besides, if it gets really bad, if we are totally dependent on each other at the local level, if there are no more trucks bringing cauliflower from California, if your tomatoes get tainted, if drought demolishes your daikons, if a poacher pillages your potatoes or vile, vegan, vagabonds villainously vanish your vittles… if you are hungry and have no other choices, I’ll save some elk jerky for you. Hey, at least it’s raw!

Antelope Run

It was the driest year on record in the great Southwest. Texas had mostly burned up that year, Governor Perry declaring a State of Emergency. New Mexico was not much better, only recently having put down the largest forest fire in State history, one that started in the game unit in which I would be hunting for elk in three short weeks. I pondered all this as I stood, positioned in the center of the Two Rivers Damn near Roswell. I was peeing like a school boy and counting the seconds it took the drops to splat against the rocks below. True, in this blistering heat the water and nitrogen would evaporate but the phosphorous and potassium should make their way to the hungry plants down there, if it ever rained again. I do what I can for nature.

I was standing there contemplating the drought because I had found a dead antelope that day. I thought about bringing a piece of him home and having somebody ask me, “did you kill it?” “No”, I would say, “at least not directly.” “Whatdaya mean by that?” they would say. And I would say, “well, not directly because I’ve been contributing to global warming all my life. Global warming causes more severe droughts. When I found this poor withered goat it was the worst drought on record, and I’m fairly certain he died of thirst. Actually, I guess we all killed him.”

And that would make a good introduction to when they asked me, “is it true what they say, that you won a foot race with an antelope?” “Won?” I’d say. “I couldn’t say I won it, but I run it.” And it’s true. At 42 years of age, having no special credentials that would make it likely—such as my own wildlife show or extreme sports special—I had the audacity to run a foot race with an antelope,  two antelope in fact. Considering the drought and how hard I made those antelope run that day, I might have inadvertently killed them too. But I never hit one with an arrow. That’s for sure. Here’s how it happened.

I had tracked the herd now for one very long, hot August day. I had followed them in circles. I would sneak up on them, they would bust me and run off to a place I had been busted by them an hour ago. I would sneak up on them again and the whole process would repeat. There was almost no place to hide out there. Even the rocks were small. The trees were non-existent. Spindly cholla cactus were often the best “cover” I had. No self-respecting cougar would even try what I was doing which is precisely why the antelope have fared so well over time. At last I came to a point where I had spent an hour behind the only juniper bush in that square mile, the only one big enough to hide a man at least. I had managed to get within 80 yards of the herd, about 40 yards too many. As I abandoned the bush in an effort to close the distance, dragging my body over rocks and cactus, I was once again spotted. At first I only inspired curiosity as a doe approached my bush to better evaluate the danger I posed. Proving once again that antelope are smarter than me, she was able to sneak up… on me! Thinking they would go to the South around the bush they instead came from the North. They passed within 10 yards of me. I think I could see the smirks on their faces.  I had once again lost my opportunity to draw and shoot.

But this time was different. They did not circle back to where I had previously hunted them. Despite my best efforts, I had driven the herd out of our usual playground and instead they were now heading toward the border of the public land I was constrained to hunt on. I was frustrated, hot, tired, smelly and utterly unable to stay hidden from these creatures. If they escaped to private land it may take me days to find another herd, if at all. My options were limited. While I stood still, wondering what an intelligent hunter would do, they were making their way to freedom. I stopped thinking and just followed them.

I tried to stay hidden by a hill for a short while but as I came out on the other side of the hill, there they were, already in a gallop and losing me quickly. I picked up speed trying to close the distance again. The main part of the herd was directly in front of me, running away. Just then two antelope came out from behind the hill, also following the herd. They were to my left, and only about 100 yards away. They were trotting until they saw me. Then they picked up speed. So I picked up speed too. By this time I was going at a pretty good jog myself. I was keeping pace with them. So they sped up some more. Oddly, our paths were converging now, as we all attempted to catch up with their herd which was hundreds of yards yet in front of us.

A bizarre notion crossed my mind as I thought back on the antelope behavior I had observed thus far. These antelope had not put the kind of distance between themselves and me that a deer, much less an elk would have done. They often ran less than a half mile, part way up the slope of the next hill to a place where they could keep an eye on me. I wasn’t much of a threat and I hadn’t yet succeeded in completely spooking the herd. Maybe antelope don’t like to run long distances. Maybe these antelope are tired and thirsty because I have been chasing them all day and they had not been near water (I had a gallon bottle on my back which was now almost empty). Maybe these two particular antelope were really tired, or lame. They were the stragglers after all. Maybe, just maybe, I can out run them. 

