That Higher Standard

Most of you know a little bit about our family, either because you know us personally or from reading our blog. There's Jenelle and I and our three kids, and then there's Koda. 

Koda is the family dog. We got Koda when she was just a little puppy. She was the cutest thing. Fluffy and fun. Now we're not necessarily dog people, but we like dogs, and having a dog on the homestead is a good thing. They keep the critters out of the yard and the bears off of the porch. And they are fun to have around. 

Our first dog Daisy, had lived out her life sharing ice cream and rolling in the leaves with the kids. After she was gone there was an empty hole that needed to be filled. And so we found Koda.

 Koda was supposedly a beagle/rottweiler cross. In my mind that would make a great dog. She would keep things chased out of the yard. She would make a great family pet. Along with that I was looking for a tracking dog that could trail a deer if need be, helping to recover harvested deer. The beagle bloodline would be great for that.

Koda looked like a beautiful beagle as a pup. As she grew she got even more beautiful. The beagle and the rottweiler totally disappeared and she morphed into some sort of border collie/bird dog type of breed. Along with the looks went her nose. Beagles are always sniffing around. Koda can't find a piece of pepperoni that you throw on the floor unless you point at it. Her nose seems to be a total dud. 

I used to raise border collies when I was a kid and so I can see some of those tendencies in her personality. She is very sensitive and you can hurt her feelings easily. She often watches you out of the corner of her eyes, waiting motionless for that gesture or whistle to come and play or to go for a walk or whatever. And she likes to herd our chickens, just like a border collie herds sheep. There are other times when I wonder if she has some type of bird dog blood racing through her veins. Often she'll "point" on the chickens, like a bird dog on a pheasant. She's also pointed on wild turkeys when we go on walks. She seems to have this thing for our fowl feathered friends.

And then sometimes there's just this regular old dog nature that comes out. She'll chase anything that she sees moving. She's treed bears, coons, and 'possums and squirrels in our yard. She's been quilled by a porcupine and sprayed by skunks. She'll bark at strangers. And several times while herding the chickens, she totally lost control and before we knew it, we had one less chicken in the flock. But she knows we want to keep our chickens and for the most part does a great job of holding herself to that higher standard, herding them and keeping them rounded up in the yard.

This past week Jenelle's parents were here. It was the week of Aiyana's volleyball playoffs along with the early muzzleloader season. So in the mornings, Jenelle’s dad Ray, Caleb and I would hunt and then in the evenings we would all go and watch the games. Aiyana's team won the conference championship and it was a week of watching some really good volleyball and of course, as parents, we were really proud of our daughter and her team.

Our muzzleloader hunting was fun as well. Ray builds the old style Pennsylvania long rifle. He's built some really nice and fancy ones over the years, replicas of guns from the 1700s. He was trying out a new hunting rifle that he had built for himself. It doesn't have all of the fancy inlays and engravings that some of his guns do, but still has the long barrel and slim lines along with the defined cheek rest of a Pennsylvania long rifle. It is a very sweet looking gun! He let us all shoot it and I'll have to say that it was a well balanced and great shooting gun.

  Most people these days hunt with a modern day version of the muzzleloader. They look like a modern gun with scopes and all the other bells and whistles that you can put on them. They are effective at managing the deer herd and keeping the numbers where the DNR wants to keep them and so I'm not putting down anyone that uses one.

That being said, I prefer the old style muzzleloader, and so that's what I hunt with. It's been fun to see Caleb following in my footsteps. He likes the smoke and the bang and the fun of the uncertainty of how long it will take the gun to fire after you pull the trigger. He missed an eight point on Saturday and when I asked if he wished he had a scope on his gun, he replied with, "this is a lot more fun!"

If you follow my blog, then you know that venison is a main staple in our family. And since we have growing boys in the house, we seem to consume a lot and so we harvest a handful of deer or so each year. We eat what we shoot and so in one sense you could say that we are meat hunters. 

The DNR manages the deer herd by allowing hunters to harvest a certain number of deer each year. The goal is to have a healthy herd that doesn't eat itself into starvation and to reduce auto collisions and other unwanted human interactions, but to still have a deer herd. And so their restrictions are pretty basic, keeping the numbers somewhere in that balance. As a family, we stay within those guidelines and abide by the rules. As a hunter and lover of the outdoors, I tend to set a higher standard for myself. Some might call me a trophy hunter and that's ok, but I consider myself more of a selective hunter. I thoroughly enjoy being out there, seeing the deer, watching them interact with each other, letting them pass, and just waiting for that old and illusive buck to come by. And to do that, it requires a lot of sitting. The kids aren't into sitting and waiting as much, and aren't as selective, and have actually put more meat in the freezer recently than I have. 

 Call me what you like, I find joy in letting the young bucks walk in hopes that they will turn into a big old buck one day. And so that's the standard that I try to hold myself to.

Back to our dog Koda. It's not always easy to hold to that standard.

Caleb and I were going through some brush. My intent was to chase a deer out for Caleb. A small buck jumped up. Instinct took over. There was a cloud of smoke. The next thing I knew I had harvested a small buck. There was prime meat for our freezer but there was also some ribbing about that higher standard. And I'm sure I will get more ribbing about it from my friends in the future. And when I think about it, I'll kick myself and think, "you should have let that little buck pass."

But when I put my head down on the floor, and close my eyes, my tail will start to wag, and I'll remember that day. Maybe a fun time with Caleb was the higher standard.

That was one fun hunt!