More thanks to go around

Thanksgiving marks the one year anniversary of my blog. Last year I started things off by giving the menu for our 100-mile meal. That was an ambitious feast, rather too ambitious. (The crab stew really sent things over the top.) By the end of Thanksgiving day, I was exhausted from two solid days of cooking, and I hadn't had time to socialize with the people with whom I shared the meal. I knew that I couldn't do something like that again.

Happily, an alternative appeared: a friend of ours who had been joining us for Thanksgiving for years said she would be interested in co-hosting. And even though I've been putting on Thanksgiving dinners single-handedly for something like 25 years, I agreed to this idea. That's how tired I'd gotten! She and I have been working out the details over this past year. Roughly speaking, we're each making half of the meal, with our guests bringing some extras.

It's been an exercise in letting go. Also, in grabbing back and then letting go all over again. At times, this has felt painful, as though I were losing something precious. At other times, I've been able to relax and see that I am gaining time and space, and maybe other things too.

All this "working well with others" includes the pig. He will definitely be a presence at the table. My co-host and one of the guests have told me that they've talked about the wild boar meal they will be eating for Thanksgiving, and they are getting a positive, even envious, response from their friends. I am really looking forward to sharing the pig.

We're having wild boar pâté along with a seasonal vegetable and fruit plate as appetizers. The main dishes will be wild boar ribs (my contribution) and a roast chicken with stuffing (my co-host's). We are both gardeners, and so from our gardens we'll have chard, cauliflower, and potatoes (mashed). We'll also have sweet potatoes,  a pomegranate relish, and a green salad. For dessert, we'll be having an apple crisp and a pumpkin pie. This year I grew Long Island Cheese Squash for their reputed excellence. (Back in August, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough squash for Thanksgiving pie, but the pollination intervention did the trick!) So, the extra-long table (thanks to Iris's ingenuity!) will groan with bounty, as you can see.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for so many things, a list that is too long to go into here. But let me simply say that one thing I am deeply thankful for is that I won't be sitting down to the Thanksgiving table all tuckered out.

Giving thanks

When I looked down at the 220 pound boar I had just shot and killed, I was filled with awe and gratitude to this animal that had just given itself over to me. I had brought the pig down with my first shot, one shot directly to his lungs, killing him almost instantly. This is what I had been taught to do and, somehow, although the scene had been chaotic, I managed to do it. I knew it was true, and yet it was hard to believe.

I found instantly that, having killed the boar, I was not afraid of him, or repulsed by him. Instead, I felt somehow close to him. I immediately felt easy about touching his body, which was a good thing, because very soon, I had to help move his body, and then I performed a procedure called "field dressing." This means the removal of the internal organs. It is done in order to cool the body temperature so as to preserve the meat. I had prepared for this, and I had our guide showing me the way.

Even so, cutting through the layers of membranes and then slowly revealing the miraculous beauty of this creature's inner makeup was astonishing. At a certain point, my task was to reach into the chest cavity in order to cut the diaphragm free. I needed to do this with both my arms. It was that kind of experience, and it went on from there.

After the field dressing, the guide and I dragged the body to the 4-wheel drive vehicle, and we drove to the skinning shed. There he and I skinned what I really now started to think of as a carcass. The guide then quartered it. This made it into pieces small enough to get into my cooler.

I came back home that night and the next day started butchering those big pieces into pork chops, tenderloin roasts, ribs, packages of pork shoulder, and so forth. Tomorrow, I'm going to make sausages with the leg meat, because I don't have a smoker to make ham, and wild pigs don't have enough fat to produce the right meat for bacon.

Knowing where this meat came from, where the pig lived and what he ate, informs how I feel about all the meat I have in the freezer now. The pig has changed me.

Thank you pig.

The hunt approaches

I am in the final days before my first hunt. There is certainly the possibility that this will also be my last hunt, because I am open to the possibility that the whole experience of killing a large animal and then gutting and preparing its carcass to be eaten will be more than I want to repeat. This is something I will be discovering.

These last few days are feeling increasingly intense, as I do more physically and mentally demanding practice. The whole thing feels a bit spiritual to me, actually.

• I have a teacher with new and exotic (to me) beliefs.
• Along the way, I have encountered adherents of these beliefs, as well as various splinter groups.
• I will have a special guide for the hunt who is different from my teacher. That is, I am being passed on to a superior expert for the culminating event.
• I have had to pass arduous tests: physical, mental and moral.
• I have made journeys: to pass tests, to engage in learning, and to experience the culminating event.
• If I am successful, I will be working very closely with blood (and guts).
• I will be taking in the flesh of the vanquished.
• I will be wearing special garments that I have prepared with special washing.
• I will wash myself with special care and special materials before the event.
• Knowledge of my own limits will be revealed to me as a result of the event.

From 100 yards away

Not to put too fine a point on it, I expect this is going to affect me in a big way.

My shooting is good enough now to pull down a pig, and I can get into a kneeling, shooting position from walking around in just seconds. I'm as ready as I can be.

I just have a few things left to do, including baking some cookies for my coach and me. Doesn't that sound funny?