There was only one problem with my theory that I will now stop to explain. I am a 42 year old man. I am in pretty good shape if you compare me to your average American who works a desk job. That’s not much of a comparison. Although I enjoy hiking from time to time and even exercise now and again, I am not, and never have been, a runner. I twisted my back in the 7^th grade track-and-field long jump event. That led to a doctor’s excuse to stay out of PE for the remainder of my secondary education. I thought for many years that I was incapable of running and so never even tried. In this particular case I was wearing hiking boots, not running shoes. The terrain was level but rocky and rough. I was carrying about 20 pounds of gear on my back, plus carrying my seven pound bow in one hand. I had been carrying this bow all day. I would periodically switch arms to rest each shoulder but now both shoulders were sore and I had already put 7 miles on my feet in 100 degree weather. Obviously I was not constrained by a lack of belief in myself at that moment. I took off at a dead run.

Naturally, so did they. Turns out they weren’t lame, or particularly lazy. They had been bluffing, perhaps, but now they were looking like the tryouts for the antelope Olympics. So what. I ran harder. And each time I did, they matched and exceeded my speed. We were still converging toward the main herd. I could see their muscles flexing and rippling under their light coats of fur, dust kicking up under their feet, their true athleticism shining through. I sensed no fear in this contest on either our parts. It really felt like they just wanted to beat me, to show me who was king of the sage brush. And then it dawned on me. Oh, my, God! I am racing against antelope! I am now less than 100 feet from them even as we converge our trajectories and they pull ahead. Hunting was no longer in my mind, only an adolescent desire to beat them at their own game. I had traded my goal of killing and eating one of these beasts for the pleasure of sport alone. I had become a sportsman, but not in the crude sense of the word, the obfuscating, commercial attempt to whitewash the act of killing as a mere game we play, with animals as the only losers. But I was playing a different game. I was on a level playing field. If anything, they had the advantage. I was not about to take a running shot with my bow, and at some level they knew that, because they never diverged from our converging path. They knew they could beat me if they just poured on a little more steam, something they appeared to have in abundant reserve.

And so they did. After a few more minutes I relented, but not before the stragglers had rejoined the herd and the herd had shifted course away from the property boundary. I can’t take credit for their shift but I wonder if they hadn’t decided that this was fun and that they wanted to keep competing against me. Perhaps they hoped I would keep chasing them. The herd turned to the North and slowed down to a walk some 500 feet in front of me. I crossed their path behind them at a breathless walk, circling to the West. They veered North East. I continued to pressure them until they had taken a wide circle, more than a mile long, that led them all the way back to the fence, just a short distance from where I had first encountered them. Now they were out in the flat open, and I knew they would never let me closer if I tried tonight. The sun was waning and I decided to stop hunting for the day and see what morning would bring. “See you tomorrow” I called out, and imagined the Wiley Coyote punching his time card at the end of a hard day of blowing himself up.

My heels were raw, blisters popped, and no amount of moleskin and band-aids would fix it. Nonetheless I persisted. I hunted through the next morning, chasing the same group who had patiently waited for me to show up and punch my time clock. I got within 100 yards of them several times but now they were getting spooked. By noon I had lost their trail and I abandoned my hunt all together. Going home empty handed again, I moaned. But upon further reflection it was clear that I was not empty handed at all. I asked myself, “How many people do you know that have run a foot race with any wild animal, much less an antelope?” None, I thought. Not a one. I’m sure I’m not the only person to ever do it, or the only American or the only middle-class, white man (well, maybe the only middle-class, white, American anthropologist). But it was a rare thing indeed. I didn’t have a trophy to hang on my wall, to prove that I had bested a beast in an unfair fight, but I had something much more valuable; another great hunting story to tell.

Date line 2030

As is well known, peak oil was declared to have occurred somewhere between 2006 and 2010. By 2013 spot shortages were common, by 2015, major disruptions began to ratchet up. Due to the extreme volatility of fuel prices during this period, however, when finances allowed, consumers in every major industrial country were still buying cars. Short sighted planning and oil industry propaganda about new petroleum developments that never bore out, resulted in periods of low gas prices and frenzies of car buying. Now of course, the streets are littered with abandoned cars.

