Day: February 5, 2017

The intrusive tree stand is down, we have reclaimed our woods, the stand is going to a good friend and ethical hunter. Maria did a remarkable job of scurrying up the pine tree, cutting the straps and ties and locks, and pulling the stand down. It is intact and ready for someone else to use.

I was not all that helpful, unless you count taking photos. We did both spent an hour chopping through brush and bramble to make a clear path over the march and into the woods. She carried a ladder all the way from the barn to the tree stand.

Maria was very happy when the stand came down, she said it felt great to make and take the thing down. It should not have been there, and I doubt very strongly if there will be another.

People sense when land is occupied and cared for, and when it is not. I guess whoever put it up either didn’t know the land was occupied and would be used, or didn’t care. Either way, you don’t put a stand up on somebody’s property without permission. The real hunters would never do that.

We have no idea who put it up, or whether they will return, we will post the property with the proper signs. I see there is some hysteria on my social media about it, I sometimes think it is the function of social media to overreact to almost everything – politics, weather, difference of opinion.

I also feel there is a  tendency to stereotype people in rural life as being violent and dangerous, when the very opposite is true. Violent crime is almost unknown here.

I go on Facebook once or twice a day to read the comments, it is an occasional part of my day. People are trading stories there of people being shot over tree stands, praying that I don’t get attacked or beaten, and expressing outrage and alarm. and warning me of retribution. Cut it out, please.

This is the country, it is the safest place I have ever lived, and I wonder at this image of it as a barbaric  and lawless land where people shoot one another over arguments.  When I lived in New York and New Jersey, people would steal almost anything that wasn’t locked up or nailed down. Nothing has ever been stolen from me in the country in 15 years.

That is farm from my experience here, we live by character and community, we work things out because we will all have to deal with one another and need one another.

We live by common rules. We help one another in crisis,  we take responsibility for our property, we respect the property of others.

The real hunters live by a rigid ethical code. Shoot to kill, not to wound, do not leave wounded animals out in the woods, use or eat what you shoot if you can, do not shoot beautiful or young animals, do not go on anyone’s property without permission, clean up the woods.

This is not about conflict or argument for us, it is not a dangerous thing to do.  We are not afraid of it in any way.

These people were in the wrong, it is not a great big deal, it is not a life or death matter, there is nothing to fear. I don’t read  much news or spend too much time on Facebook or Twitter. They seem to be unhealthy as well as occasionally useful places.

I refuse to see the normal transactions of life – riding around with a dog, walking on ice, taking down a tree stand – as moments of great drama and danger. These are the threads of life, they happen to all of us in one way or another. Rural America is not a dangerous or lawless place.

I do not care to live in drama, not when a dog dies, not when a President I didn’t vote for is elected, not when we take a tree stand down in the forest. There is no cause for outrage or alarm.

Maria is often up on ladders, so, for that matter, am I. Life on a farm in nature.  If drama is to seek me out and find me,  I will accept it. In the meantime life goes on, crisis and mystery is always around the corner.

Several hunters have already contacted me to thank me for caring for my land and letting hunters hunt, to thank me for writing about the ethics of hunting, and to offer help in taking the offending stand down. They all have theories about who probably put it up there. They said it was absolutely correct to take it down, people who do that give all hunters a bad name.

They said they are here to help if necessary. Nice to know. We are all set, time to move on and enjoy and tend to our neglected little forest.

For Maria, a satisfying moment of empowerment. She loves being strong. We are loving our newly-accessible woods and committed to caring for them.  That was a big and important step today. It was a big day for us.

Maria and I launched our very determined campaign to take our woods back by beginning to dissemble the metal hunting stand someone put up in our woods without our permission. Until a few weeks go, it was hard for us to get out there, through fast streams and thick brush and brambles.

Thanks to the Gulley Memorial Bridge, we can cross into the woods and are beginning to clean them up, open paths,  trim dying trees, chop up thorn bushes. We were surprised to find a fairy elaborate and expensive tree stand right in the middle of the woods, built there without our knowledge or permission.

Most tree stands hunters put up are simple affairs planks of wood built up in trees with home-made wooden ladders, they are easy to build and inexpensive. This one is more elaborate, with a metal ladder and a medal stand and base, tethered to the old pine tree with straps and bicycle lock cords.

There were even permanent power cords attached, probably for portable battery-powered heaters. I wonder if they weren’t planning to build a split level out there.

We are happy to give hunters permission to hunt in our wood, but we’ve given no one permission to build something like this, and try to lock it in. Today, it’s coming down, we found a hunter/friend who will happily come and get it and use it on his land. Maria and I hauled a ladder up to the woods and she climbed up to see what is keeping this up.

We’re going back with a bolt cutter and knife to cut the straps that tie the stand to the tree, and we should be able to push it over. A number of people have surprised me by telling me to be careful that the hunter doesn’t come and harm me. I think Deliverance did a lot of harm to the idea of rural life in American minds.

Deliverance is to the country what Babe is to border collies. This is the safest and most tolerant place I have ever lived, and I’ve lived in 15 or 16 different places in America. We watch out for one another here.

People here respect private property and value courtesy and straightforwardness. No self respecting or ethical hunter would ever set foot on someone’s property without permission. Nor would they dare to come and complain if found out.

And no one is going to come to the farm and harm me for taking it down. If he or she did anything like that, the law would come down on them hard, and so would real hunters. I’ve gotten all kinds of offers from ethical hunters to come and take the stand down, even some offers of help from state environmental police, the ones who oversee hunting licenses and safety.

So we’ve checked it out, we will return this afternoon with the appropriate tools. We’re going to cut the straps and just pull the stand away from the tree.

How fortunate I am to be married to someone who zips up and down ladders like a money and loves to care care of our woods, and wields a mean drill. Day by day, we are claiming these woods, orphaned a bit by life.

It’s been cold, and Minnie has been inside the house a lot n the last few weeks. Yesterday, the sun came out and I found Minnie sitting in the sunlight when I came into do the chores. She is, after all, a barn cat, and knows how to find the sun in a shadowy barn.