No wonder people are mad.
Fifteen years ago the recovery goal for gray wolves in the greater Yellowstone area was 300 wolves in three states.
Today there are nearly 1,500 wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho yet the critters still aren’t considered recovered enough to hunt.
A reporter friend of mine who has written about the reintroduction of wolves since its inception, says the feds keep moving the goalposts.
Montana’s first public wolf hunt was to begin this year before a federal judge pulled the plug pending resolution of a lawsuit by a coalition of environmental groups.
Now those same groups, who have enjoyed the anonymity of simply being called environmentalists, are refusing to fund a program that compensates ranchers for livestock killed by wolves. And the Livestock Loss Reduction and Mitigation Program, which is attached to the State Department of Livestock, is running out of money. Paying for the 91 sheep killed by wolves near Dillon will reduce the remaining funds by nearly half.
But times are tough on environmental groups, too. Wine and cheese fundraisers cost more to put on than they used to and the fewer dollars coming in sure aren’t going to pay for some redneck rancher’s slaughtered livestock.
The estimated 1,455 wolves that roam portions of the three states, however, are eating well. In 2007, wolves killed 183 cattle, 213 sheep, 14 goats and llamas and 10 dogs. So far this year a registered quarterhorse was killed near Kalispell and a border collie was killed north of Helena.
And that’s just livestock. No one’s keeping track of the wild game gobbled up by wolves except hunters who have seen elk hunting around Yellowstone National Park change dramatically following the introduction of the gray wolf.
But that’s apparently OK. Elk and deer, not livestock, were the intended fodder and remain so today.
“To ensure the survival of wolves, these magnificent animals need to expand their range throughout the western states,” says John Marvel of the Western Watersheds Project. “There are many public lands across the West with abundant deer and elk populations that can and should sustain wolves.”
And if they don’t, there’s always livestock to eat.
Here are the groups no longer putting their money where their mouths are that have sued to stop the wolf hunt: Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project and Wildlands Project.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
There's enough old farts in town
I’ve reached an age where it appears I’d be better off living somewhere else.
For decades now, every time some magazine published a list of the most liveable places in the United States, Montana towns figured prominently. Whether it was in Outside Magazine, Fly Fishing, Men’s Health or Popular Mechanics, Bozeman, Livingston or Missoula always seemed to make the list.
Consequently, people who believe what they read chose to move here for the fishing, skiing, small-town atmosphere, convenience store casinos, whatever. Montana, according to the periodicals, was the place to be.
So here I stayed, my choice of where to live affirmed nearly every time I opened a magazine that included a list of the top ten places for almost anything.
Then my latest copy of AARP The Magazine arrived in the mail and my world was shattered. Not a single Montana town was included on the magazine’s list of America’s 10 healthiest cities.
Apparently now that I’ve eclipsed the half century mark it’s time to move to Ann Arbor, Mich., the No. 1 city on the list, which offers fencing and Pilates classes at the local YMCA and touts its efficient bus system.
What more could an old guy want?
Fargo, N.D., fifth on the list, is as close to my now outdated home as it gets. Fargo, says the magazine, ranks ninth in the nation for regular flossing and brushing, and the rolling prairie outside town provides “plenty of outdoor escapes,” perhaps from the sound of all that flossing and brushing.
Montana didn’t disappear from the radar completely. Missoula was mentioned for the 8.91 percent of its residents who bike or walk to work, and the lean body mass (25.97) of the Garden City’s populace.
Like a lot of other places in Montana, the town I now call home is small enough to escape anybody’s top ten list although the hunting and fishing out here is unrivaled, the folks are friendly, and most everyone appears to brush and floss. The outdoor escapes are endless and most of the ranchers in the area are actively involved in fencing.
Our mass transit system consists of a single bus, but considering our population of less than 2,000, that’s plenty.
I don’t begrudge AARP for leaving us off the list. As a matter of fact I’m grateful. We already have enough old farts in town. Including me.
So let them lust for Ann Arbor and flock to Fargo. I’ll enjoy the peace and solitude anonymity offers. At least until next month’s magazines arrive.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
For decades now, every time some magazine published a list of the most liveable places in the United States, Montana towns figured prominently. Whether it was in Outside Magazine, Fly Fishing, Men’s Health or Popular Mechanics, Bozeman, Livingston or Missoula always seemed to make the list.
Consequently, people who believe what they read chose to move here for the fishing, skiing, small-town atmosphere, convenience store casinos, whatever. Montana, according to the periodicals, was the place to be.
So here I stayed, my choice of where to live affirmed nearly every time I opened a magazine that included a list of the top ten places for almost anything.
Then my latest copy of AARP The Magazine arrived in the mail and my world was shattered. Not a single Montana town was included on the magazine’s list of America’s 10 healthiest cities.
Apparently now that I’ve eclipsed the half century mark it’s time to move to Ann Arbor, Mich., the No. 1 city on the list, which offers fencing and Pilates classes at the local YMCA and touts its efficient bus system.
What more could an old guy want?
Fargo, N.D., fifth on the list, is as close to my now outdated home as it gets. Fargo, says the magazine, ranks ninth in the nation for regular flossing and brushing, and the rolling prairie outside town provides “plenty of outdoor escapes,” perhaps from the sound of all that flossing and brushing.
Montana didn’t disappear from the radar completely. Missoula was mentioned for the 8.91 percent of its residents who bike or walk to work, and the lean body mass (25.97) of the Garden City’s populace.
Like a lot of other places in Montana, the town I now call home is small enough to escape anybody’s top ten list although the hunting and fishing out here is unrivaled, the folks are friendly, and most everyone appears to brush and floss. The outdoor escapes are endless and most of the ranchers in the area are actively involved in fencing.
Our mass transit system consists of a single bus, but considering our population of less than 2,000, that’s plenty.
I don’t begrudge AARP for leaving us off the list. As a matter of fact I’m grateful. We already have enough old farts in town. Including me.
So let them lust for Ann Arbor and flock to Fargo. I’ll enjoy the peace and solitude anonymity offers. At least until next month’s magazines arrive.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Shut up!
I woke at first light one morning last week to the barking of a dog.
My dog.
Even half asleep, I could recognize his voice.
He was raising a ruckus at the far end of our property, upset over some early morning walker or the paper boy. Next to me my wife still slumbered, or at least pretended to, so instead of my usual “Shut up!” I whistled and soon heard Jem race past the bedroom window.
Had Barb been awake I probably wouldn’t have yelled “Shut up” either. She prefers “No bark!” and in her presence that’s what I try to use or I’ll hear about it.
Mom and Dad would be proud. “Shut up” wasn’t allowed in our house when I was a kid especially if directed toward my sister. I think we used “Quiet!” when the dogs began to bark.
But somewhere in my sordid past, I made the switch to “Shut up,” and as is the case with a number of descriptive profanities I picked up along the way, I have a hard time making the switch to a more acceptable command like “No bark.”
“Dilly darn” it all anyway, I’m no Ned Flanders.
My younger daughter also has an affinity for the phrase. But her “Shut up” in no way calls for quiet. Leslie uses it to mean “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Which is often how my dogs react.
Especially Spot who barks with enthusiasm when fed, let out of the kennel or taken on a walk. She howls with delight when I’m readying my hunting gear and barks non-stop when I load the shotgun.
“No bark,” has no effect at all in those instances and reminds me a bit too much of a New Age parent asking an ill-behaved child if he needs a “time out.”
“Shut up!” at least gives Spot pause and still works magic on two-year-old Jem who remains a teeny bit afraid of me.
The whistle that morning only worked because he thought he was going to be fed. By the time he realized he wasn’t and returned to the far end of the yard, the ogre that had raised his ire was gone.
I’ll put up with the occasional bark. I enjoy hearing different canine voices. It’s incessant, non-stop barking I can’t tolerate. And I can’t believe “No bark!” is the rememdy.
But I’ll try, especially in the presence of my wife, to be more genteel in disciplining my hounds. She may just tell me to “Shut up!” if I don’t.
And she won’t mean “you’ve got to be kidding.”
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net.
My dog.
Even half asleep, I could recognize his voice.
He was raising a ruckus at the far end of our property, upset over some early morning walker or the paper boy. Next to me my wife still slumbered, or at least pretended to, so instead of my usual “Shut up!” I whistled and soon heard Jem race past the bedroom window.
Had Barb been awake I probably wouldn’t have yelled “Shut up” either. She prefers “No bark!” and in her presence that’s what I try to use or I’ll hear about it.
Mom and Dad would be proud. “Shut up” wasn’t allowed in our house when I was a kid especially if directed toward my sister. I think we used “Quiet!” when the dogs began to bark.
But somewhere in my sordid past, I made the switch to “Shut up,” and as is the case with a number of descriptive profanities I picked up along the way, I have a hard time making the switch to a more acceptable command like “No bark.”
“Dilly darn” it all anyway, I’m no Ned Flanders.
My younger daughter also has an affinity for the phrase. But her “Shut up” in no way calls for quiet. Leslie uses it to mean “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Which is often how my dogs react.
Especially Spot who barks with enthusiasm when fed, let out of the kennel or taken on a walk. She howls with delight when I’m readying my hunting gear and barks non-stop when I load the shotgun.
“No bark,” has no effect at all in those instances and reminds me a bit too much of a New Age parent asking an ill-behaved child if he needs a “time out.”
“Shut up!” at least gives Spot pause and still works magic on two-year-old Jem who remains a teeny bit afraid of me.
The whistle that morning only worked because he thought he was going to be fed. By the time he realized he wasn’t and returned to the far end of the yard, the ogre that had raised his ire was gone.
I’ll put up with the occasional bark. I enjoy hearing different canine voices. It’s incessant, non-stop barking I can’t tolerate. And I can’t believe “No bark!” is the rememdy.
But I’ll try, especially in the presence of my wife, to be more genteel in disciplining my hounds. She may just tell me to “Shut up!” if I don’t.
And she won’t mean “you’ve got to be kidding.”