Preparations Checklist

Just to give you an idea of all the things involved in preparing for the hunt I am going to undertake on November 8-10, here are the things I've done since I last posted to this blog:

• after the 10-day waiting period, I picked up the rifle that I told you I purchased. 
• I studied for and then passed my hunter's education certificate examination, which enabled me to get...
• my hunting license, along with a pig tag. You have to have a "tag" for every pig you expect to "take."
• I've purchased a whole bunch of things, including:
• a telescopic sight for my rifle
• camouflage clothing (top, bottom, hat, and gloves) designed to make me look like shrubbery
• special "combat" earplugs to protect me from the sounds of the same rifle referred to earlier
• a shoulder pad, to protect me from the impact of that same rifle (noticing a pattern?)
• various cleaning tools to clean, carry, or otherwise treat the rifle under different circumstances
• special laundry soap and personal soap which I'll use to clean all the clothing I'll take on the trip in order to remove all scent. Apparently wild pigs can't see well, but they can smell you from a mile away. Or something like it. So we have to disguise our odors. (This raises the question: why are we trying to look like shrubbery? But, hey, I'm just the student in this enterprise.)
• shooting sticks, which, together, make a bipod support I can use to stabilize myself for shooting from a sitting or kneeling position. This helps a lot, because the rifle weighs 7 pounds, and holding out in front ends up being tiring.
• and, last but not least: ammunition. Bullets. Oh boy. Did you know you can buy bullets on the Internet?
• And then there's all the practicing, and also a rather involved process of working in a new gun and sight.

Phew! So, this is what I've been doing with my spare time. I've been to my coach's Sunol ranch and I've also gone to a new range, the Richmond Rod & Gun Club, which is closer to me than the Chabot range I'd been to before.

It feels like a bit of a sprint, to be honest. I had imagined a slower-paced process. But the opportunity to have my first hunt be one I take with my coach has meant going along with her schedule, and so I accept it. An interesting by product is that my locavore Thanksgiving might feature some wild boar this year.

A big day

I'm appreciating this time out from the rigor of a weekly blogging routine, but I want to sit down and write a few notes about what I just did.

I bought a rifle! The Ruger Hawkeye International. I can't have it until October 5th at 2:00 something in the afternoon, after the 10-day waiting period, but it is mine.

Here's why I bought it: I am too small to borrow any of my coach's guns. It turns out that rifles are very size-specific. It matters how much distance there is between your shoulder and your hand, and also how much distance there is between your thumb and your index finger. My distances are that much smaller than the average man's that I am essentially off the chart for many rifles.

I had to look at a smaller rifle, like this one. My coach is the one who originally found this gun and thought it would suit me, but I had to try out a bunch of other guns first before I could tell what it was I was even looking at. Now I know the difference. With the bigger guns, I can't see out of the scope--the eye piece you look through to find the target. Also, I can't reach the trigger in the way required to press it properly.

Facing this size issue is amazing for me. I have rarely felt this small, and also, I have rarely had such a clear need to state the facts of my condition: "I can't see!" It doesn't do me any good to try to "please" my coach by trying to see (although I'm such an inveterate pleaser, I admit I have done some of that.)

So, this afternoon, I went down to the Old West Gun Room, where I'm becoming increasingly comfortable. Today, it was me and a couple of old guys. Nobody is ever in any kind of hurry down there, and they're all telling stories of their latest exploits. Today, I said it was my big day, buying my first gun, and one of the fellas was happy with me about it. He said there really weren't too many people who took up hunting out of the blue like I was doing. Most people learn it as kids. Anyway, I gotta say, I had a nice time buying my gun. Bob threw in a leather sling too. The gun is handsome, all decked out in leather, with a walnut stock.

So, now I'm a gun owner. Yee-haw!

The Pause Button

This is a quick post just to let you know that I'm going to take a break for a little bit. I have to study for my California Hunter's License, which takes about 10 hours on line, plus a 4-hour class. Here's the online class I'm doing. Since I work full time, I'm going to be squeezing this into the time I usually devote to writing.

I'm doing this because my coach thinks I'll be ready to go on a hunt with her in late November or December, which seems amazing, but I have to take her word for it.

Who knows? Maybe this will go faster than I think. I've gotta say: this is not the kind of material I'm used to absorbing. The closest I've come is my early love of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.

Maybe we'll have pork sausage by Christmas!

Looking for common ground

I fly and collect flags. I have historic California flags, various peace flags, rainbow flags, flags from Catalan, France, Italy, and so on. Normally, I fly a different flag each month, sometimes based on what I consider to be the major holiday of that particular month. So, June's flag is the New Glory, a rainbow Stars & Stripes. That stays up until July 5th when I switch over to the French Tricolore in preparation for Bastille Day. August is Iris's birthday month, so she gets her pick.

The California Bear Flag

This month, I am flying the California Bear Flag, the flag flown briefly when we were a republic all by ourselves, for 26 days in 1846. Whenever I fly this flag, it reminds me of our state's link with that other state with a true republican past, Texas. I don't often consider my common ground with Texas, so this is an opportunity for me to reach out, as it were. When I do, I remember that we both have Mexican pasts, and we both made very dodgy, even reprehensible moves on our pathways toward statehood.

I'm looking for common ground with a new group of people now, the folks who know about marksmanship and hunting. In this country, that comes bundled with a bunch of other stuff. So, I'm spending time with members of the NRA. On and off, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. For instance, when I drove into the parking area at the San Leandro Rifle & Pistol Range, it was full of Ford F-150s and other big old trucks, while I was in our little black Prius with the lefty bumper stickers. Gulp.

So how do I go looking for common ground? I've thought about this for a while, since back before we invaded Iraq. I noticed then that I really don't have a whole lot of experience talking with people who don't agree with me. I also noticed that this gap in experience was shared by many of my fellow countrymen and women. It occurred to me that it would be an act of patriotism, and a move toward world peace, for me to get better at this skill.

Now, I have an opportunity to walk the talk. How I'm going about it is by taking it at a slow enough pace that I have time to absorb what I'm doing, more or less. And, I'm disclosing to the people I meet in this new world exactly what I'm trying to do. In other words, I have to be willing to let myself be known, at least to some extent. And when I learn something new about a person or group I've met, I look for an echo within myself, to see if I can find a parallel or a place of intersection. That's one way to find common ground.

Another is that I am open to learning and my coach is open to teaching. That is a real starting place.