Burger King Calls Out Ronald

I've always felt clowns are creepy; Ronald McDonald included.  It's nice to see that Burger King feels the same way, and is totally calling out their rival:



Now I just wish Burger King would do something about their own creepy mascot:

The Hawk Ate My Teal

I had one of the strangest mornings I've ever had while waterfowling.

I was in camp alone, and decided to hunt an area we call "Goose Island."  It is a patch of cattails in fairly shallow water and provides good cover plus the ease of being able to walk around to set most of the decoys.  

The morning started out well, and I was treated to this fabulous sunrise:



The ducks were flying, especially the mallards, and they really seemed to like my set.  I had a number of flocks over my decoys and presenting me with fabulous shots.  Unfortunately, I shot incredibly poorly.  Perhaps it was because I was wearing another full coat over my traditional one and messing up my sight plane, or maybe it was just a funk.  Regardless, I was ice cold.

I finally did eventually connect on a teal on a close shot, which made me feel a little more confident.  Instead of taking the boat and picking up the downed bird right away I opted to stay put for a while.  The birds were flying, and I had a good line on the teal's drift, hence I'd go pick him up later once things slowed down.

About 15 minutes later, the teal had drifted about 50 yards away from me.  As he was bobbing on the water, a hawk suddenly appeared and headed right for my bird.  "That's funny," I thought to myself, "I bet that hawk wishes he had my teal."

The hawk must have felt the same thing because he dove at my teal and extended his talons.  "No way he's picking that up!" I thought.

Wrong.

The hawk did get airborne, flew about 20 yards, then landed on a patch of floating bog and proceeded to make a breakfast of my teal.

Here's a photo of him helping himself to my bird:



In all of my years of hunting and all of my time on the water, I've never seen anything like it.

Church as MASH Ward

This past week, Fr. Don passed along the following:

The Bishop of Rome (Francis) received very favorable reaction to an interview given in August, 2013. One line resonates with many: "I see the church as a field hospital after battle." A recognition that we all have been wounded or at least have wounds from "the slings and arrows" of life. We need healing, a work for both Word and Sacrament, for the touch of the Lord who loves us. Ordinarily that love comes to us through another human being’s compassion and sympathetic understanding. An often used prayer entitled "Hail, Holy Queen" has a line about "poor, banished children of Eve". With little children this often comes across as "poor, bandaged children of Eve", an unwitting intuition of this truth! That certainly fits with "field hospital."


By gathering together on Sunday, under the same roof and seeking the same nourishing and healing, we are cared for and we heal.  Certainly, we may not be healed fully, (it is a MASH unit - not a hospital) but we are made better.  We're restored.  We're propped.  We're better prepared to endure what life will give us in the coming week.

It is not a panacea.  Sometimes the wounds that life throws at us are far too much that they cannot be healed.  But in those situations, just like in a field hospital, at least there will be comforting and compassion and communion.  

Our weekly visit also serves as a reminder of how we can play the role of medic for each other the remainder of the week.  As Christians, that is what each of us is called to do.  

You'll bump into many people this week that are hurting and are in need.  Don't wait for them to scream, "MEDIC!"

Saturday Song Share: Kristin Diable - I'll Make Time for You

Huntego's CleanShot - A New Way to Clean Your Gun

Bore cleaning is a pain in the tail.  You need to get out your chemicals, rags, and plunger and horse it through your gun, then get it all broken down and put away again.

With this, however...



I am so trying this and will post up and let you know.  

Monster Commercial

Monster does a great job in its new commercial and plays off the fact that most people will leave a job because primarily because they dislike/hate the person for whom they work:

I used to have one of those bosses we see at the lead, and I actually had the finger snapped at me multiple times as I sought to make myself more productive while he held meaningless conversations on the phone.  In fact, whenever we met in his office, he'd nearly always pick up an inbound call and would demand that I sit there and wait. 

What'd I do?  

I ultimately got the hell out of there.  Life is too short, and work too much of that short life to be treated like garbage. 

Dog Slowing Down

My yellow dog is now at 12.5 years old.  She's slowed quite a bit, and I've not hunted her for two years now.  

Her days are now a mixture of good and bad days.  Sometimes she's not ravenous for food; indeed she may not even finish a meal and will pick at it gingerly.  She'll be lethargic or sullen.  She'll also sometimes develop incredibly loud belly noises - noises that can be heard from well across the room - and foul flatulence.   

Then, by miracle, the next day she's back to her old self.  

So now the age-old question that every owner of an old pet needs to ask: when is the right time to seek medical treatment?  In invoking Dr. Google, the Yellow Dog's maladies could be quite serious and could require surgery.  But for a dog her age, is that fair?  Just like humans, old age will ultimately ensure that something conspires to take you out.  We don't last forever.  

But could the short-term quality of life be improved?  That's a question I'm wrestling with.

This morning I woke to the loudest belly noise she's ever had.  She did take some water, and slowly ate most, but not all, of her breakfast.  A quick morning walk elicited the necessary "deposit" which appeared normal.  

She was like this a couple of weeks ago and bounced back well.  Hence, we'll sit tight and keep a close eye on her.  We'll also keep you all posted.

Hunting With Kin Recap

This past week we held our nearly annual hunting with kin weekend up at the duck camp.  It was attended by not only two of my cousins, but also by my young nephew.  We've been at this for 14 years as of this January, and it has been a blessing on so many levels.  The ducks have been just an excuse; the true reason we get together is for the laughs and the memories.

Here are some of those for this trip:

Duck hunting is not an easy pursuit.  Hunting starts a half hour before sunrise, and with all of the work to do ahead of time (setting decoys, travel, coffee, biological needs, etc.), and we're up incredibly early.  There are some benefits of being the only ones in the world up at our ungodly hour, and one of them is that we're often treated to God's beauty.  Here was just one example. 

 Another great sunrise.

My nephew had never been pheasant hunting, and 15 minutes into his first hunt he bagged this bird on a hard crossing shot.  Truth be told, I shot first and missed.  The kid backed me up.  I have no idea how many hunts I had been on before I shot my first pheasant, but it felt like it would never happen.  It happened for the kid only a couple hundred yards into his first hunt.  Lucky dog... 

Here's a buddy with a rare end of October blue wing teal.   

Here was the sunrise for our last day.  Another fabulous way to begin our day, and end our trip.

While the bag wasn't heavy, we did scratch out our share, with the kid and I contributing to a last day's brace of drake wood ducks.

Other highlights included:

• My cousin's famous gumbo night, which was attended by a bunch of neighbors.  Not sure how many folks we had in total, but we fed over 20 (and still had leftovers)
• My cousin bagging his first pheasant in who knows how long
• Victories by the Gophers, Irish, Tigers AND Vikings (when does that ever happen?)
• Too many laughs to count

Hopefully, we'll be able to do it all again down in Louisiana in January.