Some analysts say that where we went wrong was when the European Union and the Obama administration finally agreed in 2013 to outlaw all biofuels. The oil industry campaign and their unwitting allies in the “environmental” movement had finally broken the soy and corn lobbies control over Washington energy policy and convinced the world that ANY use of a biofuel was tantamount to murder. Even bootleggers and moonshiners making fryer grease fuel, and backyard 99 proof gasohol were rounded up and imprisoned. Joshua Tickell, the biofuel activist, died during a prison hunger strike in early 2014, just as the first fuel shortages were tearing holes in the economy.

Shortly thereafter the fuel was rationed and a portion was reserved for emergency services only. It is my unfortunate duty today to report that the last gallon of fuel allocated for these purposes was pumped into an ambulance last week. Now municipalities all over the nation have declared that the remaining fuel is simply too expensive to buy for any purpose at all. President Chevron is trying to mandate purchasing it and demanding that cities issue even more bonds to cover the cost. City leaders respond that there is no one left (but oil executives) to buy the bonds and are standing fast against it. Congress is solidly against President Chevron and vice president Rockefeller and their administration’s broken promises.

A few cities can boast that they have small fleets of rickshaw ambulance services, but with food shortages being what they are, few people have the energy to run anyone to the hospital and their range is obviously limited. Horses are being used by police and horse drawn wagon fire brigades are being spotted again in some places like Portland. However, in the desert Southwest, where global warming has had some of the most extreme effects and water is scarce, there is not enough forage for the police horses, so bicycles are the preferred method. Parts for these, however, are getting harder to come by as they can only be salvaged from bikes already in the area.

China, on the other hand, ignored the international community as they were wont to do, and began in earnest an algae biodiesel research program in 2007. By 2015 they were in full production and chose to close their borders rather than share their secrets with the “ungrateful and imperialist west,” as their minister of energy (later to become the prime minister) said in 2016. Reports out of China are rare but some report that 21^st Century China looks a lot like 20^th century America. Others scarcely believe it.

Critics say that we needed the last of the cheap fossil fuels to make the transition and now, of course, it is too late. Some people’s greatest fear is that the Chinese, having completely bested the rest of the world, will exercise imperialist notions of their own. Some wish they would because it would be better than watching children die of malnutrition or infections that would have been easily treated only two short decades ago.

Nonetheless, there are reports of an underground resistance movement called the Biodieselistas that plans on overthrowing President Chevron. Armored vehicles formerly thought to be defunct have mysteriously disappeared from disheveled army bases. It is rumored that the resistance has well placed allies within congress. Leaflets have been circulated (on recycled paper of course) that warn of an impending upheaval leading to a better way of life. The typical story goes that the resistance has been painstakingly cultivating algae in disused swimming pools in out of the way places. They squeeze the dried algae with primitive tools turning the oils into biodiesel and the cellulose into ethanol and methanol using contraband stills. Others claim that they are disrespecting the dead, raiding mass graves which are of course ubiquitous, and turning their very bodies into fuel for their stolen war machines.

I for one hope the rumors are true and I don’t care how they make their fuel. For that matter I hope the Chinese invade. Perhaps they are in league with the resistance. Perhaps the resistance is our only hope against the Chinese. In any case, something has to change and change soon. VIVA LA RESISTIANCE!

Sorry about the angle :)

Elk People

I was in an old ground blind made of gray, dead wood. I had built the blind up higher to give me extra cover, enough to hold my bow vertical without my arms showing. I worried that the slight change in scenery would be detected by the wildlife. Not so it seems. The blind was situated about 15 yards from the nearest corner of a square constructed pond. The opposite corner was easily 100 yards away. I figured my effective bow range for about 40 yards. I had arrived early, by most people’s standards, hiking in about a mile and a quarter at around 3:30pm. It gave me plenty of time to scope the place out and build the blind up. There was also plenty of time to get bored and discouraged. I’d only seen elk in the wild a few times before. The previous day, when I spooked a cow elk out of her bed was the first time I had seen an elk whilst holding a weapon and a license to kill it. So my expectations (after 4 consecutive seasons of fruitless elk hunting) were low. Boredom was easy.

Several hunters approached the pond on ATVs and before they saw me wave, had plenty of time to plan out where they were going to sit, talking and pointing this way and that. Eventually I got their attention (good, I thought. The camo is working). Then they just disappeared. I got everything as ready as I could; rehearsed scenarios of various kinds. What if the elk enter through this gate? Or that one? How much can I turn my body without being noticed? I sorted out my best arrows, knocked one and left the number two arrow within easy reach. I donned my ghillie suit , something I had rarely felt necessary.

