And that's why they call it hunting.
Every now and then I get this faint whiff of a mixture of raw, bloody meat, the cold inside of the cooler where its kept, and the faintest hint of decay. I hope it's not coming from me since I totally washed up and changed my clothes after coming home from work. It's not like I was deeply involved in any of those things today anyway.
Wednsday I worked at a hunter check-station for the very first time. The vast majority of time was spent waiting. Clayton, my co-worker, and Velton, who's name I hope I'm spelling right, coaxed me into a game of Texas Hold'em at one point, though I must admit it didn't take much coaxing. I've played very little poker but apparently I picked up enough from watching dad and his buddies play now and again that I was totally pwnzing for the first half or so. It helped that I was able to open up with a full house. XD
Not that we were playing for real money, just poker chips. At the end we went blind all in and Clayton won the whole thing. The grand prize, of course, was getting to put away all the chips.
Afterwards Clayton had to leave to prepare for some Thanksgiving family time, Velton took a nap, and I got pretty far in "The Reverse of the Medal".
Yes, fellow Californians, that's some of your tax dollars hard at work there.
I felt pretty guilty about being paid to sit and read so I got to a chapter break and went looking for something to do which was rather easy to find. Even though it was specifically an elk hunt, pig season is year-round and someone shot a young male and brought it in. I watched as Velton skinned the pig and he and the hunters thankfully took the colon sample for me because I hadn't the faintest idea of even where to begin.
Velton is something of a pro-outdoorsman. He tracks the animals when hunters shoot something and then lose it, he skins the game they do bring in for free, he'll tan hides for a fee, he makes some of his own clothing from hides, and today he was helping Clayton make his very own bow starting with scraping the bark off the piece of wood. He's also roughly my age and size, clean shaven, and wears a pony-tail which is totally different from the mental image I got when Clayton was telling me about him. (Here I was, imagining some giant bear of a man with grey hair and a bushy beard. Lulz.)
I was rather proud of myself after that, even though I did nothing more than watch. I was worried I would be queasy or wouldn't be able to handle the whole thing but I was actually fine, even when (I GAVE YOU FAIR WARNING) they twisted the head off.
The thing that bothers me most right now is that the action of skinning, or specifically the part where Velton scored the membrane between the skin and the meat with a knife, reminded me of something that I do or have done and I can't remember what. Same action, different materials.
The rest of that day involved more waiting and listening to hunters tell their tales as they came in by pairs for the night. Turns out hunters are also quite generous and I was given the shoulder. I split it with Velton since I don't have a meat grinder and the leg part is tough enough to need one. He also took the meat off the bone for me and recommended some recipies because I are teh nubzorz. (I really appreciate it too since I really do suck at the whole cooking thing. Give me detailed instructions with units!)
I drove back to Monterey, deposited the sole colon sample in the refrigerator in the wet lab that's more commonly used for fish stuff (it is a marine region, after all), and went home, thus concluding a long day that began on Tuesday.
Tuesday we did more bird netting and trapping in the morning (mourning doves have blue eyelids, the top-knot on a CA quail's head is a pair of funky shaped feathers, chickadees are adorable biting monsters), finally ordered supplies after completing the long and frustrating bid process in the afternoon, drove down to Fort Hunter Liggett for the hunter orientation talk in the evening, and then stayed the night in King City.
Knowing what I know now I could have gone home on Tuesday night but at the time I thought we would be staying on base, not in King City, and once I figured that out our plan was to meet at 6:30am and I wanted the plan that would give me the most sleep. We ended up meeting at 8:00. It was raining too hard at 5:50 to warrant getting up and scouting out a park that features a river. Besides, how often do I get a hotel room of my very own? Only once before, when Delta messed up my flight and put me up at one of the hotels all the pilots and crew stay at in Atlanta, GA.
I'm a wild and crazy party animal, by the way. Here I am in my own hotel room and I try to meet up with Paula since hey, I'm in city she lives in. As we text back and forth I channel surf and become absorbed in a Weather Channel special about the Hindenburg. Then I go to KFC and pick up some food, take it back to my room and watch House. Then I idly pay attention to Fringe as I figure out how to work the Bluetooth that came with my work phone, prepare my timesheet, sketch a little bit, and then go to bed at the super late hour of 10:00pm.
Oh yeah. Wild and crazy.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course. We had the usual turkey dinner which was deeeeelicious. I also had more of that Dr. L's Riesling, the only wine I've found so far that I can drink without having my mouth overpowered by alcohol. (Probably because the alcohol content is low and the wine is sweet.) I'm hoping I can expand my wine palatte from here since I feel kind of lame living in a huge wine-producing area but not drinking any of it. (It's similar to living here in the Salad Bowl of the World and hating vegetables.)
Things I'm thankful for this year besides the usual but always appreciated family and good friends are finally being employed, especially after my frequently frustrating spring and summer-long search, and that The Home Depot doesn't put up with any of that 4am Black Friday nonsense so that xilin didn't run the risk of being trampled to death while working yesterday.
I spent my days of Thursday and Friday trying to level my rogue. 74 ain't bad when you've had only 4, maybe even only 3.5 days to gain experience, though I feel left behind anyway. I'm one of the lowest level active mains in the guild now, though it doesn't help that we're also actively recruiting 80s. We're supposed to start raiding Naxx on Sunday though they actually went ahead and got some bosses down on Friday. I haven't even stepped foot into the Nexus.
Today I was back at the hunter check station where nothing came in the entire time I was there. I did see a very dead tule elk up close as I watched Velton skin it and tell the tale of this poor elk. It was a young bull, approximately 9 months according to Jim who was more or less in charge of the whole station, so even though it was a female-only hunt it was still legal since there really was no reasonable way of telling. The problem was it was shot last night at last shot, which is 30 minutes after sunset, and the hunters lost it when it ran off. Velton was called in to track it down early this morning and in the process of finding it discovered that it had been eaten alive by coyotes. They didn't eat the whole thing, just a large chunk out of the rear and eventually they did enough damage to kill the elk. Everyone was pretty bummed that it suffered so much.
I took the 10 or so samples that came in on Thursday and Friday back to Monterey this afternoon, hoping to get in early enough to ship them off to Davis but it turns out FedEx was closed today too. I wouldn't have made it anyway, that drive is always much longer than I think it is. Tomorrow I have off, Monday we get to order some big-ticket supplies (binoculars, digital cameras, GPS units), Tuesday and Wednsday we might do more bird trapping, I think we get to check out the UC Hastings Preserve on Thursday, and that's all I have planned. Hopefully somewhere in there I'll ding 80 and find the time to do some art/drabbles for menageriemasque. Oh yes, and Chrismas is coming up soon isn't it?