Out My Window

After seeing this, I have lost respect for Fox News.
Of course it is to be expected from big drug companies and our government.
Canada stood up to Monsanto and would not approve the drug because they found that the company misrepresented the danger of cancer to humans from the milk of cows treated with it.
Monsanto didn't have enough money to buy off Canada but unfortunately they could afford to pay off government testers and threaten the news media into killing the story.

Since Monsanto has the money, our kids get to drink carcinogenics at school.
Isn't it great to be rich?

Monsanto Pressures Fox News

It's about ten minutes long but well worth the time to watch.

As can be expected, many lives were lost trying to dam the Colorado river. One hundred and twelve to be exact.

I had long heard the myths about workers buried in the concrete but found this to be untrue but I was amazed to find out this fact:

The first man to die was a surveyor, J.G. Tierney who drowned while trying to locate the optimum site for the dam. On February 6, 1935, thirteen years later (TO THE DAY!), the last life was lost. That in itself is ironic but wait for it... wait for it...

The last death was a man named Patrick Tierney who fell from an intake tower and drowned.
Patrick was J.G. Tierney's son.

Now you can go about your day in awe.

Once back in my hunting days, I watched from a high cliff, a cougar chase a mule deer down a wash and finally catch it at an old barbwire fence crossing. I sat there in awe as I watched nature unfold in front of my eyes. I was hunting with a pistol (yeah, one hell of a sportsman) and was over 200 yards away. I knew there was no way to intervene and would soon see the lion at the poor deer's throat. So it was nature. I would be doing the same thing if I had been within gun shot and came upon the poor deer. But what I saw is seldom believed by anyone I have told. The others in my hunting party would have never believed me if I hadn't taken them back to the spot the next day.
It took me about 30 mins to make my way down to the spot of death to take a souvenir. An antler you might think? No. I cut away a claw. I wore it on a chain around my neck for years until my raccoon chewed it up. (but that is another story)

The lion caught the rear of the deer and knocked him to the ground. The deer had not stopped sliding as the lion clawed his way up the body but the deer was ready. He tossed the lion to the side.
The lion may have been surprised because while he just pawed and hissed, the deer did not hesitate. He backed the lion into a pile of driftwood where he proceeded to stomp the life from him and then ran off up the cliff on the other side.

Cougars being protected, I knew better than take the body back to camp but thought we would come back the next day. Maybe risk skinning it.
The desert is harsh at night. The next day, there was nothing left but the signs of what happened.

Now... I told you that story because I recently found another "deer" story on a forum. There were no names and I could not post since I wasn't a member but this was too good to not share.
So if you are the original poster, let me know and I will give you credit.

RANCHER ROPES A DEER

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.

The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back.

They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope.

The deer just stood there and stared at me.

I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step towards it. It took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED!

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.

A deer? No chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.

I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder -- a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist.

Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost like a mad dog. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.

I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.

The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope to sort of even the odds.

According to Snopes, this might be a true story. They can't find the original author because, according to the rest of the story, he's ashamed to be known as "...the dumbass who tried to rope the deer!"

Home defense can run the gambit from a baseball bat beside the bed to a 50 cal setup in the hallway. Your preference more than likely falls someplace in between.

I stopped hunting with a gun years ago so long guns no longer grace my abode. As child rearing became more a part of my life, my handgun collection dwindled also. The choice was for safety sake, only to keep one handgun so access could be very closely controlled.

Some will say a good choice, other will ask, "Why have a gun at all?" Well, the latter is easy to answer...Shut up! You have led a sheltered life and would never understand.

As for "wise choice..." maybe not as much anymore.
Children are all gone. I keep it loaded and above my bed. Lately I have been re-thinking my choices. Although I grew up with a handgun and very apt with one of any caliber, I am just not as quick and sharp eyed as I once was. Thus I have been contemplating the shot gun.

Now add to the mix, we are mobile. Yes we live in a motor home. This makes the gun laws fall into some gray areas.
Crossing state lines are another issue when it comes to carrying a weapon. Is the weapon in your vehicle or is it in your home? Will your CCW be valid in this state? Does it need to be broke down or stored in the trunk?

To add to that, what if you pick a weapon that is classified as AOW (any other weapon) like a shotgun pistol that may not be legal for concealed carry in some states?
I am leaning now toward a version that is a little more practical than this one but I do have space requirements to think of. I couldn't swing a full blown shotgun around in my hallway.

If you know about ballistics, You know that if your barrel is too short for the load, you are just wasting gun powder. Once the projectile leaves the end of the barrel, any powder that is not burned by then is just flash. It does nothing to push the projectile any harder or further.
So now I must decide on a length of barrel. Will I need to load my own shells?

How about a tactical weapon that converts to a full blown field gun on just minutes? All of the bolt on "Terminator" type stuff is easily removed to actually just leave the receiver, then all of the stock parts and barrel are put back on to make an excellent coyote hunter.

Did I mention that a coyote killed my cat?



I'll worry about the traffic stop later.

No. Not in a felonious escape attempt but as the result of a misplaced game of hide-and-seek.
Thinking he was going to pull a prank on two dispatchers on duty by hiding in a dark room at the Jail & Justice Center and scaring them, Daniel Spengler instead startled Sheriff's Deputy A.J. Griffin, and ended up shot.

The dispatchers, all female, had been hearing strange noises outside and in the administrative area of the building. When a dispatcher heard rattling noises outside of her door, she looked into the corridor and saw nothing. When she heard the rattling noises again, she asked Griffin to investigate.

The first room he inspected was empty; the second appeared to be empty, but it was dark and difficult to see. Spengler was hiding behind something, then jumped out making a growling noise. Startled, Griffin jumped back and discharged his firearm, shooting the jailer in the right leg.

Spengler will likely have to have more surgery, however his injury is not life threatening. Both men are on paid administrative leave.

It is not know whether Spengler, a certified jailer who has been with the SO for one-and-a-half years, would be entitled to coverage from Worker's Compensation because playing a prank "is not part of his job description."

UPDATE:
I just found this.