I waited. I conducted small scale warfare against the carpenter ants who competed for my space among the dead wood. At about 10 minutes to seven, 40 minutes before the sun officially set, I looked up on the opposite bank of the pond and was surprised to see a man, older but fit, wearing civilian clothing. He too seemed oblivious to my presence (or to the fact that it was hunting season). He was watching the sun set, apparently. Hopefully he was not waiting to see elk. Hopefully he was not a representative of PETA. He was positioned so that if the elk had entered from my left, I would not be able to shoot at them safely because an errant arrow could kill the innocent bystander. Just as I was about to lose patience with him and stand up to ask him to leave, he rose and padded off as quietly as he had come in. Luckily he walked to the East. A few minutes later the elk walked in from the West.

There were 6 or 7. My adrenaline was pumping too hard to count. At first it was all cows, then two calves. They stood outside the fence which formed the Western opening to the watering hole area. They sniffed the air cautiously. My surprise at seeing them would not have been greater if Cernunos himself had walked by. I had been waiting for them of course, but my expectations were so miserably low that actually seeing them hadn’t entered into my imagination in any concrete way. Oh my god, I thought, there they are. Right on cue, I realized as I looked down at the clock on my GPS. Twenty minutes before sunset, the end of legal shooting time. Twenty minutes for one of them to move into position, if I were to be so lucky. The wind, which had been shifting some, was luckily blowing in from the Northwest, the perfect angle. As it had been to the men who had come before, my concealment seemed to be 100 percent effective. After a moment the cows walked in through the gate in a loose huddle. The lead cow, darker and older most likely, stopped again to sniff the air. The others waited for her approval. They relaxed and ambled toward the water. I expected, that like cattle, they would stop and drink from the water’s edge. Instead they jumped in as if it were a backyard swimming pool and they were a hot tired family on a Saturday. They seemed to be really enjoying themselves, scooping up mouthfuls of water and swimming about playfully.

The pond was deeper than I thought, too deep for the calves for sure. There were two elk I had my eye on. The older one got out of the pond and walked into the meadow directly to the West. She grazed casually at about 46 yards. My range finder shook so badly in my hand that I wasn’t sure I could trust the readings. I could barely make them out anyway. My heart was pounding. The physiological excitement felt totally unnatural, as it was so much greater than anything I had experienced in memory. My heart was out of control, louder to me than any other sounds. I breathed with my diaphragm. No effect. I tried again. Ok, a little bit this time.

The other elk was about 40 yards away, but she was almost completely submerged in the water. She quartered forward but wouldn’t give me a safe shot. She was still on the other side of the pond when I heard her talk. It was the first time I had heard a cow talk. And that’s truly what it is too, talking. I suddenly understood why some Native Americans had called them the Elk People. Sentient beings that I was about to kill. She made several different utterances directed at one of the calves. I felt like I could understand her. She was saying, come here, now, do what I tell you youngling, don’t worry, it’s safe. No its not, I thought.

After long minutes she moved without determination toward my edge of the pond. With shaky hands I now ranged her at 36 yards. She was still in the water but now her vitals were showing. She turned this way and that, then stood still at a perfect broadside, 35 yards. If my shot was a pass-through I’d lose my arrow in the water. So what, I thought. I didn’t want to have to pull her body out of the stinking pond though. More of a concern was the calf who was romping and playing in the water just beyond her. It moved off and left an open shot.

I raised my bow, pulled back without a sound, set my 35 yard pin on her. Surprisingly my bow arm was still, rock solid. My head was cloudy. I was barely conscious. I breathed again. Ok, a little better now. I rolled my eyes skyward and asked myself, do I really want to do this? All my training, all my disappointment, and now it seemed too easy. Everything, every last detail had come together and I was at that critical moment, to take a life, a precious life. I didn’t let myself think beyond that. In fact, I stopped thinking at all. My right hand just let go, on automatic, as if I were shooting on the target range. I had aimed but somehow the act was not as deliberate as I had always imagined. My mind was blank. So blank that I think I missed a few seconds. I remember the sound of the bow snap, but my brain couldn’t record any more information immediately after that instant. I didn’t see the arrow fly or strike. The next thing I remember, all the elk were moving away from me, as if one of them had issued a rallying call. Water splashing, hooves pounding, all moving in slow motion. At first I couldn’t see the arrow. Then the blood oozing out of her side made clear where it had gone. It was still in her, and not very deep. It was too high, a possible shoulder blade shot. Shit. I forgot to calculate the difference in altitude. She was at least 15 feet lower in elevation at only 35 yards. I should have used my 30 pin.