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Getting kids hooked on fishing
Getting a kid hooked on fishing isn’t always easy.
Sometimes the fish just aren‘t biting, the weather’s inclement, the tackle’s too complicated. Sometimes the kid would rather be doing something else.
But every once in a while it works and you can see it in their eyes, and even if they wanted to, they can’t throw that hook.
My two oldest granddaughters came up for a visit the last week in July. It was their first trip away from home by themselves.
Barb and I weren’t sure what to expect. We planned to take them out in the boat, but didn’t know how they would take to trolling, which was how we had been catching fish lately.
Teagan, at 7, is already an experienced angler. Her dad has taken her fishing at the lagoon near their home in Livingston since she was tiny. Her little sister Hayden, 5, fishes too, but still prefers dolls and stuffed toys to spinning rods and crankbaits.
Following a short run down the lake, we slowed to trolling speed, dropped the lures in the water and I handed Teagan a rod.
Hayden crawled up on the foredeck and started playing with her dolls.
I half expected Teagan to join her after a half hour or so, but it wasn’t a minute later and she was into a fish.
“I’ve got one,” she announced calmly, then proceeded to start cranking on the reel, the rod bowed with the weight of the walleye.
I was tempted to help her reel, but instead just watched and soon she had the fish alongside the boat where I netted it and pulled it aboard.
“Wow,” said a breathless Teagan. “That’s the biggest fish I ever caught.”
We put the 2-pound walleye in the cooler turned the boat around and resumed trolling. She caught a few more before her sister said it was time to quit fishing and ride the tube.
We fished the next morning and Teagan got skunked. But it took nearly two hours of fishless trolling for her to lose interest.
She was hooked.
Teagan caught five walleye and a whitefish on the third morning, delighting in the struggle to land them.
Barb entertained the girls that afternoon while their exhausted grandfather took a nap. They each made badges from construction paper, Teagan’s declaring her the “Champion of Walleye.”
She wore it home the next day after vowing to come back and fish every summer, “Even when I’m in college,” she told us.
Whether or not her siblings will become fishermen or not is yet to be seen. I’m sure their father will give them the opportunity.
And I certainly hope they take the hook.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Sometimes the fish just aren‘t biting, the weather’s inclement, the tackle’s too complicated. Sometimes the kid would rather be doing something else.
But every once in a while it works and you can see it in their eyes, and even if they wanted to, they can’t throw that hook.
My two oldest granddaughters came up for a visit the last week in July. It was their first trip away from home by themselves.
Barb and I weren’t sure what to expect. We planned to take them out in the boat, but didn’t know how they would take to trolling, which was how we had been catching fish lately.
Teagan, at 7, is already an experienced angler. Her dad has taken her fishing at the lagoon near their home in Livingston since she was tiny. Her little sister Hayden, 5, fishes too, but still prefers dolls and stuffed toys to spinning rods and crankbaits.
Following a short run down the lake, we slowed to trolling speed, dropped the lures in the water and I handed Teagan a rod.
Hayden crawled up on the foredeck and started playing with her dolls.
I half expected Teagan to join her after a half hour or so, but it wasn’t a minute later and she was into a fish.
“I’ve got one,” she announced calmly, then proceeded to start cranking on the reel, the rod bowed with the weight of the walleye.
I was tempted to help her reel, but instead just watched and soon she had the fish alongside the boat where I netted it and pulled it aboard.
“Wow,” said a breathless Teagan. “That’s the biggest fish I ever caught.”
We put the 2-pound walleye in the cooler turned the boat around and resumed trolling. She caught a few more before her sister said it was time to quit fishing and ride the tube.
We fished the next morning and Teagan got skunked. But it took nearly two hours of fishless trolling for her to lose interest.
She was hooked.
Teagan caught five walleye and a whitefish on the third morning, delighting in the struggle to land them.
Barb entertained the girls that afternoon while their exhausted grandfather took a nap. They each made badges from construction paper, Teagan’s declaring her the “Champion of Walleye.”
She wore it home the next day after vowing to come back and fish every summer, “Even when I’m in college,” she told us.
Whether or not her siblings will become fishermen or not is yet to be seen. I’m sure their father will give them the opportunity.
And I certainly hope they take the hook.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, August 7, 2008
#@%&*! environmentalist!
Our language is constantly evolving.
New words are added. Old ones change in meaning. Others lose their ability to stand alone.
Environmentalist is one such example.
I can’t remember the last time I heard it used in casual conversation without an accompanying multi-syllable obscene adjective as in “----ing environmentalist.”
According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary an environmentalist is either 1) a person who accepts the theory that environment is of overriding importance in determining individual characteristics or 2) a person working to solve environmental problems, as air and water pollution, the exhaustion of natural resources, and uncontrolled population growth.
Neither definition appears to warrant an expletive. The dictionary, however, fails to mention the more commonly accepted Western definition – an obstructionist yahoo who works to prevent regular folk from making an honest living, seeks to limit public access to public land by opposing off-road motorized travel, and cares more for the welfare of wild animals than of man.
Wow! What an #!$&@&%!.
And while that definition may not be correct, it’s widely accepted across the West. Folks in the rest of the country give environmentalists little thought, most of their corner of the world already logged, mined, tilled and covered with pavement.
There’s still a lot of wild, undeveloped land out here, land those ----ing environmentalists would like to see stay that way. The water remains pretty clean and a few rivers, such as the Yellowstone, flow relatively unfettered from beginning to end. Those blankety blank environmentalists saw to that when they fought plans years ago to dam the Yellowstone at Livingston.
But smoke from wildfires across the West clouds the skies every summer, compliments of those !$%@!$&-$!%&#!$ environmentalists who fight the logging we’re told would prevent forest fires. Log it thoroughly enough and there wouldn’t be anything left to burn. When was the last time there was a forest fire in Indiana?
Environmentalists catch more flak than Exxon-Mobil, Walmart or the Chinese government. They’re apparently to blame for the high price of oil, the slumping dollar and the declining real estate market.
I have no doubt that Webster’s first definition is right on the money – we are a product of the environment in which we live. Unfortunately, as that environment becomes dirtier and more crowded, we become angrier and more divisive and choose to blame our problems on the folks, who by definition, are working to solve those very problems.
I choose to believe that the yahoos lining their pockets at our expense, big oil and big business for example, are the ones who more aptly deserve
the obscene adjectives.
But what do I know? I’m a bit of a ----ing environmentalist myself.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
New words are added. Old ones change in meaning. Others lose their ability to stand alone.
Environmentalist is one such example.
I can’t remember the last time I heard it used in casual conversation without an accompanying multi-syllable obscene adjective as in “----ing environmentalist.”
According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary an environmentalist is either 1) a person who accepts the theory that environment is of overriding importance in determining individual characteristics or 2) a person working to solve environmental problems, as air and water pollution, the exhaustion of natural resources, and uncontrolled population growth.
Neither definition appears to warrant an expletive. The dictionary, however, fails to mention the more commonly accepted Western definition – an obstructionist yahoo who works to prevent regular folk from making an honest living, seeks to limit public access to public land by opposing off-road motorized travel, and cares more for the welfare of wild animals than of man.
Wow! What an #!$&@&%!.
And while that definition may not be correct, it’s widely accepted across the West. Folks in the rest of the country give environmentalists little thought, most of their corner of the world already logged, mined, tilled and covered with pavement.
There’s still a lot of wild, undeveloped land out here, land those ----ing environmentalists would like to see stay that way. The water remains pretty clean and a few rivers, such as the Yellowstone, flow relatively unfettered from beginning to end. Those blankety blank environmentalists saw to that when they fought plans years ago to dam the Yellowstone at Livingston.
But smoke from wildfires across the West clouds the skies every summer, compliments of those !$%@!$&-$!%&#!$ environmentalists who fight the logging we’re told would prevent forest fires. Log it thoroughly enough and there wouldn’t be anything left to burn. When was the last time there was a forest fire in Indiana?
Environmentalists catch more flak than Exxon-Mobil, Walmart or the Chinese government. They’re apparently to blame for the high price of oil, the slumping dollar and the declining real estate market.
I have no doubt that Webster’s first definition is right on the money – we are a product of the environment in which we live. Unfortunately, as that environment becomes dirtier and more crowded, we become angrier and more divisive and choose to blame our problems on the folks, who by definition, are working to solve those very problems.
I choose to believe that the yahoos lining their pockets at our expense, big oil and big business for example, are the ones who more aptly deserve
the obscene adjectives.
But what do I know? I’m a bit of a ----ing environmentalist myself.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thinking about an antelope tattoo
I don’t wear any ink.
No tribal tattoo encircles my bicep.
No initials decorate my neck.
The likenesses of my children don’t grace my scrawny chest.
Not that I have a problem with those who are all tatted up. It’s a generational thing.
I’m old enough to remember when tattoos were pretty much reserved for servicemen and bikers. Being neither, I never felt the urge or the peer pressure to get one.
I did used to have long hair, and my unshorn locks marked me as an undesirable in the eyes of mostly older folks who told me to get a haircut.
Now I’m one of those older folks and I wear my hair short, but it’s for convenience, not to make a statement. And I try hard not to judge others by their appearance, especially the heavily inked.
Chances are good they’re basically regular folk, not Honduran gang members, rocks stars or NBA point guards.
Seldom, however, are they antelope hunters.
Rarer still is the antelope hunter who wears his passion for pronghorns in colored ink on his forearm.
But it’s a passion I appreciate and a tattoo I admire.
Lots of hunters chase antelope, but few of them consider speed goats their No. 1 quarry, a position more commonly occupied by bull elk or whitetail bucks.
Most hunters invest little time filling their antelope tags. A few hours on opening day are usually enough to bag the first critter within range, leaving the rest of the fall to chase the more glamorous species.
I always felt like the only guy out there who spent weeks hunting antelope. The solitude, however, is one of the reasons I love pronghorn season. Following the opening-day barrage, the prairie is pretty much void of hunters until the general big game season opens.
