Posted on 09/17/2005 9:08:12 PM PDT by neverdem
GREEN MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Vt. - Chomping wad after wad of Bubblicious Strawberry Splash gum and giggling as she tickled people's necks with a piece of grass she pretended was a spider, Samantha Marley could have been any 9-year-old girl.
A couple of things set her apart, though. She was cloaked in camouflage from boots to baseball cap. And propped next to her on the seat of a truck was her very own 20-gauge shotgun.
Samantha, a freckle-faced, pony-tailed fourth grader, was on a bear hunt. Not the pretend kind memorialized in picture books and summer-camp chants, but a real one for black bears that live in the woods of southwestern Vermont and can weigh 150 pounds or more.
She had won a "dream hunt" given away by a Vermont man whose goal is to get more children to hunt, and she had traveled about 200 miles from her home in Bellingham, Mass., and was missing three days of school to take him up on his offer.
"Almost everything you hunt is pretty fun," said Samantha, grinning and perfectly at home with a group of five men, the youngest of whom was nearly three times her age.
At one point, as the group crossed a wooden bridge, Samantha's father, Scott, who had accompanied her - and had filled out her application for the hunting contest - teased her that trolls lived under the bridge.
"Dad," Samantha said with bravado, "I got a gun."
The dream hunt - all expenses paid, including taxidermy - was the brainchild of Kevin Hoyt, a 35-year-old hunting instructor who quit a job as a structural steel draftsman a few years ago and decided to dedicate himself to getting children across the country interested in hunting.
His efforts reflect...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Once they learn, they tend to be deadly accurate.
I'm a pretty fair shot, but hand my wife a strange rifle with iron sights and she'll be spot on by the third shot.
Oh I agree. I'm off to sleep myself.
We have seen lately how thin the veneer of civilization really is. You have improved your odds of survival by relocating to a rural area. Your teenager's friends' hunting and shooting mentors could be valuable resources in enhancing your family's self-reliance.
We're farmers so I know what real vegetables taste like. Nothing like the cardboard you get at the store.
You got that right!
LOL.....One reason I get a cow elk permit every year. I can't afford to pay trophy fees.......:o)
Few people even know what a -real- egg tastes like.
I've actually seen people that prefer the tasteless, anemic things that are sold in stores.
"Tailor" has dissappeared from our cultural vocab. Its "fashion designer" now. Kids learn skills from both parents sure, but there's a core to each role that's been lost. I admire parents that teach their boys to be boys, their girls to be girls, and to respect and appreciate the differences in the other.
One family I stayed with as a guest a while back - nothing drew the parents ire more than the boys criticizing their sisters activities/conversations or vice versa when the girls wanted to rough-house around. It was refreshing to see this purpose these parents had for raising their kids.
One more thing before I call it a night...You're right about the egg. The yolk is the best part of the egg. Having a hen to get fresh eggs is the best thing next to having a nanny goat. Personally, I've not had an egg in a while. I do know some women who are raw foodists who eat egg yolks and have very healthy babies with all the folic acid in the yolk.
I try to only teach them my good habits, and they keep me young.
My Dad is the family patriarch, but he lives 2000 miles away, so the job falls to me.
In six months or so, he'll become a great-great-grandfather...
I hunt but my daughter doesn't care to. She loves shooting and knows the safety rules, she also likes doing all the camping things involved with hunting including getting all camo'd up, she just doesn't care to hunt...Nothing wrong with that.
I won't make light of your obvious love for animals...but... Unless you are strict vegetarians, do your kids know where their food comes from? Hunting is among the most basic of survival skills. When properly taught, it fosters respect for God's creatures, not abuse.
Does not the wild boar die a better death than the barrow in the slaughterhouse?
Add in military and special forces training in a minority who can pass these skills along, and you have a formidable force.
Technology is only at its best against massed forces.
Small units converging on a specific target can decimate it, but are historically hard to counter with technology alone.
Check out the battle of Kings Mountain.
A couple folks have no chance. 1% of the armed citizenry would outnumber the Active Army.
How would the Battle of Fallujah have gone if the hadjis had all been deer and elk and bighorn and hog and chuck and prairie dog hunters?
If someone needs to hunt for food to put on the table then that's fine. I just don't think a child should be doing that. I don't eat animal flesh so it's nothing I'd have to discuss with the children anyway. I suppose I'd have to explain why some kids eat hotdogs and they don't. A slaughterhouse isn't a fair fight and if someone preferred meat they should hunt for it.
That wasn't my comment. I don't know who made it.
Are your children also vegans?
Even if your are, your are still killing plants.
Wait? A Real Egg? An egg is an egg, or isn't it. I'm confused.
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