Bee Tree Farm

A few words on Jeremy’s recent adventure. It’s important to note that, in these parts, feral hogs are an incredible problem. Not only are they notoriously aggressive, but they are overpopulated and consistently destroy property. My personal ethics on the whole hunting issue are that, if killed humanely, if the animal is over-populated, and it will be eaten – then it’s something I can accept. Dwayne, Keith and other neighbors probably don’t consider the ethics of hunting. They hunt because they always have, and they eat what’s killed because it stocks the freezer and tastes good. In some ways this is the simplest embodiment of the locavore movement.

But back to Saturday. When Dwayne mosied up and told us about his planned activities for the evening, he shared the news by stating: “There is a man named Bob. I don’t know a thing about him a’tall ‘cept he’s Bob. He’s on a cable TV show, and he’s filmin’ a hog hunt across the street. I’m comin’ along in case he’s lookin’ for some local narration.” He said the last part with a wink. With that, he slapped both thighs, declared that the weather is “hotter ‘an blue blazes!” and asked if we heard his gun go off earlier in the day. To prepare for the evening hunt he was “shootin’ at the pink side of a red barn.” I’m still scratching my head over what this could possibly mean but am intent on adopting such idioms and using them in normal conversation.

Men like Dwayne are a rare breed. He’s a grisled relic of old west Texas, but with a cell phone and satellite TV. He mixes raspberry Jello into corn to attract the wildlife he watches from his night vision camera that live-feeds to his computer. His best friend is a beer-drinking Quarter horse named Chocolate. Four years ago I’d be horrified that Jeremy spent his Saturday night in the back of a pickup with this man, near an over-sized rifle, luring hog from the brush with sweet corn. I’d call him “simple” and mean it in a way that said I thought he was stupid. These days, I’m thrilled to hear he’s tagging along with the locals, because it means we’re local, too. And I look forward to the day someone looks at our life and calls it “simple,” no matter how they mean it.