OK, Boomer, time to reevaluate

OK Boomer, let’s see what you got.

I quit elk hunting some years ago. I haven’t shot a deer or an antelope in a couple of years. That’s all about to change. In this time of quarantine, I’m reevaluating my priorities.

The dogs might not like this return to big game hunting, but they’ll get over it. And it’s not like I’m going to quit bird hunting. I’m just going to spend a bit more time hunting critters that fill the freezer.

I backed off gardening in recent years, too. It was much more fun to spend time at the cabin on Fort Peck, fishing, boating and swimming instead of weeding.

I’ve spent much of my life acquiring skills, that until recent-ly, were considered old-fashioned and obsolete. Like Hank Jr. sings: I can even “run a trot line.”

While I have difficulty navigating my cell phone, I can still butcher my own meat and grow my own food. I just haven’t been very serious about that recently.

Like a lot of folks stuck at home these days, I took invento-ry of my ammo, not so much in fear of the coming zombie apocalypse, as to ensure I don’t run out of hunting loads. Both trips to the store and supplies might be limited.

My father, who grew up during the depression, used to tell the story about proudly returning home from a hunt when he was a kid with two squirrels and a rabbit in the bag. My grandfather, however, upon seeing the nearly empty box of shells it had taken, scolded him, for waste.

Although I’ve lived in more prosperous times, that story stuck with me. When I shoot and miss, along with the dis-appointment, I always feel a pang of guilt. I just wasted a shell.

But it didn’t matter much until now.

Now it might.

I hope I can still crawl through the sage and prickly pear to get a good, clean shot at an antelope. No more long-range prayers at running targets.

I hope I’m still quite enough in the timber to sneak up close on elk. I know I can’t pack them out like I used to, so a game cart is in my future.

My seed order is on the way. The compost bucket in the kitchen is filling. There will be more garden and less lawn this summer.

I’m canning stink bait and tying up a trot line.

Just don’t ask me to watch a podcast on my phone.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].