Now I find I’m not so alone after all. I’ve recently become acquainted with a few other hunters who share my passion, including one with the tattoo of an antelope buck on his massive forearm.
He’s a bit younger than I am and he may wear other, less visible ink, but the buck is prominently displayed for all to see.
It’s one of the few tattoos I’ve seen that prompted me to consider getting one myself.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. My skinny forearm hardly offers the epidermal canvas for any ink, let alone a pronghorn buck in full flight. There may be enough space on my arm to depict a bedded fawn, but who wants a baby animal tattoo?
I’ll stick with scars and age spots and leave the ink to a younger generation.
And on second thought maybe I will judge by appearance, especially when the tattoo is really cool.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
No tribal tattoo encircles my bicep.
No initials decorate my neck.
The likenesses of my children don’t grace my scrawny chest.
Not that I have a problem with those who are all tatted up. It’s a generational thing.
I’m old enough to remember when tattoos were pretty much reserved for servicemen and bikers. Being neither, I never felt the urge or the peer pressure to get one.
I did used to have long hair, and my unshorn locks marked me as an undesirable in the eyes of mostly older folks who told me to get a haircut.
Now I’m one of those older folks and I wear my hair short, but it’s for convenience, not to make a statement. And I try hard not to judge others by their appearance, especially the heavily inked.
Chances are good they’re basically regular folk, not Honduran gang members, rocks stars or NBA point guards.
Seldom, however, are they antelope hunters.
Rarer still is the antelope hunter who wears his passion for pronghorns in colored ink on his forearm.
But it’s a passion I appreciate and a tattoo I admire.
Lots of hunters chase antelope, but few of them consider speed goats their No. 1 quarry, a position more commonly occupied by bull elk or whitetail bucks.
Most hunters invest little time filling their antelope tags. A few hours on opening day are usually enough to bag the first critter within range, leaving the rest of the fall to chase the more glamorous species.
I always felt like the only guy out there who spent weeks hunting antelope. The solitude, however, is one of the reasons I love pronghorn season. Following the opening-day barrage, the prairie is pretty much void of hunters until the general big game season opens.
Now I find I’m not so alone after all. I’ve recently become acquainted with a few other hunters who share my passion, including one with the tattoo of an antelope buck on his massive forearm.
He’s a bit younger than I am and he may wear other, less visible ink, but the buck is prominently displayed for all to see.
It’s one of the few tattoos I’ve seen that prompted me to consider getting one myself.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. My skinny forearm hardly offers the epidermal canvas for any ink, let alone a pronghorn buck in full flight. There may be enough space on my arm to depict a bedded fawn, but who wants a baby animal tattoo?
I’ll stick with scars and age spots and leave the ink to a younger generation.
And on second thought maybe I will judge by appearance, especially when the tattoo is really cool.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Buckle up on the river
The body of a Sheridan, Wyo., man who fell off a dock at Tongue River Reservoir during a recent storm was recovered earlier this week.
The body of a woman caught in the same storm in a 14-foot boat that capsized had already been recovered.
There but for the grace of God …
I never thought the Tongue was a very scary body of water. A fairly narrow body lake that sits just north of the Wyoming state line near Decker, Mt., it offers plenty of places to escape the wind.
Unless you’re not paying attention.
Or the bite is too good and you’ve just got to make one more cast.
A few years ago my wife and I got caught in a storm on the Tongue because we couldn’t stop fishing. We watched the sky darken and felt the wind building before we decided to take refuge. I couldn’t make the run back to camp across the lake so we pulled into one of the many bays on the lake and I ran the boat into the shallows, jumped out and dragged it up on shore, waves breaking over the stern
We sat out the maelstrom under a pine tree and when the wind ceased I bailed out the boat and we headed back to camp none the worse for wear.
We’d survived closer calls on Yellowstone Lake, a big body of water where the afternoon breeze can turn a slight chop into four-foot waves in minutes.
But it’s the cold water there that will kill you. The Tongue in July won’t even take your breath away when you dive in.
So I’m guessing the two victims of the recent storm on the Tongue weren’t wearing life jackets.
I seldom do. And who but a child wears a life jacket on the dock?
But when the wind kicks up and the waves begin to build it might be a good time to strap one on, especially if you’re alone in the boat – or on the dock.
A rafting guide on the Yellowstone River once told me she had never heard of anyone wearing a life jacket who had drowned in the river.
That’s probably true on most waters.
We’re required by law to have life jackets in the boat, yet we seldom feel the need to wear them – even though they’ll save us.
It’s hot. The water’s warm. The fish are biting.
But keep an eye on the sky. Storms build fast and move quickly this time of year.
Like buckling your seatbelt when you get into the car, pulling on a life jacket when the water gets rough should be a habit, not an afterthought.
By then it may already be too late.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
The body of a woman caught in the same storm in a 14-foot boat that capsized had already been recovered.
There but for the grace of God …
I never thought the Tongue was a very scary body of water. A fairly narrow body lake that sits just north of the Wyoming state line near Decker, Mt., it offers plenty of places to escape the wind.
Unless you’re not paying attention.
Or the bite is too good and you’ve just got to make one more cast.
A few years ago my wife and I got caught in a storm on the Tongue because we couldn’t stop fishing. We watched the sky darken and felt the wind building before we decided to take refuge. I couldn’t make the run back to camp across the lake so we pulled into one of the many bays on the lake and I ran the boat into the shallows, jumped out and dragged it up on shore, waves breaking over the stern
We sat out the maelstrom under a pine tree and when the wind ceased I bailed out the boat and we headed back to camp none the worse for wear.
We’d survived closer calls on Yellowstone Lake, a big body of water where the afternoon breeze can turn a slight chop into four-foot waves in minutes.
But it’s the cold water there that will kill you. The Tongue in July won’t even take your breath away when you dive in.
So I’m guessing the two victims of the recent storm on the Tongue weren’t wearing life jackets.
I seldom do. And who but a child wears a life jacket on the dock?
But when the wind kicks up and the waves begin to build it might be a good time to strap one on, especially if you’re alone in the boat – or on the dock.
A rafting guide on the Yellowstone River once told me she had never heard of anyone wearing a life jacket who had drowned in the river.
That’s probably true on most waters.
We’re required by law to have life jackets in the boat, yet we seldom feel the need to wear them – even though they’ll save us.
It’s hot. The water’s warm. The fish are biting.
But keep an eye on the sky. Storms build fast and move quickly this time of year.
Like buckling your seatbelt when you get into the car, pulling on a life jacket when the water gets rough should be a habit, not an afterthought.
By then it may already be too late.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Friday, July 18, 2008
I'm not quite ready for the couch
A year ago I was recovering from a backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
The eight-day, 90-mile trek took a toll on my aging carcass.
My knees still ache.
I realize, however, that aches and pain won’t dissipate with age, and whether I remain active or not, I’ll still hurt.
So I’m hoping to at least have something to show for my pain, like blistered feet, a sunburned neck or sore shoulders from hauling in fish.
My father quit hunting and fishing 15 years before he died. He had bad knees and an aching back. I think he thought retiring to the couch would alleviate the pain.
It didn’t. He hurt as much in his inactivity as when he used to stay busy.
But he never caught another fish or shot another bird out of the sky.
His was not a generation that worked out to stay in shape. He had survived the Great Depression, fought in a world war and never ever considered joining a health club. He worked to raise a family, not to tighten up his abs.
My generation has had it considerably easier. We’ve suffered little hardship and now find ourselves bewildered with the pain aging brings.
There’s a pill, it seems, for every ailment -- no matter how minor -- and a surgery for every worn out joint. Fly fishermen get rotator cuff surgery, joggers have their knees replaced and bird watchers, unable to tolerate the inconvenience of eye glass any longer, seek relief with Lasix surgery.
I suppose it all beats going to the couch, but being a bit a skeptic, I doubt there’s really much a cure for what ails me, or most of us, other than the grave.
And who wants to accept that?
So we pop our pills and ride our stationary bicycles, schedule appointments with the doctor to discuss surgery and wonder how our parents lived so long living they way they did.
I doubt I’ll live any longer than my folks. Mom died at 83 and Dad, who smoked, drank and got his only aerobic exercise while mowing the lawn, lived to be 90.
I simply hope to hunt and fish until the end. Heading to the couch isn’t one of the options I’m considering.
For the time being, I’m just going to suck it up, learn to cast right-handed, walk with a limp and squint to clear my vision.
Hopefully I’ve got a few years left to consider the modern wonder of pills and surgery.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
The eight-day, 90-mile trek took a toll on my aging carcass.
My knees still ache.
I realize, however, that aches and pain won’t dissipate with age, and whether I remain active or not, I’ll still hurt.
So I’m hoping to at least have something to show for my pain, like blistered feet, a sunburned neck or sore shoulders from hauling in fish.
My father quit hunting and fishing 15 years before he died. He had bad knees and an aching back. I think he thought retiring to the couch would alleviate the pain.
It didn’t. He hurt as much in his inactivity as when he used to stay busy.
But he never caught another fish or shot another bird out of the sky.
His was not a generation that worked out to stay in shape. He had survived the Great Depression, fought in a world war and never ever considered joining a health club. He worked to raise a family, not to tighten up his abs.
My generation has had it considerably easier. We’ve suffered little hardship and now find ourselves bewildered with the pain aging brings.
There’s a pill, it seems, for every ailment -- no matter how minor -- and a surgery for every worn out joint. Fly fishermen get rotator cuff surgery, joggers have their knees replaced and bird watchers, unable to tolerate the inconvenience of eye glass any longer, seek relief with Lasix surgery.
I suppose it all beats going to the couch, but being a bit a skeptic, I doubt there’s really much a cure for what ails me, or most of us, other than the grave.
And who wants to accept that?
So we pop our pills and ride our stationary bicycles, schedule appointments with the doctor to discuss surgery and wonder how our parents lived so long living they way they did.
I doubt I’ll live any longer than my folks. Mom died at 83 and Dad, who smoked, drank and got his only aerobic exercise while mowing the lawn, lived to be 90.