The elk gathered high on the opposite bank forming a circle of protection just in front of the gate. They were all quiet, each one looking in a different direction. One stood very close to the wounded cow. Her guard licked her wound for her. She presented a wall between the wounded one and I. I had already knocked my other arrow, but they ranged at 96 yards. My highest sight pin is 50. They were bunched together, and based on the lousy penetration I got with my first broad head, I was afraid all I would do was spill more imperfect blood. All the ground between my blind and the elk was completely open. No cover. They were now keenly alert. There was no way. I had to wait.

The wounded elk held her right front leg up. She didn’t want to walk at first. She stood there for a long time while the other elk guarded her. Eventually she tried to walk, in tight woozy circles. Just at about sundown, the bull that claimed this harem showed up. He never came inside the fence, not that I would have shot at him anyway. After a soundless consultation the herd slowly moved back out the gate and gently moved away to the south toward Mt Taylor with the wounded cow in the lead. The Bull took up the rear. I lost sight of them in the trees before they were 50 yards from the gate.

It was moments before dark. If I moved I risked spooking the herd into a run. If I waited I would lose the blood trail in the dark. I opted to move, looking ahead with binoculars, carefully trying not to alarm the now invisible herd any further. I found the blood trail but lost it almost immediately. This only added to my anxiety that she was not too badly hurt. She will likely live, I thought, suffer most likely. If my arrow did take her it would be a slow painful death from infection. This was not what I wanted. I would lose the meat and make this regal, sentient being suffer.

I wasn’t sure what to do. To blindly follow a blood trail that wasn’t long enough to establish a trajectory in the dark was sure to spook the unwounded animals. To quit and wait till morning would mean I would still likely never find the animal, and if I did it might be too late to save the meat. The thought that won me over was the fantasy that she might return to the scene of the crime the next morning. I was thinking like a criminal. My guilt was making my decisions for me. I headed back to camp with the intention to call friends to help me find her. I would return before sunrise the next morning and do my best to reestablish the blood trail. I was broken hearted, but not as much as she. As I slowly returned to my conscious self my guilt grew deeper. By the time I got to camp I was ready to pray and make amends to gods that I did not formerly believe in. Cernunos, I prayed, please make a swift end to the elk, the mother of calves now orphaned. Let her suffering be light, and free her mind (yes, her mind, she could talk after all) of fear. Let her calf be cared for and let someone, anyone, feast on her body that her death may not be in vain.

To the extent that I could verify it, most of my prayers were answered. My penance was that my family would not eat elk this winter. Another hunter’s family would. All that I found was a gut bag, all bones and meat carefully removed. I found it around 11 the next morning. The guts did not yet smell foul, though the vultures and crows had led me to her. I may have missed the hunters by as little as an hour. My arrow was nowhere to be seen. However the blood trail that I had reestablished had led me right to this spot. It’s possible that the hunters had seen her the previous night heading away from my torment. If they had been properly hidden, they could have downed her with a second well placed arrow (still an illegal shot as it would have had to have happened after sunset). More likely, I realized later as I thought through more of the details, my arrow had killed her. It had likely missed or perhaps broken past the shoulder blade. It was at a sufficiently obtuse angle, pointing downward from the point of impact, that it could have punctured her lung opposite the entry point. The blood trail ran steady every few feet for 300 yards before it had petered out. She only made it a half mile before she lay down to die. The hunters, more likely, came upon her early in the morning before light. Most certainly an unethical thing to do, but at least the meat didn’t go to waste.

The next weekend I returned for one last chance to fill my tag, convinced by this time that my elk had been removed from the National Forest with another hunter’s tag in her ear. But before I went I touched base with family and friends as I would be alone and out of cell phone range for several days. So when I called my vegetarian brother in California, he wished that I would have a good time, but he also hoped I wouldn't kill anything. I didn't want to argue with him about it so I just politely got off the phone. I tried to let it go but it nagged at me for the next day. Walking all over, seeing no elk sign, nothing but time to think, I gradually returned to myself and remembered why I do this. Another vegetarian friend had, not too long ago, spit her venom at me about my hunting, judgmentally claiming the moral high ground for sparing animals' suffering. Then I remembered the white tail deer of Iowa; the ones that are gut-shot by farmers every year so that they will stop eating the corn, go off in the woods and die a slow painful death where they won't stink up the fields (Richard Manning). And how about the millions of rabbits and field mice who are unceremoniously chopped up by wheat combines all over this country each fall (Michael Polan)? And how about the millions of acres of habitat that have been thoughtlessly stolen from the wildlife in this country... millions of acres stolen, bloodied with the bodies of gut-shot deer, antelope, rabbits, field mice and god knows what else, all so that the majority of 27 million vegetarian Americans can drive their gasoline powered cars to the supermarket and claim the moral high ground. Ah, yes, that's why I hunt. Because I refuse to lie to myself about where my food comes from (and where my fuel comes from for that matter), and I am therefore compelled to do the best I can to fill my children's bellies with honest meat, fruits and vegetables. I then remembered the priests of old, who slaughtered animals with reverence. They were connected to the food they eat, they knew it personally, and they took responsibility for the never ending cycle of life and death. When they plunged the knife in, they did not do it with malice. They did it with the grim acceptance that they are part of the cycle of life, not above it. They were filled with gratitude and no small amount of compassion for the animal. They were not alienated from the source of their nourishment, their source of life, and therefore they were truly alive.

