Bringing Home the Bacon...or Whatever

What do you thinking of hunting?

A noble endeavor that hearkens back to our ancient ancestry?

Maybe the time of year you are a "widow" for days or weeks?

Just a way for folks to go into the woods and relive their childhood fancies once again...but with real guns this time!

No matter what you think of, hunting really is a time honored tradition most often handed down from parent to child generation after generation.  We tend to consider a man's sport, but that is not the case.  Globally, there is much to suggest that in many cultures, the women were the hunters and gatherers.  True, men do tend to gravitate to the sport, but it's not exclusive to them.

I happen think it is part of the simple life. 

Let's boil it down to its simplest form, the essence of hunting if you will.  You go out and bring home meat.  That's it.  You did nothing to raise it.  You did nothing to help the breeding process.  You go out to bring home something you did little work for.  And you eat.

Pretty simple.

Okay, I realize that's over simplified, but it does really capture the essence of hunting.

Anyway, I think you get the point.  In years gone by, it was a way of life.  Perhaps more literally, it was a matter of survival. It's true that if you had no other means to get food, hunting would become the most vital activity you would engage in.  Early on, many cultures learned to live off the land, plant their own crops, and store up meat and animal fat in reserve for a time when game might not be so plentiful.

And still, despite the stress and mess of killing your own game and preserving it, I'd still have to call it the simple life.  Notice the name of this blog is not The Easy Life.  It has been my observation over the years that simple and easy are not synonyms.  Hiking with a 30 pound pack on your back is simple....but not easy.  So killing your own game, dressing it, roasting it, and preserving it calls to us from a simpler time.

I confess, I am a poor hunter.  I typically hunt only on public lands...along with 50 million other people.  I have not gotten a clean shot off to take down a dear.  Some years I see nothing at all.  Yet I persist.  I persist because there is so much to be said for sitting down on an old stump on the edge of a tree line, listening for the crunching of leaves or snow and the familiar hollow sound of antlers brushing against the tree branches.  I feel the peace that washes over me as the sounds of the forest are all that I hear.  I long for the openness that a day in the woods affords me.  I long for the..well...simplicity of it all.  Some day I hope to take the game I have hunted for all these years.  But until then, I will continue to hunt the peace and simplicity I long to find in the quiet stillness of the woods.

What could be more simple?