I simply hope to hunt and fish until the end. Heading to the couch isn’t one of the options I’m considering.
For the time being, I’m just going to suck it up, learn to cast right-handed, walk with a limp and squint to clear my vision.
Hopefully I’ve got a few years left to consider the modern wonder of pills and surgery.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Friday, July 11, 2008
My wife's becoming a fish snob
My wife’s becoming a fish snob.
It started last spring in Florida when she hooked a sting ray and handed me the pole.
“It’s just a ray,” she said disappointedly.
“What do you mean just a ray?” I thought to myself as I tightened the drag and began reeling. “It’s a big ray.”
Fifteen minutes later I had the creature alongside the boat and snipped the leader.
Barb wasn’t even watching. She’d picked up my pole and was casting off the bow.
I’ve seen it before – a lack of interest in the fish that happen to be biting. On the Yellowstone River it’s mountain whitefish the fish snobs find so disgusting. While a whitie may rise to the same fly as a trout, if hooked and landed, it’s a sure bet he won’t receive the same careful release.
This morning it was small northern pike that Barb found particularly distasteful. The walleye weren’t biting and the big northerns had made themselves scarce, but the hammer handles were willing and eager.
“Should I get the net?” I asked as Barb’s rod bowed and the monofilament cut through the water.
“No,” she answered, her voice dripping with disappointment. “It’s just another little pike.”
It may be that I’ve spent too many fishless days on the water to be disappointed in whatever decides to bite my hook. Or perhaps my sights aren’t set high enough.
Whatever.
If it wasn’t for whitefish, I’d often have no fish at all. Juvenile northerns beat nothing hands down and I figure big rays are good practice for big anything.
I no longer keep everything I catch anyway, so what does it matter?
Sure, a whitefish won’t fight like a trout, a little pike has the same teeth and slime as a monster and the Crocodile Hunter was killed by a ray, but I’m a needy enough angler to appreciate them all.
Barb isn’t.
She sets the bar a bit higher than I do.
Pike must be at least as long as your arm to interest my wife, whitefish are unceremoniously returned to the river as quickly as she can extract her fly and rays aren’t even worth Barb’s bother.
Consequently she usually catches more fish than me. I’m too easily distracted by the small, the ordinary and the mundane.
Bite my hook and I’m flattered.
Like a wink from a pretty girl, who’s simply humoring an old man, the bite of a less-than-stellar species is much appreciated.
Especially when fishing is slow.
Barb’s not so easily impressed.
She’s becoming a bit of a snob.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
It started last spring in Florida when she hooked a sting ray and handed me the pole.
“It’s just a ray,” she said disappointedly.
“What do you mean just a ray?” I thought to myself as I tightened the drag and began reeling. “It’s a big ray.”
Fifteen minutes later I had the creature alongside the boat and snipped the leader.
Barb wasn’t even watching. She’d picked up my pole and was casting off the bow.
I’ve seen it before – a lack of interest in the fish that happen to be biting. On the Yellowstone River it’s mountain whitefish the fish snobs find so disgusting. While a whitie may rise to the same fly as a trout, if hooked and landed, it’s a sure bet he won’t receive the same careful release.
This morning it was small northern pike that Barb found particularly distasteful. The walleye weren’t biting and the big northerns had made themselves scarce, but the hammer handles were willing and eager.
“Should I get the net?” I asked as Barb’s rod bowed and the monofilament cut through the water.
“No,” she answered, her voice dripping with disappointment. “It’s just another little pike.”
It may be that I’ve spent too many fishless days on the water to be disappointed in whatever decides to bite my hook. Or perhaps my sights aren’t set high enough.
Whatever.
If it wasn’t for whitefish, I’d often have no fish at all. Juvenile northerns beat nothing hands down and I figure big rays are good practice for big anything.
I no longer keep everything I catch anyway, so what does it matter?
Sure, a whitefish won’t fight like a trout, a little pike has the same teeth and slime as a monster and the Crocodile Hunter was killed by a ray, but I’m a needy enough angler to appreciate them all.
Barb isn’t.
She sets the bar a bit higher than I do.
Pike must be at least as long as your arm to interest my wife, whitefish are unceremoniously returned to the river as quickly as she can extract her fly and rays aren’t even worth Barb’s bother.
Consequently she usually catches more fish than me. I’m too easily distracted by the small, the ordinary and the mundane.
Bite my hook and I’m flattered.
Like a wink from a pretty girl, who’s simply humoring an old man, the bite of a less-than-stellar species is much appreciated.
Especially when fishing is slow.
Barb’s not so easily impressed.
She’s becoming a bit of a snob.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Friday, July 4, 2008
You'll find me out here and gone
What? Me worry?
As gas prices head toward $5 a gallon, real estate prices plummet, and global warming threatens to turn much of the West into a desert, I find myself just where I want to be – out here and gone.
The little northeastern Montana town my wife and I now call home is small enough we can ride our bikes wherever we need to go, there are plenty of critters to hunt within a few miles of town and the lake we fish is only 20 miles from the house.
My crop of sweet corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July and the tomato plants have already set fruit. Lately I’ve been spending the cool of the mornings fishing for walleye and pike, the afternoons fixing up our old stone house, the evenings counting my blessings.
An old hippie who for years longed to get back to the land, I’ve gotten back to a small town instead where the grocery, lumberyard and hardware store are but a few blocks away.
My Hutterite friends, from whom I stole the term “out here and gone,” keep us supplied with baked goods, the bounty of their garden and provide a shining example of “the simple life,” minus Paris Hilton.
No longer able to work my hoops magic because of aching knees, I joined the local gun club and shoot trap a couple times a week at a range north of town. I’m humbled there just like I was on the basketball court, but belonging to the gun club is considerably cheaper than my old health club membership.
It’s a very good life, however it’s not perfect. I miss the mountains. My daughters and grandchildren live farther away than I would like. I don’t see enough of my old friends.
The mosquitoes up here are legendary and the rattlesnakes can be an annoyance at times. But hey, they keep out the riff-raff.
And I’m certainly not recommending this lifestyle. No, you’re far better off staying where you are, commuting to those no-longer-so-high-paying jobs, shopping with everyone else at the air-conditioned mall and sitting in line at the fast-food drive-thru.
But please, come for a visit when you’ve saved up enough cash for a couple tanks of gas. We’ll go fishing out at the lake, come home and eat fresh sweet corn and turn in shortly after the curfew siren goes off at 9:30 p.m.
It’s a pretty simple life.
Paris Hilton would be bored to tears.
Thank goodness.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Selected columns are available at parkerheinlein.blogspot.com/
As gas prices head toward $5 a gallon, real estate prices plummet, and global warming threatens to turn much of the West into a desert, I find myself just where I want to be – out here and gone.
The little northeastern Montana town my wife and I now call home is small enough we can ride our bikes wherever we need to go, there are plenty of critters to hunt within a few miles of town and the lake we fish is only 20 miles from the house.
My crop of sweet corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July and the tomato plants have already set fruit. Lately I’ve been spending the cool of the mornings fishing for walleye and pike, the afternoons fixing up our old stone house, the evenings counting my blessings.
An old hippie who for years longed to get back to the land, I’ve gotten back to a small town instead where the grocery, lumberyard and hardware store are but a few blocks away.
My Hutterite friends, from whom I stole the term “out here and gone,” keep us supplied with baked goods, the bounty of their garden and provide a shining example of “the simple life,” minus Paris Hilton.
No longer able to work my hoops magic because of aching knees, I joined the local gun club and shoot trap a couple times a week at a range north of town. I’m humbled there just like I was on the basketball court, but belonging to the gun club is considerably cheaper than my old health club membership.
It’s a very good life, however it’s not perfect. I miss the mountains. My daughters and grandchildren live farther away than I would like. I don’t see enough of my old friends.
The mosquitoes up here are legendary and the rattlesnakes can be an annoyance at times. But hey, they keep out the riff-raff.
And I’m certainly not recommending this lifestyle. No, you’re far better off staying where you are, commuting to those no-longer-so-high-paying jobs, shopping with everyone else at the air-conditioned mall and sitting in line at the fast-food drive-thru.
But please, come for a visit when you’ve saved up enough cash for a couple tanks of gas. We’ll go fishing out at the lake, come home and eat fresh sweet corn and turn in shortly after the curfew siren goes off at 9:30 p.m.
It’s a pretty simple life.
Paris Hilton would be bored to tears.
Thank goodness.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Selected columns are available at parkerheinlein.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Newspaper reading dogs a problem
The commotion in the kitchen caught my attention.
One of the dogs was in the garbage.
But before I could get to my feet, Jem wandered back into the living room licking his chops.
“Don’t do it,” he mouthed as I raised my arm to give him a smack.
Spot awoke from her slumber at my feet. “Better listen to him,” she said. “He’s been reading the newspaper again.”
Spot was referring to a story out of Great Falls concerning the arrest of an illegal immigrant from Mexico on drug charges. Sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of dog abuse found a pit bull lying atop $30,000 cash along with 20 pounds of marijuana.
Two Cascade County deputies had gone to the house to check out a report that a man was beating a dog there.
“So what’s that got to do with me,” I asked Spot.
“Jem says he knows where your stash is,” the bitch responded.
“My stash? What are you talking about?
“The money and the drugs,” Jem blurted out, ham fat glistening on his lips. “On the nightstand next to your bed.”
“You mean the coin jar and the Extra-strength Tylenol?” I asked him.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he answered defiantly. “Smack me and we’ll let the sheriff decide what it is.”
Spot closed her eyes again. “Go ahead and hit him,” she said. “Nobody’s going to call the cops.”
According to the Great Falls Tribune, Salvador Orodnez-Maldonado faces up to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. His bond was set at $100,000. The pit bull was taken to an animal shelter.
“So you think you’d be happier in a shelter?” I asked Jem.
“No, just safer,” he told me.
“I doubt they’d let you run loose and get into the garbage,” I told him.