Deer hunt 2009

SO I just returned from my deer hunt, unsuccessful as usual. Still, after 4 decent tries (one of them aborted) I have yet to bring down big game. On three of the four I saw not one of my prey. This hunt was a return to the one area I really thought had potential because its the one area I really have seen a lot of deer. (My hunt buddy and I were pleased to hear that others have recently sighted antelope and oryx there as well! We, however, appear to be an allergen to all cloven hoofed animals).

What am I doing wrong?!? Did I not pray hard enough to the horned God Cernunos? Did I forget to wipe? Perhaps it was the fault of Burritos Al Instante and its deleterious effect on my digestive system? Am I a lot more noisy than I thought? Too many hours in front of guitar amp speakers I'd wager.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not completely discouraged and I am already looking forward to applying to the next set of hunts. In fact, I had a lot of fun on this trip, courtesy of my new hunt buddy, who turns out to be one funny dude (see photo). Laughter is hard to contain in a ground blind but we managed. I laughed more this trip than I had laughed in months. Still their were hardships as one might expect from a 6600 ft elevation hunt in early January.

It wasn't the coldest night I'd ever spent, but the fact that there were not one, but two nights of appendage freezing conditions made up for the relatively balmy 24 degrees Fahrenheit in my tent. Yes. that's right, I said tent, not camper, RV, camper shell, fire-fed tee-pee or pop-up anything. Hunt buddy and I slept in a tent rated down to, I estimate, 50 degrees at the coldest. The design of this tent is appropriate for only one thing, star gazing on a summer's night. The rain-fly was an afterthought. We even modified ours with a tarp over top to try and hold in a little more of the heat. More of the heat? WHAT HEAT!?! The first night the wind picked up in bursts that took our tarp on a wild and noisy ride for hours on end. And we know because we were awake for every last shuddering flap. Many times in the night our paranoia got the better of us and we seriously considered that there might be an agitated bear, a hungry cougar or even a sizable mob of angry peasants with pitchforks and torches threatening to tear down our makeshift summer shelter and rend us from our bones. Alas it was only the bone chilling wind, thoroughly venting our nylon cave with a windchill of Cernunos knows what and making us long for the comforts of our fire places and families of four.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep a lot that first night. But we dutifully drug our frozen carcases out of our popsicle sleeping bags at 5:30 sharp, forgoing coffee for fear of missing an early rising deer, so that we could finish the frost-bite of our toes sitting in an east facing ground blind over looking the only watering hole for more than a mile radius.

No one came. No one with four legs that is. Several parties of road hunters passed by and thoroughly destroyed our already dim chances of sighting a deer. That was our first awkward lesson. During the opening days of the season, it's best to get off the road, even if you have seen deer at that incredibly convenient location. They are likely offended by the wafts of diesel, gasoline and possibly even biodiesel. By our third day we had finally learned our lesson, forsaking that formerly glorious blind for a nearby saddle and the less accessible rolling hills of pinion and juniper west of the water hole. Yet our four mile plus day in the hills was cursed further by a cold, hard wind preceding a storm system churning further West. The deer, if there were any, were in deep cover and not likely to answer the orders of Cernunos and show up for the slaughter.

When I was once describing my weapon of choice, the bow, someone asked me rhetorically, "and what weapons do the deer have?" Apart from sharp pointy things on their heads with which they could choose to run a man through (but don't really, as flight is much more a part of their personality make up than fight) they have the most remarkable defensive weapons. How, in such open country with hundred mile vistas they remain hidden from our prying eyes, enhanced with the magnifying power of binoculars, is a skill that forces reluctant respect, reminded all the more of it by sore feet and glutes. They say the more you hunt something the more you respect it, and it always seemed like such a load of rationalizing hunter romanticism that it was easy to dismiss until you experienced it. Yeah, I do respect an eight hundred pound, seven foot long oaf who can stay one step ahead of me regardless of how doggedly I track him, avoid my ambush and live to see another hunting season, adding point after point to his rack, like marks on a bedpost. When he finally does fall to the ambitious archers arrow, it's only because he was drunk off his own hormones, raging in response to the estrus that promotes the continuation of his species.

