The Dog Days of Winter

Kid was buckling on her sword, getting ready to set off into the woods on one of her elfing expeditions, and I was giving her my usual "Keep clear of humans" admonition when I abruptly reversed course: "On second thought, you'd better wear something orange -- make sure you can be seen." The woods are not safe for elves at this time of year. It's Duck Wabbit Deer season! Oh, Joy. She dutifully accessorized her elf look with a retina-searing orange cap.

We keep a few of these* around:

Anyhow, that got me wondering about the various opening dates. I knew bow season had started, because our horse's blacksmith has permission to cull our herd, though he hasn't availed himself yet (he has permission for gun season, as well -- I have total respect for hunters who actually hunt). So I was wondering about the gun seasons -- we've heard a few shots already. They sounded awfully loud, though, real ka-booms, so I figured they had to be black powder. But of course I had to look it up -- raised by librarians and all that.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' website is quite the font of information. I was expecting just a simple calendar for the whole state, a straightforward timeline starting with "bow" and running through "helicopter-mounted Gatling guns." Dear me, No! No, no. It's a labyrinth, a vast, bureaucratic wet dream of regulatory ingenuity -- take a look.

Here's their helpful graphic:


And yet, somehow, the hunters know. They know, and they respond in droves, right on time, year in and year out.

The starting date I was most anxious to learn was the one for dog hunting. That's the delightful period between November and January when, without our permission, every hound in Pulpwood County is let slip to run deer through our hundred acres, into the waiting arms (heh) of their lazy assholes owners out by the road -- 'hunters' who spend their days leaning on their pickup trucks and their evenings driving them, trundling along the back roads at 2 mph with the windows rolled down, waving radio receivers at the ether, and yodeling (ostensibly to summon wayward dogs?). The dogs are scrawny, brown-and-white things with radio collars on their necks and huge numbers spray-painted on their sides. They do succeed -- for weeks, the county echoes with gunfire -- but a lot of dogs also get lost. And show up here with empty bellies and dead batteries.

All this drives my dogs and livestock nuts. It also makes our home feel like a fishbowl. Camo-and-orange clad men and boys camp out near our driveway entrance and all along the road, peering across our property with scopes and binoculars. All day. It's all so charming and perfectly legal -- in its season.

Anyhow, as far as I was able to divine from the VDGIF site, the fun starts Saturday. < groan >

. . . But . . .

I also learned of a totally different season, one of which I was hitherto, completely unaware:

Urban Archery!


Is it any wonder they're only allowed to shoot "antlerless deer"?

[*When we got the caps, they looked as though they had been made for people with large, bony prominences on their foreheads -- RINO Hats! I quickly shoved them under the sewsheen and lowered their profiles.]