“Yeah, and they’d fix you for sure,” Spot chimed in.
“Huh?” Jem queried.
“Snip, snip,” Spot replied.
“Snip what?” Jem asked her.
“You figure it out,” she told him.
Jem turned and looked back into the kitchen.
“Don’t think about it,” I cautioned.
“Snip, snip,” Spot whispered.
“Tylenol, eh?” Jem asked. “And a coin jar?”
“Uh huh,” I told him. “Go ahead and turn me in.”
Jem licked the last of the ham fat off his lips and sat down.
I rolled up the newspaper and slapped it against my palm.
“You’re no pit bull,” I told him. “I’m not an illegal alien. So just stay out of the garbage, OK?
”And quit reading the newspaper.”
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
One of the dogs was in the garbage.
But before I could get to my feet, Jem wandered back into the living room licking his chops.
“Don’t do it,” he mouthed as I raised my arm to give him a smack.
Spot awoke from her slumber at my feet. “Better listen to him,” she said. “He’s been reading the newspaper again.”
Spot was referring to a story out of Great Falls concerning the arrest of an illegal immigrant from Mexico on drug charges. Sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of dog abuse found a pit bull lying atop $30,000 cash along with 20 pounds of marijuana.
Two Cascade County deputies had gone to the house to check out a report that a man was beating a dog there.
“So what’s that got to do with me,” I asked Spot.
“Jem says he knows where your stash is,” the bitch responded.
“My stash? What are you talking about?
“The money and the drugs,” Jem blurted out, ham fat glistening on his lips. “On the nightstand next to your bed.”
“You mean the coin jar and the Extra-strength Tylenol?” I asked him.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he answered defiantly. “Smack me and we’ll let the sheriff decide what it is.”
Spot closed her eyes again. “Go ahead and hit him,” she said. “Nobody’s going to call the cops.”
According to the Great Falls Tribune, Salvador Orodnez-Maldonado faces up to 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. His bond was set at $100,000. The pit bull was taken to an animal shelter.
“So you think you’d be happier in a shelter?” I asked Jem.
“No, just safer,” he told me.
“I doubt they’d let you run loose and get into the garbage,” I told him.
“Yeah, and they’d fix you for sure,” Spot chimed in.
“Huh?” Jem queried.
“Snip, snip,” Spot replied.
“Snip what?” Jem asked her.
“You figure it out,” she told him.
Jem turned and looked back into the kitchen.
“Don’t think about it,” I cautioned.
“Snip, snip,” Spot whispered.
“Tylenol, eh?” Jem asked. “And a coin jar?”
“Uh huh,” I told him. “Go ahead and turn me in.”
Jem licked the last of the ham fat off his lips and sat down.
I rolled up the newspaper and slapped it against my palm.
“You’re no pit bull,” I told him. “I’m not an illegal alien. So just stay out of the garbage, OK?
”And quit reading the newspaper.”
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sage grouse hunting may be thing of the past
It may not be long before we count sage grouse among the species of birds we used to hunt.
Concern that West Nile virus is hurting sage grouse populations has prompted the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to consider cutting in half the hunting season for the state’s oldest grouse.
Not that it would matter much to most bird hunters, who seldom target sage grouse anyway, but eliminating the season completely is probably on the horizon.
And that would matter to my friend Dallas.
Sage grouse are his favorite game bird both in the field and on the table.
He opens the upland bird season each fall with a family hunting trip for sage grouse and pursues them with the same passion he does elk.
Sage grouse, Dallas tells me, are Montana’s original game bird, so ancient they don’t even have gizzards.
Properly handled in the field, the big birds are unequaled on the table. Or so my friend claims. I would beg to differ, but perhaps it’s simply a case of improper handling on my part.
I may not have too many more chances to improve my handling of them.
There’s already a two-bird daily limit on sage grouse and the season on them closes two months earlier than it does for most other upland birds in Montana. Now FWP is considering cutting the season to 31 days.
Deadline for public comment on the issue is June 27 and the FWP Commission will take final action on game bird seasons July 17.
Although hunting pressure has been shown to have little effect on game bird populations, bird hunters are easy targets. Instead of addressing loss of habitat and energy development, wildlife managers too often punish instead the only folks who give a damn about the birds.
Like Dallas.
And there’s seldom any going back.
The daily mountain grouse limit was reduced from five birds to three in the 1980s because an FWP commissioner didn’t see as many blue grouse on his ranch one fall as he had in the past. Twenty-some years later, the limit is still three.
The daily limit on sage grouse was recently reduced from three and now there’s talk of halving the season.
The writing is on the wall.
While wildlife managers admit that hunters aren’t the problem, hunters are most easily removed from the equation. Then the only people who care will be those who are paid to care and people who care because of a paycheck don’t care like Dallas does.
Remove the hunter and you’ve turned the sage grouse into another spotted owl. And while they may both taste like chicken, no one will ever know.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Concern that West Nile virus is hurting sage grouse populations has prompted the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to consider cutting in half the hunting season for the state’s oldest grouse.
Not that it would matter much to most bird hunters, who seldom target sage grouse anyway, but eliminating the season completely is probably on the horizon.
And that would matter to my friend Dallas.
Sage grouse are his favorite game bird both in the field and on the table.
He opens the upland bird season each fall with a family hunting trip for sage grouse and pursues them with the same passion he does elk.
Sage grouse, Dallas tells me, are Montana’s original game bird, so ancient they don’t even have gizzards.
Properly handled in the field, the big birds are unequaled on the table. Or so my friend claims. I would beg to differ, but perhaps it’s simply a case of improper handling on my part.
I may not have too many more chances to improve my handling of them.
There’s already a two-bird daily limit on sage grouse and the season on them closes two months earlier than it does for most other upland birds in Montana. Now FWP is considering cutting the season to 31 days.
Deadline for public comment on the issue is June 27 and the FWP Commission will take final action on game bird seasons July 17.
Although hunting pressure has been shown to have little effect on game bird populations, bird hunters are easy targets. Instead of addressing loss of habitat and energy development, wildlife managers too often punish instead the only folks who give a damn about the birds.
Like Dallas.
And there’s seldom any going back.
The daily mountain grouse limit was reduced from five birds to three in the 1980s because an FWP commissioner didn’t see as many blue grouse on his ranch one fall as he had in the past. Twenty-some years later, the limit is still three.
The daily limit on sage grouse was recently reduced from three and now there’s talk of halving the season.
The writing is on the wall.
While wildlife managers admit that hunters aren’t the problem, hunters are most easily removed from the equation. Then the only people who care will be those who are paid to care and people who care because of a paycheck don’t care like Dallas does.
Remove the hunter and you’ve turned the sage grouse into another spotted owl. And while they may both taste like chicken, no one will ever know.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
It looks like we'll need The Rainmaker
The Yellowstone River’s running high and muddy. Flood warnings have been posted for the Flathead. It’s still snowing in Great Falls.
But in northeast Montana drought persists.
Across much of the region less than an inch of rain had fallen this year through April.
Time to bring in the rainmaker.
An ad that ran in the Phillips County News two weeks ago said Matt Ryan was planning a return to Northeast Montana in late May and sought support for his work.
Then it began to rain.
Not a lot, but enough for Ryan to cancel his plans to travel to Montana.
Apparently the mere suggestion of a rainmaker was enough to prompt a change in the weather.
Ryan insists he doesn’t make it rain.
“Only God can do that,” he said recently from his home in Mt. Shasta, Calif. “I just know how to influence the weather.”
Ryan uses a combination of science and faith in a higher power to reorder the jet stream.
The process involves erecting steel pipes grounded in water that work as antenna to redirect energy flows.
He also relies on what “Christian people call prayer.”
The 55-year-old New York native has been influencing the weather for nearly 25 years. In 1984 – “on a wild hair,” he said – he sought out an Indian rainmaker.
“He was a prophet,” said Ryan, who studied under the Indian for 10 years.
Ryan doesn’t come cheap.
“For $15,000 I’d come up there,” he said.
The price, however, pales in comparison to the results.
“An inch of rain in Valley County is worth a million dollars,” he said.
And Ryan claims he always gets results
He can’t afford not to.
“You take hard-earned greenbacks from those Montana ranchers and don’t make it rain and they’ll hang your ass,” he said.
Ryan said precipitation in the first month following his rainmaking is usually above average and at least normal for the rest of the year.
While Ryan was glad to hear a half inch of rain had fallen across northeast Montana in early May cancelling his visit, he wanted folks there to know that if the drought persists, his services are still available.
“I just want to keep the consciousness going,” he said.
Like water witchers and faith healers, rainmakers have their skeptics. But when drought perists, desperate and expensive measures are sometimes called for.
So the call goes out to the rainmaker.
“We sometimes need to reach out in some way we’ve never reached out before,” Ryan said.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
But in northeast Montana drought persists.
Across much of the region less than an inch of rain had fallen this year through April.
Time to bring in the rainmaker.
An ad that ran in the Phillips County News two weeks ago said Matt Ryan was planning a return to Northeast Montana in late May and sought support for his work.
Then it began to rain.
Not a lot, but enough for Ryan to cancel his plans to travel to Montana.
Apparently the mere suggestion of a rainmaker was enough to prompt a change in the weather.
Ryan insists he doesn’t make it rain.
“Only God can do that,” he said recently from his home in Mt. Shasta, Calif. “I just know how to influence the weather.”
Ryan uses a combination of science and faith in a higher power to reorder the jet stream.
The process involves erecting steel pipes grounded in water that work as antenna to redirect energy flows.
He also relies on what “Christian people call prayer.”
The 55-year-old New York native has been influencing the weather for nearly 25 years. In 1984 – “on a wild hair,” he said – he sought out an Indian rainmaker.
“He was a prophet,” said Ryan, who studied under the Indian for 10 years.
Ryan doesn’t come cheap.
“For $15,000 I’d come up there,” he said.
The price, however, pales in comparison to the results.