Pray Cernunos that I might one day be that ambitious archer, poised and ready to feed his family for the better part of the year. Pray, and pray, but it will have to wait for another day.

A level III future

Last year I wrote a piece that I called “Ten probable futures.” At that time I wrote: “My reading of anthropology and history leads me to disbelieve in a teleological view of life on earth. We are not all headed toward a particular, universally positive goal. If we were then why are we are all so visibly running is so many different directions? The thrust of history, if we ignore for the moment most theology, does not take us to heaven on earth. Nor does it take us to hell. I believe that, a level ten disaster notwithstanding (a disaster completely out of our control such as being hit by an asteroid), we have the choice of whether or not to make our world a better place. The current tendency, however, is clearly toward self destruction, and as the evidence builds it becomes harder and harder to believe that that destruction will wait for a future generation…”
Although it was meant as an awareness raising piece and a critique of teleological thinking, it was not a completely gloomy picture. I still, nearly a year later, believe that it might not be too late for us to achieve what I termed a level III future, what David Korten and others have called the Great Turning and the transition town concept and our meetings have renewed that hope. Having recently been introduced to the idea of Transistion Towns I am now working to reframe my earlier work. So as a participant with this transition town effort I submit my vision of the future to the discussion. For me that means a level III.
This is how I described it a year ago: “A prosperous way down,” The title of the Odums’ book from 1999. Things deteriorate very slowly. Like a mild long term recession that we hardly notice, in this scenario the world makes a soft landing. Though we start to run out of resources, we realize it in time and embrace policies and behaviors that ensure a new world rises from the ashes of the old, though at a lower intensity and with necessary downshift in our standard of living.”

I think I can flesh that out a little now. Perhaps it raises more questions than answers. I tried to emphasize the soft landing and it required a leap of faith that things will turn out better than I currently think they will. But anything is possible and it provides something to work for. Anyway, it was fun to write. Here’s my “letter from the future”.

It’s been 40 years now since the great crash of 08, long enough that many people working on the farm here don’t remember it. We sit around at night regaling them with stories about how things used to be. We conserve light bulbs now because they are expensive, but bees wax candles are fairly ubiquitous so our evening entertainment is lighted, courtesy of the bees. Our own honey operation took off with great gusto once the supply of sugar from Central and South America became rationed. The producing countries that weren’t torn apart by civil war were busy turning their sugar cane into ethanol for their cars. It worked for a while giving them a tremendous economic advantage and avoiding war for a while longer, but as the land degraded and the yields went down most of those fields were abandoned. Domestic honey became increasingly valuable as a result. Consequently, the bees needed more things to pollinate, so the provisional Government of the new country of New Mexico commenced a seed and fruit tree distribution effort and outlawed a number of formerly destructive practices. Acreage devoted to mixed use orchards were increased and raising cattle was greatly reduced (and were required to practice rotational grazing). Horses were limited to those that were necessary for transportation or beasts of burden. A few had to be put down, and their owners were heart broken, but their husbandry skills were so badly needed that most of them reintegrated well enough. In any case we ended up with a net increase of horses, donkeys, goats, oxen and a decrease in cattle.

Yeah, the young people have a hard time believing some of the stories we tell them. They’ve always known a world where crime rates were low because people desperate enough to steal had a hard time getting around without get-away vehicles and no where to hide. School classrooms have always been small, food has always been natural, they have never seen a cheeto or a twinky, they all ride horses and burros and they all enjoy fresh air. I'm sure to tell them that this was no accident. If it hadn't been for those folks who started working in 2008 to make Santa Fe, Albuquerque and other places into Transition Towns, then we could have ended up like Phoenix or Philladelphia. They find the concept of air conditioning to be particularly fascinating. Why, they ask, did people need to spend so much of their energy back then to keep cool, even when the average temperature was about five degrees cooler? We try and explain that houses were made of artificial materials and were not designed to keep warm and cool on their own. This baffles them completely because there hasn’t been a building like that built in 25 years. Most of the old ones were torn down for their parts or fell down from lack of use. During the downturn no one could afford to live in a house that couldn’t heat and cool itself.

