Shooting ranges are great but they do not get anyone ready for the timber. Trying to look through moving leaves, listening to all the noises and figuring out if its a squirrel or a dog. What if you just ding the critter, seeing the blood, hunting it down while Its racing through the timber on 3 legs. Can you stomach it? Or if you hit it the first try and kill it right there, are you man enough to skin it or are you going to start crying about how you killed this innocent animal.

This is not meant for any one in particular, just general.

We hunt, I am used to it, it sometimes is not pretty. At one time everyone had to hunt, there was no stores to buy it from, if you shot it you skinned it.
When I shot my first deer. my husband handed me the knife and told me what to do, there was no room for being squeaming.

Ya, I can read the PMS coming out in me tonight LOL

I hear people talk about how they can't handle the idea of hunting, but they don't like farming either but oh ya, they do eat meat. Irritates the hell out of me.

I just finished canning up rabbit, all of my breeders got an upper respritory infection and I had to cull 15 of them and more will follow this week. I didn't throw the meat out, I canned it up in chilli, want not waste not.

I got my hands on some beef fat (tallow) and rendered it and canned it. Most people cut that off their steak and throw it away (thankfully not folks here)

I canned up pumpkin and roasted seeds, most folks are going to be running to the store in the nest week wanting to buy pumpkin pie filling already canned up for them.

We have otten lazy, we have learned to not be able to stomach blood, we suddenly develope morals on killing animals but we've been eating them for thousands of years.

Hunting is natural, its actually insintual if we havne't been brainwashed out of it. We hunt, not shoot up the timber. Shot gun deer season is about to open for us (Iowa) and we will have 3 tags to use up. We usually group hunt, a group of people walk through the timber and spook the deer out into the open. Others are waiting hopefull at a good spot and hopefully shoot them as the deer go by. Not an easy feat because the deer are not walking and usually jumping something right when you shoot.
I hear all the time people commenting how they would like to have a few packages of deer meat. Really? Did they hunt? Skin and gut it? Carry its huge body back to the truck?

Its really no different than the store, they want it packaged and ready to go. Peaple expect the hunters to give them meat all packaged and ready to go. No muss no fuss.

Except I'm in the mood to fuss tonight.