“An inch of rain in Valley County is worth a million dollars,” he said.
And Ryan claims he always gets results
He can’t afford not to.
“You take hard-earned greenbacks from those Montana ranchers and don’t make it rain and they’ll hang your ass,” he said.
Ryan said precipitation in the first month following his rainmaking is usually above average and at least normal for the rest of the year.
While Ryan was glad to hear a half inch of rain had fallen across northeast Montana in early May cancelling his visit, he wanted folks there to know that if the drought persists, his services are still available.
“I just want to keep the consciousness going,” he said.
Like water witchers and faith healers, rainmakers have their skeptics. But when drought perists, desperate and expensive measures are sometimes called for.
So the call goes out to the rainmaker.
“We sometimes need to reach out in some way we’ve never reached out before,” Ryan said.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Universal & Triumphant wins lottery
Look who won the lottery.
The Church Universal and Triumphant, an apocalyptic cult that calls the Royal Teton Ranch near Gardiner its home, apparently hit the jackpot last week.
The church sold its grazing rights on the ranch which borders Yellowstone National Park for $3.3 million and agreed to allow up to 25 bison from the park to winter there.
CUT, never much of a cow outfit anyway, recently sold the last of its cattle.
The move appears to be little more than an expensive feel-good gesture designed to placate critics of Montana’s bison management plan which resulted in the slaughter of 1,600 bison this winter.
The plan, designed to prevent bison from straying outside the park and potentially spreading a livestock disease, was harshly criticized earlier this month by the Federal Government Accountability Office. Their report said state and federal agencies failed to expand a free-ranging area for bison despite spending tens of millions of dollars on land easements and bison management.
In response, Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis decided to throw some more money at the problem.
The cash landed in the hands of the followers of K19 of the Cosmic Secret Service, one of a handful of “ascended masters” to which CUT adherents subscribe.
It’s a bit surprising that CUT – never in the running for neighbor-of-the-year -- would be so handsomely rewarded for doing so little. Since CUT’s arrival in Park County in the mid 1980s, church officials have been convicted on gun charges and fined for spilling diesel fuel into Mol Heron Creek. The church even threatened to tap into Yellowstone’s thermal aquifer.
But the cult has a history of dodging bullets and landing on its feet. When wildfires in the park threatened the Royal Teton Ranch in 1988, church members gathered en masse to chant, and lo and behold the flames changed direction.
Now for millions of dollars, the church has agreed to let a handful of bison graze on CUT land until April 15 when they would be hazed back inside the park.
What difference such a paltry gesture will make is hard to imagine. About 2,300 bison remain in the park and they are calving this month. Providing refuge for 25 of them won’t end the slaughter or the perceived threat of brucellosis.
Ten years ago the feds had a chance to buy the church’s grazing rights but didn’t because the $2.7 million price tag was too high.
That was the right decision then and would have been the right decision today.
Instead, the Church Universal and Triumphant won the lottery.
And the bison management plan remains an increasingly expensive mess.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
The Church Universal and Triumphant, an apocalyptic cult that calls the Royal Teton Ranch near Gardiner its home, apparently hit the jackpot last week.
The church sold its grazing rights on the ranch which borders Yellowstone National Park for $3.3 million and agreed to allow up to 25 bison from the park to winter there.
CUT, never much of a cow outfit anyway, recently sold the last of its cattle.
The move appears to be little more than an expensive feel-good gesture designed to placate critics of Montana’s bison management plan which resulted in the slaughter of 1,600 bison this winter.
The plan, designed to prevent bison from straying outside the park and potentially spreading a livestock disease, was harshly criticized earlier this month by the Federal Government Accountability Office. Their report said state and federal agencies failed to expand a free-ranging area for bison despite spending tens of millions of dollars on land easements and bison management.
In response, Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis decided to throw some more money at the problem.
The cash landed in the hands of the followers of K19 of the Cosmic Secret Service, one of a handful of “ascended masters” to which CUT adherents subscribe.
It’s a bit surprising that CUT – never in the running for neighbor-of-the-year -- would be so handsomely rewarded for doing so little. Since CUT’s arrival in Park County in the mid 1980s, church officials have been convicted on gun charges and fined for spilling diesel fuel into Mol Heron Creek. The church even threatened to tap into Yellowstone’s thermal aquifer.
But the cult has a history of dodging bullets and landing on its feet. When wildfires in the park threatened the Royal Teton Ranch in 1988, church members gathered en masse to chant, and lo and behold the flames changed direction.
Now for millions of dollars, the church has agreed to let a handful of bison graze on CUT land until April 15 when they would be hazed back inside the park.
What difference such a paltry gesture will make is hard to imagine. About 2,300 bison remain in the park and they are calving this month. Providing refuge for 25 of them won’t end the slaughter or the perceived threat of brucellosis.
Ten years ago the feds had a chance to buy the church’s grazing rights but didn’t because the $2.7 million price tag was too high.
That was the right decision then and would have been the right decision today.
Instead, the Church Universal and Triumphant won the lottery.
And the bison management plan remains an increasingly expensive mess.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, April 10, 2008
"Adventure Man" not to ride again
I tried to keep the newspaper to myself.
No need for my wife to see the story about a 400-mile foot, bicycle and boat race planned this summer in southwest Montana.
But she saw the story anyway.
“Don’t even think about it Adventure Man” she said.
Ten years ago I took part in such a race. Age, lack of training and short-lived determination dashed my hopes of finishing after only three days, but I did bring home a coveted “Participant” ribbon and earned the now-reviled moniker “Adventure Man.”
It was a race that appealed to me: on foot, bicycle, horseback and kayak across nearly 400 miles of Montana backcountry.
I was invited to participate as a member of what race organizers dubbed “the media team” even though I was the only member of the media on the team.
It offered me a week out of the office and not wanting to exclude my wife from the fun, I volunteered her services as a member of our support team.
Unfortunately, she was the only member.
But all she had to do was wait at various trailheads where we might show up at any hour of the night or day and provide us with hot meals cooked over a Coleman stove in the pouring rain and set up tents so we’d have a dry place to sleep, then re-supply and eventually meet us at another trailhead where we may or may not appear.
We were risking life and limb in the wilderness and simply expected her to wait on us hand and foot on our way to the finish line and personal glory. She hung in there for a couple of days until I suggested she might be more comfortable living in the utility trailer until the race was done.
And for her it was.
“&%@&! you, Adventure Man” she hollered as she drove off into the night.
I held onto the fantasy a bit longer, visions of late night appearances on the Outdoor Channel coursing through my head.
But who was I kidding? The other competitors were young and fit and sponsored by the likes of Rolex. Their multi-member support teams were paid and drove motor homes.
I was an aging, desk-bound newspaperman. I should have known better, but I bought into my own press. Dubbed “Adventure Man” in the local paper, I thought I had something to prove.
My wife told me I had.
She just won’t tell me what it is and I’m not about to ask.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
No need for my wife to see the story about a 400-mile foot, bicycle and boat race planned this summer in southwest Montana.
But she saw the story anyway.
“Don’t even think about it Adventure Man” she said.
Ten years ago I took part in such a race. Age, lack of training and short-lived determination dashed my hopes of finishing after only three days, but I did bring home a coveted “Participant” ribbon and earned the now-reviled moniker “Adventure Man.”
It was a race that appealed to me: on foot, bicycle, horseback and kayak across nearly 400 miles of Montana backcountry.
I was invited to participate as a member of what race organizers dubbed “the media team” even though I was the only member of the media on the team.
It offered me a week out of the office and not wanting to exclude my wife from the fun, I volunteered her services as a member of our support team.
Unfortunately, she was the only member.
But all she had to do was wait at various trailheads where we might show up at any hour of the night or day and provide us with hot meals cooked over a Coleman stove in the pouring rain and set up tents so we’d have a dry place to sleep, then re-supply and eventually meet us at another trailhead where we may or may not appear.
We were risking life and limb in the wilderness and simply expected her to wait on us hand and foot on our way to the finish line and personal glory. She hung in there for a couple of days until I suggested she might be more comfortable living in the utility trailer until the race was done.
And for her it was.
“&%@&! you, Adventure Man” she hollered as she drove off into the night.
I held onto the fantasy a bit longer, visions of late night appearances on the Outdoor Channel coursing through my head.
But who was I kidding? The other competitors were young and fit and sponsored by the likes of Rolex. Their multi-member support teams were paid and drove motor homes.
I was an aging, desk-bound newspaperman. I should have known better, but I bought into my own press. Dubbed “Adventure Man” in the local paper, I thought I had something to prove.
My wife told me I had.
She just won’t tell me what it is and I’m not about to ask.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Where have all the hillbillies gone?