We do have to take special precautions on account of the heat most summers. Some of our crops have been hybridized to withstand it, but shade cloth is still a precious commodity. The good news, according to the latest report from the scientific counsel of the Confederated Nations of North America (formerly the Academy of Sciences, U.S.A), is that we might have turned the corner on the warming. Turns out the Greater Depression came along just in time. It was easy in those first 8 years for the Obama administration to capitalize on the reduction of use of fossil fuels. The hard part was keeping the nation together. When it became impossible for the representatives of the outlying states (ours being one of them) to travel to Washington several times a year, congress was abandoned and the Confederation was born.

That transition was a lot easier than anyone feared. There were few riots. By 2012 and Obama’s reelection, people had already downshifted their lifestyles considerably. Every other house in the city had a “hope garden.” Cars were still common but unfashionable and people looked at you askance if you took an unnecessary trip in one. So “local” had become practical out of necessity and when congress dissolved and the constitutional congresses of the new confederation took place simultaneously across the nation (sorry, still call it that sometimes) nobody was really surprised and everyone participated without complaint.

The confederation still maintains a defense force at great expense and with great controversy, mostly because the young people who make up the force are needed back at home to plant and harvest, but also because no major conflicts involving the confederation have broken out since its formation. There was a scandal in 2020 when aid was surreptitiously given to one side in the conflict in Guatelateca (formerly Guatemala). Some of the old guard hadn’t gotten used to the idea that the U.S.A. was no longer around, much less pursuing manifest destiny. As a result, the funding for the defense force was reduced to one twentieth its former peak (around 2010) as each of the Nations in the confederation simply withdrew their funding one by one.

But I didn’t sit down to write a history of the great turning. I really just wanted to reflect on how far we’ve come since we started our little farm serendipitously 45 years ago. My son and his wife run the place now. I’m the grumpy and quixotic father-in-law as I butt into their business. I end up telling them how I would have done things back in the day and somehow forgetting that there are not still enough fossil fuels to spare to do it the old ways. He’s right anyways. When I suggest that we use our last five gallons of biodiesel of the season to run the old tractor, I’m mostly just thinking about my arthritis and how I don’t want to dig that hole for a tree by hand. He reminds me that rubber parts for the tractors are in short supply this year so we’re better off using our muscles than using an irreplaceable tractor. I’m not trying to bring back the past, it’s just hard to leave it all behind. I mean, it was real to me, even if Bruce doesn’t remember watching non-stop TV until he was four.

We sure had it easy back then. It’s weird to think about it. It keeps me up at nights as I think about ways to try and explain to Juniper’s children (my grandkids) how sorry I am that their life is so hard. They just laugh at me because to them it’s not hard at all. They were born into it and to them it’s no big deal to be seven and to have to work four hours a day on planting or canning or fence mending, still make time for studies and not be able to “veg out” in front of the TV and one of my old DVDs. Sorry kids, our 5o year old solar panels didn’t eek out enough energy today. You’ll have to just read a book instead. Perhaps they are the lucky ones but I still feel guilty. I started my own turning sooner than most but I still wish I could have started sooner. Juniper tells me I’m being too hard on myself but I’m not sure she really understands how much of the earth’s endowment of energy, top soil and iron ore I personally wasted!

My second wife is the one who has perspective. Just the other night when we had a big party to celebrate our silver anniversary, and her heroic, cross country trip to meet me for the first time after the fall of Los Angeles. She caught me whining about this and she took me aside and gently reminded me of how bad things could have been. The children never starved, though they may have been hungry on occasion. The nation didn’t descend into chaos, it just broke up in an organic fashion, like so much decomposing leaf cover. Although there has been war in other countries, most of the world shifted to a lower level of intensity without much trouble. So many of them were living at lower levels anyway that much of what followed seemed like an improvement to them. In fact, it is really my privilege-the privilege I enjoyed by living at the center of the worlds greatest empire-that distorts my perspective. Our farm became one node in a network of similar efforts across the bioregion that provided education and sustenance for hundreds of former engineers and MBA holders who are now mostly great farmers. We set out to provide a safe place for our children to grow up and we got a place that was safer than we could have imagined. Our communities are loosely knitted together by the realization that we all depend deeply on one another’s success. Though we have our differences, they are at least different differences. No one begrudges another the purchase of any thing shiny and new because there are very few shiny new things to purchase; there is no keeping up with the Joneses. Instead we struggle to figure out ways to pay back the Joneses for their generosity. Besides, we still have the internet, though most of the miracles of technology failed to stand the test of time, my blog is still going strong. Happy new year everyone!