Where have all the hillbillies gone?On the final leg of a cross-country road trip that included long days spent traveling through both the Ozark and Smokey mountain ranges, the feeling that something was missing began to gnaw at my gut. Then it hit me: We'd covered more than 6,000 miles without a single roadside reference to those simple mountain folk of the South. I couldn' t remember even one billboard advertising a hillbilly café down the road ora gift shop selling corn cob pipes. Hillbillies, apparently, have gone the way of the passenger pigeon, the dodo and the stay-at-home mom. Portrayed on film and television (think Jed Clampit and Ma and Pa Kettleif you're old enough) as barefoot, opossum-eating mountain dwellers who lived off the land, hillbillies have always seemed a bit more comic-stripcharacter than real. Certainly Snuffy Smith, Lil' Abner and Daisy Mae no longer have any basis in fact. They exist only in the funnies, replaced in American folklore by rappers, gay television stars and video game heroes. Too white and too closely tied to the land, they had less and less incommon with the rest of us. And, my mother would add, being a hillbilly was nothing to aspire to. They were lazy, didn't use proper English, stole chickens, operated moonshine stills and lived in hovels. All aspirations of mine at one time or another, but nothing that anon-line, cell phone-jabbering, bottled water-sipping, politically correct society could relate to in the 21st century. Signs advertising adult superstores, all-nude dancers and Yakov Smirnov's theater in Branson line the highways in Missouri, Georgia and Tennesseewhere hand-lettered advertisements for country cafes used to ask "Have yaet yet?" and offered home-cooked vittles. But while I mourn the absence of a visible hillbilly presence on the American landscape, I suspect there remains some isolated corner of this country where hill folk still reign supreme. Where a feller can still satisfy a hankerin' fer a sip of 'shine and there ain't a cell phone tower in sight. Where the Hatfield and McCoy feud still rages and the chicken is anything but store-bought. Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Thursday, March 20, 2008
It's time to go home
ST.CHRISTOHER KEY, Fla. -- The one great indulgence my wife and I allowourselves each year is to run away to Florida in March and live in atent. We fish, cook our catch over a Coleman stove and fall asleep at nightlistening to the breeze rustle through the palms. It's the only month of the year I don't mind being away from Montana.Winter there has worn out its welcome by then and spring remains littlemore than a rumor. When I was 13 growing up in Indiana a friend and I planned to hitchhiketo Florida late one summer. The night before our departure, however, Ijumped over a fence and landed on a broken Coke bottle. The next few weeks I spent on crutches and then it was time to go back to school.When I was old enough to leave home with my parents' blessing, I wentwest instead of south. It was the rest of my family who eventually ranaway to Florida. My parents lived here until Mom died and my sister still lives outside the tiny town of Live Oak near the Georgia border. But unlike my family, I have no plans to live here. Too hot most of thetime and too many people all of the time. A few weeks in March is just about perfect. The sea trout are plentiful on the grass flats and in the boat we can escape the crowds. We walk the beach along the Gulf of Mexico at firstlight picking up shells and I catch bait with my castnet in the shallowbay across from our campsite. It's warm enough during the day that shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops areadequate, yet still cool enough at night that sleeping is comfortable. Like any runaways though, after a few weeks, we start to get homesick. We miss doors that don't zip, a bed off the ground, a landscape not filled to the horizon with buildings and people. The days keep getting warmer. It must be about time to head for home. Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
There's Nothing Like That Old "Lid"
I bought a new hat recently.My wife said it was time.The lid I'd been wearing for a couple of years had taken on a personalityof its own. The emblem on the front was illegible, the color hard todescribe, other than earthtone, and it was beginning to smell a bit likethe dogs.But it still fit, shaded my eyes from the sun and provided shelter for mybalding head.What more could I ask?Something a little more fashionable I suppose.Maybe a trucker cap.Favored by rappers, skaters and the heavily inked, trucker caps -- atfirst glance anyway -- look a lot like the baseball caps I've worn foryears. But instead of a curved brim and a snug fit, these roomy lids feature a bill flat enough to play cards on and are usually worn askew. As in "heydude, your hat's on crooked."An admonition that seldom draws a friendly response. It's doubtful, however, that I'll ever wear a trucker cap. Like baseball caps worn backwards, hats that fit too loosely to stay on my head in astiff wind or don't shade my face, make little sense to me.Besides, I'm too old for such a fashion statement.I've always favored utilitarian chapeaus, like my oldred-and-black-checked Scotch cap with ear flaps. Elmer Fudd be damned. It sheltered me through blizzards and made do as a pillow when I forgot tobring one. Or the straw cowboy hat that keeps my ears and neck from frying in thesummer sun. I even have one of those long-billed fishing hats with a Lawrence ofArabia flap across the back that billows out like a cape when I'm runningthe boat at full throttle. But I prefer a simple cap. One that shades my eyes and covers my head.With an emblem appropriate in the company of women and children. Mine says Montana State.Does away with the need to ask: "Bobcats or Grizzlies?" I've worn hats that advertised bars, ropes and the feathers used to tieflies. It makes little difference. In a few months the logo will beillegible, blurred by sweat, grease, mud and blood. The color will fade and the new cap smell will vanish, replaced by an earthier aroma enabling me to find my hat in the dark. Then my wife will tell me it's time. And I'll begin looking for another. Something simple. Snug-fitting with a brim.I ask little of my lids. Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Comfort is a Glock in Yellowstone
It’s time for a couple of corrections.
I’ve found a few mistakes.
One, I discovered myself.
The other was recently pointed out to me by a concerned reader.
I wrote last summer in a column on the cravings I experienced during a trek across the Bob Marshall Wilderness that “comfort comes on a long stretch of downhill trail.”
Wrong.
Comfort comes on a long stretch of level trail.
Downhill trails kill me.
What was I thinking?
I get shorter with each step down the mountain, little cushion left in my knees to lessen the pounding of a downhill slog on my aging carcass.
I suspect I wrote that line because for much of my life it was true. Downhill trails were a treat, especially if I was dragging a large piece of meat out of the hills.
But somewhere along the way pain crept in and now awaits me every time I top a rise and head down the other side.
A recent column I wrote on an amendment to allow the public to pack easily accessible firearms in our national parks also begs a correction.
It was pointed out to me in an e-mail that securing a parking spot in Yellowstone isn’t the primary purpose of the amendment.
“It’s about having the freedom to not have to worry about Nazis come thru your door to take your daughter and your mother and your grandson down to the local clinic for their tattoo or their community shower,” wrote Ron C.
I obviously didn’t understand the real issue.
On occasion I don’t.
Fortunately Ron C. cleared things up for me.
An armed populace is apparently necessary to combat the “international cops who carry 40s, tazers and hand cuffs,” in our parks and forests.
Again, I didn’t know that was a problem, and silly me, I wasn’t even aware Nazis were still a threat.
It’s been a while since I visited Yellowstone. I suppose I should pay closer attention.
Perhaps I was in pain following a long stretch of downhill trail, my thoughts focused on that happy place I head to when the pounding begins to takes its toll.
Had I been walking on flat ground I’m sure I would have seen the threat and written about it in a more serious manner.
So I stand corrected. Comfort is a long stretch of level trail and a Glock in a shoulder holster to fend off the Nazis in Yellowstone National Park.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
I’ve found a few mistakes.
One, I discovered myself.
The other was recently pointed out to me by a concerned reader.
I wrote last summer in a column on the cravings I experienced during a trek across the Bob Marshall Wilderness that “comfort comes on a long stretch of downhill trail.”
Wrong.
Comfort comes on a long stretch of level trail.
Downhill trails kill me.
What was I thinking?
I get shorter with each step down the mountain, little cushion left in my knees to lessen the pounding of a downhill slog on my aging carcass.
I suspect I wrote that line because for much of my life it was true. Downhill trails were a treat, especially if I was dragging a large piece of meat out of the hills.
But somewhere along the way pain crept in and now awaits me every time I top a rise and head down the other side.
A recent column I wrote on an amendment to allow the public to pack easily accessible firearms in our national parks also begs a correction.
It was pointed out to me in an e-mail that securing a parking spot in Yellowstone isn’t the primary purpose of the amendment.
“It’s about having the freedom to not have to worry about Nazis come thru your door to take your daughter and your mother and your grandson down to the local clinic for their tattoo or their community shower,” wrote Ron C.
I obviously didn’t understand the real issue.
On occasion I don’t.
Fortunately Ron C. cleared things up for me.
An armed populace is apparently necessary to combat the “international cops who carry 40s, tazers and hand cuffs,” in our parks and forests.
Again, I didn’t know that was a problem, and silly me, I wasn’t even aware Nazis were still a threat.
It’s been a while since I visited Yellowstone. I suppose I should pay closer attention.
Perhaps I was in pain following a long stretch of downhill trail, my thoughts focused on that happy place I head to when the pounding begins to takes its toll.
Had I been walking on flat ground I’m sure I would have seen the threat and written about it in a more serious manner.
So I stand corrected. Comfort is a long stretch of level trail and a Glock in a shoulder holster to fend off the Nazis in Yellowstone National Park.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Dreaming of fish
It’s 10 below zero and the wind’s blowing 25 miles an hour.
Snow’s piling up on the drift boat and my beard is frozen.
So why can’t I stop thinking about fishing?
And I’m not talking about hard-water angling.
My thoughts are on warmer times and climes, the sound of a screaming drag and the thump, thump of a smallmouth bass flopping in the cooler.
I can smell the exhaust from the outboard, feel the tug of a strong fish and see the fly line cutting through the water like a laser.
The forecast calls for more sub-zero temperatures, additional snow and stronger winds. Emergency-only travel is advised.
But I’m already counting the days until I can drown a shiner under the railroad bridge, throw an elk-hair caddis to rising trout on the Yellowstone or cast a gold spoon to tailing redfish in Mosquito Lagoon.
The Weather Channel calls for 25 below with wind chills approaching -50. Roads are closed and school is cancelled.
I didn’t fish as much last summer as I should have. Other things got in the way and now I fear I’m running out of memories. At least recent ones. And it’s always been thoughts of fish on the line that got me through these periods of arctic frigidity.
While I can still pull up visions of red and white bobbers disappearing into the murky depths, it’s been way too long since I actually landed a bluegill, unhooked a bullhead or lipped a largemouth bass.
I haven’t caught a fish since last August when the brook trout were fighting over my fly on the Clarks Fork near Cooke City.
Then it was hunting season and now it’s the middle of winter. Blowing and drifting snow. A high of -15. Weather brutal enough to kill.
A 23-year-old Bozeman man died of hypothermia last week after falling through the ice on the Missouri River near Toston. It was only nine below that night.
Now it’s so cold I half expect to find Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel’s harbinger of storms, knocking at my door. Cantore, however, a fan of hurricanes, tornadoes and drought, appears to shy away from the really cold stuff. What I’m hearing must be the wind or the dogs scratching to get back in.
I caught a tiny cutthroat trout on a handline last summer while hiking across the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It had been hot that day and I was trying to cool off in the White River when I saw fish gathering in the still water behind my legs. Dropping a Griffith’s gnat onto the water a few feet upstream I watched as one tiny cutt rose to the surface and inhaled the fly.
The atmosphere sparkles with ice crystals. The radio warns me to stay inside. There’s no relief in sight.
But I still feel that tug on the line.
Snow’s piling up on the drift boat and my beard is frozen.
So why can’t I stop thinking about fishing?
And I’m not talking about hard-water angling.
My thoughts are on warmer times and climes, the sound of a screaming drag and the thump, thump of a smallmouth bass flopping in the cooler.
I can smell the exhaust from the outboard, feel the tug of a strong fish and see the fly line cutting through the water like a laser.
The forecast calls for more sub-zero temperatures, additional snow and stronger winds. Emergency-only travel is advised.
But I’m already counting the days until I can drown a shiner under the railroad bridge, throw an elk-hair caddis to rising trout on the Yellowstone or cast a gold spoon to tailing redfish in Mosquito Lagoon.
The Weather Channel calls for 25 below with wind chills approaching -50. Roads are closed and school is cancelled.
I didn’t fish as much last summer as I should have. Other things got in the way and now I fear I’m running out of memories. At least recent ones. And it’s always been thoughts of fish on the line that got me through these periods of arctic frigidity.
While I can still pull up visions of red and white bobbers disappearing into the murky depths, it’s been way too long since I actually landed a bluegill, unhooked a bullhead or lipped a largemouth bass.
I haven’t caught a fish since last August when the brook trout were fighting over my fly on the Clarks Fork near Cooke City.
Then it was hunting season and now it’s the middle of winter. Blowing and drifting snow. A high of -15. Weather brutal enough to kill.
A 23-year-old Bozeman man died of hypothermia last week after falling through the ice on the Missouri River near Toston. It was only nine below that night.
Now it’s so cold I half expect to find Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel’s harbinger of storms, knocking at my door. Cantore, however, a fan of hurricanes, tornadoes and drought, appears to shy away from the really cold stuff. What I’m hearing must be the wind or the dogs scratching to get back in.
I caught a tiny cutthroat trout on a handline last summer while hiking across the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It had been hot that day and I was trying to cool off in the White River when I saw fish gathering in the still water behind my legs. Dropping a Griffith’s gnat onto the water a few feet upstream I watched as one tiny cutt rose to the surface and inhaled the fly.
The atmosphere sparkles with ice crystals. The radio warns me to stay inside. There’s no relief in sight.
But I still feel that tug on the line.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
A swan song for hunters
The questionnaire arrived in the mail.
It required little time to complete.
Yes, I did hunt swans.
No, I didn’t get one.
And that may be a good thing.
Had I been successful, my wife joked she was going to tell my grandchildren that grandpa killed a swan.
My ineptitude at bagging one of the majestic birds saved me the scorn of a couple of little girls who are a bit suspect of me anyway.
“Grandpa doesn’t know Jesus,” the youngest recently told my wife.
“Oh yes he does,” Barb replied.
I’m sure, however, that my grandchildren remain doubtful of my salvation.
I seldom go to church, rarely read the Bible and no longer hold a regular job.
But they should realize, as surely as I didn’t shoot a swan last fall, I do know Jesus.
Matter of fact he was sitting next to me in the marsh. He always is. He’s there when I’m successful and he’s there when I miss three easy shots in a row.
He’s there when I cuss the dog for not sitting still and he’s there when I crack a beer at the end of the day.
I don’t expect him to make the hunt any easier or the dog more obedient.
I’ve simply come to expect him to be there. For as long as I can remember he has been.
He’s the reason I didn’t bag a swan although the questionnaire didn’t ask why. He’ll also be responsible for my success one day or my never-ending failure.
Only 25 percent of the hunters who held a swan permit in 2006 actually bagged one. I know they weren’t the only camo-clad hunters hiding in the cattails acquainted with Jesus.
If successful wing-shooting was that easy there would be a lot more waterfowlers seeking salvation in the marsh.
And surely the informational pamphlet that accompanied my swan permit would have included “get to know Jesus” along with recommended shooting distances and shot size.
My grandchildren should know that while they’re much more likely to find me in the field come Sunday morning than in a pew, or reading the solunar tables instead of 1 Corinthians, I do know Jesus.
Maybe next fall the two of us will bag a swan. Either way, I certainly won’t be out there alone.
And if I’m successful, I hope Barb won’t tell the girls. Explaining my faith to them could turn out to be a lot easier than explaining why I shot a swan.
It required little time to complete.
Yes, I did hunt swans.
No, I didn’t get one.
And that may be a good thing.
Had I been successful, my wife joked she was going to tell my grandchildren that grandpa killed a swan.
My ineptitude at bagging one of the majestic birds saved me the scorn of a couple of little girls who are a bit suspect of me anyway.
“Grandpa doesn’t know Jesus,” the youngest recently told my wife.
“Oh yes he does,” Barb replied.
I’m sure, however, that my grandchildren remain doubtful of my salvation.
I seldom go to church, rarely read the Bible and no longer hold a regular job.
But they should realize, as surely as I didn’t shoot a swan last fall, I do know Jesus.
Matter of fact he was sitting next to me in the marsh. He always is. He’s there when I’m successful and he’s there when I miss three easy shots in a row.
He’s there when I cuss the dog for not sitting still and he’s there when I crack a beer at the end of the day.
I don’t expect him to make the hunt any easier or the dog more obedient.
I’ve simply come to expect him to be there. For as long as I can remember he has been.
He’s the reason I didn’t bag a swan although the questionnaire didn’t ask why. He’ll also be responsible for my success one day or my never-ending failure.
Only 25 percent of the hunters who held a swan permit in 2006 actually bagged one. I know they weren’t the only camo-clad hunters hiding in the cattails acquainted with Jesus.
If successful wing-shooting was that easy there would be a lot more waterfowlers seeking salvation in the marsh.
And surely the informational pamphlet that accompanied my swan permit would have included “get to know Jesus” along with recommended shooting distances and shot size.
My grandchildren should know that while they’re much more likely to find me in the field come Sunday morning than in a pew, or reading the solunar tables instead of 1 Corinthians, I do know Jesus.
Maybe next fall the two of us will bag a swan. Either way, I certainly won’t be out there alone.
And if I’m successful, I hope Barb won’t tell the girls. Explaining my faith to them could turn out to be a lot easier than explaining why I shot a swan.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Because of bats I live where I do
In an age of saving whales and reintroducing wolves, it should have come as no surprise, but the story about a group of fourth-graders in Bozeman selling baked goods to raise money to adopt a bat did just that.
Now I’m about as animal friendly as they come. As a kid I kept skunks and opposums as pets, caught snakes and snapping turtles just to get a closer look at them, and raised mice and gerbils until they began to take over the house.
I hunt, but years ago quit killing anything I wouldn’t eat. I’ll swerve to miss a jackrabbit crossing the road and have been known to brake for salamanders.
Bats, however, remain on the periphery of my goodwill toward critters.
And they deserve better.
Bats are responsible in large part for me living where I do.
When my wife and I began looking a real estate a couple years ago in the small northern Montana town of Malta we now call home our objective was a fixer-upper we could quickly remodel and use during hunting season.
Quickly being the key word. I didn’t want to spend all of my time working on a house, so we started out looking for something small and cheap.
Then my wife discovered an old, two-story stone house that had been vacant for a couple of years.
Too big and probably too expensive I told her. A similar fixer-upper in Bozeman, where we were then living, would sell for half a million dollars.
Of course this wasn’t Bozeman and that’s why we were here. And there was a catch -- the realtor asked if we were afraid of bats.
“They are dead though,” she reassured us.
Malta, it turned out, is home to the northernmost colony of migrating little brown bats.
About 30 of them, unable to find their way out, had died inside the house, their mummified corpses stuck to the windows and walls and nestled among the dust bunnies in the corners.
We fell in love with the house and were able to afford it, in part, I suspect, because it was littered with dead bats.
Two years later, the place is relatively bat-proof, although we hear them at times squeaking and rustling about in the rafters.
During the summer I catch the occasional bat that flies into the house through an open door, but can’t say I really relish the close encounters.
I’m told they eat mosquitoes, but at times up here, I swear they must be dining on something else.
I’d like to think I could live quite well without bats although I know I never will.
There appears to be little danger of running out of them, especially when there are fourth-graders out there selling baked goods on their behalf.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
Now I’m about as animal friendly as they come. As a kid I kept skunks and opposums as pets, caught snakes and snapping turtles just to get a closer look at them, and raised mice and gerbils until they began to take over the house.
I hunt, but years ago quit killing anything I wouldn’t eat. I’ll swerve to miss a jackrabbit crossing the road and have been known to brake for salamanders.
Bats, however, remain on the periphery of my goodwill toward critters.
And they deserve better.
Bats are responsible in large part for me living where I do.
When my wife and I began looking a real estate a couple years ago in the small northern Montana town of Malta we now call home our objective was a fixer-upper we could quickly remodel and use during hunting season.
Quickly being the key word. I didn’t want to spend all of my time working on a house, so we started out looking for something small and cheap.
Then my wife discovered an old, two-story stone house that had been vacant for a couple of years.
Too big and probably too expensive I told her. A similar fixer-upper in Bozeman, where we were then living, would sell for half a million dollars.
Of course this wasn’t Bozeman and that’s why we were here. And there was a catch -- the realtor asked if we were afraid of bats.
“They are dead though,” she reassured us.
Malta, it turned out, is home to the northernmost colony of migrating little brown bats.
About 30 of them, unable to find their way out, had died inside the house, their mummified corpses stuck to the windows and walls and nestled among the dust bunnies in the corners.
We fell in love with the house and were able to afford it, in part, I suspect, because it was littered with dead bats.
Two years later, the place is relatively bat-proof, although we hear them at times squeaking and rustling about in the rafters.
During the summer I catch the occasional bat that flies into the house through an open door, but can’t say I really relish the close encounters.
I’m told they eat mosquitoes, but at times up here, I swear they must be dining on something else.
I’d like to think I could live quite well without bats although I know I never will.
There appears to be little danger of running out of them, especially when there are fourth-graders out there selling baked goods on their behalf.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net
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