CRP Crisis

Lots of summer rain and warm, sunny days are a two-pronged attack on my leisure time. For me, a good summer is when I don’t mow my yard more than once a week. Unfortunately, I don’t have a direct line to Mother Nature so I’ve been stuck with mowing the yard once a week. I like my yard and I like it when it is trimmed and mowed but I hate the work. Maybe if I spent more time working on my book I could get a fantastic contract and afford to hire someone to mow it every week. Since that isn’t going to happen except in my daydreams I’ll just stick with reality and brave the weather--sunshine.

One of the rewards of mowing a yard is that I can mull over something that needs attention. A very serious problem that has had my attention for quite some time is nowhere near being resolved and that is the CRP Land crisis.

Twenty-five years ago the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program was signed into law. The idea was to reduce grain surpluses thereby jumpstarting commodity prices while at the same time decreasing erosion on the marginal tilled soils. Everything worked great and one of the beneficiaries of this program was wildlife. Ground nesting upland birds had a place to build a nest and brood their chicks. Duck hunters reaped a bonanza (that they are still reaping today) because ducks will often fly more than a mile from water to build a nest and hatch their brood. With a wet cycle in the northern plains the waterfowl had it made with ample water, good, high grass in which to raise their young, protected from most predators.

We have all benefited from the CRP program. By all I mean ALL. Even if a person never sets foot in the hunting field or picks up a binocular to go bird watching they aren’t choking on dust storms from those marginal fields and the water held back by the root systems of CRP land doesn’t flow into those low spots to join other water to erode the croplands.

What’s the worry? There are millions of acres in the program--right?

Sort of right because millions of those acres are scheduled to begin coming out of the reserve program over the next few years and at the present rate within twenty years the total amount of land in the CRP will be reduced to a very small fraction of its present amount. Here, in North Dakota, wildlife managers are predicting that by 2019 there will be only about 200,000 acres in CRP. That is down from a high of 3-million acres in 2007.

This is an important issue and it is one that is going to impact a lot more people than just those of us who hunt, but it also appears that the people who are going to step forward (once again) and seize the reins will be America’s hunters. Landowners claim that keeping the lands out of crop production is cutting into their ability to realize a profit from farming and when we translate that into how we keep those lands in the CRP the solution is “more money paid out.” Unfortunately we can no longer rely on the government to completely fund the program. I believe that solving the CRP crisis is going to require a stamp program not unlike the Waterfowl stamp. I know it is another hit on our pockets but better a hit than a total collapse of CRP and the corresponding loss of wildlife (game and nongame).

The Rocking Horse Effect

At last we have a real summer day, the mercury has climbed into the high 90s and with the humidity we’re having a heat index of 107. For us, that’s a lot of heat. We’ll be dropping back into the 80s and below in a few days so we will have had our “summer heat wave.”

One of my pleasures in life is thinking. I know that all of us “think,” but what I enjoy doing is taking a problem and putting it in my head, somewhere in the subconscious, and letting it percolate. After some amount of time I have my answer. This is probably why I am lousy at taking tests. I want to spend too much time looking at the problem before presenting my answer. This is the point of “The Thinking Hunter.” I am not interested in presenting quick answers to questions that are presented to me, but answers that I try to reach after working with the question. I like to research the question and the ramifications of the different answers before I settle on one. I am not saying that my answer to a question or problem is “the” answer, but that when I do offer an answer it is one that has been carefully thought about. Some questions have no viable answer because each answer creates a new set of problems that require different answers. Philosophers have dealt with this problem for centuries and while they understand it, have identified it and provide several different descriptive names and analyses for it, are no closer to resolving it. An example of this (in our world of the outdoors) is the question of wild geese. Regardless of the course of action taken to control wild geese numbers that have reached problematic population levels the action is going to produce both negative and positive results. Plus, if the action taken is emphasized to produce greater results, whether negative or positive, more negative results will be produced.

For Example: If, in one population area, the action taken removes 500 geese and the positive result is a cleaner (but not completely clean) park then removing 1000 geese should increase the positive result. In fact, the result will depend entirely on the remaining population. If the number of remaining geese is too low to insure the population’s survival of the annual migration there are new problems to consider. Will the park’s aesthetic value be decreased by the lack of returning geese? Or, perhaps the value will increase because the geese were actually decreasing the value. The list of consequences for each action goes on.

So what am I getting at?

Recently I was in a discussion in which the primary topic was whether we (humans) could actually manage wildlife and/or nature. The center of the discussion consisted of the fires, floods, geese and of course wild hogs, all which were brought up by one side as examples of failures of human efforts, while the other side claimed that the present flood situation is a product of humans never having seen this much water, the fires are wholly nature’s doing because of the droughts, the geese populations are a success story and the spread of wild hogs is a benefit by providing meat (when on accessible lands) and income (guides, etc.). I retreated from offering an opinion because I wanted to think about the question: Can we humans manage wildlife/nature without creating such imbalances that nature’s corrections create an ecological rocking horse effect?

Think about it--I am.

glg

The Farm Connection

Yikes! I’ve been so wrapped up in working on the remodeling of our house I’ve ignored the rest of the world in favor of hammer, nails and wood. My project was to finish the built-in shelves between the dining room and living room--I did. Now I can begin working on the cabinets/counter that will be between the dining room and kitchen. Lots of work but something I enjoy. I like the feel of wood being transformed into something lasting and naturally beautiful with its own colors and designs. When I am working on wood I can block out the world and let my mind go through all the garbage that has been forced into it and toss out the junk--which is a surprising amount.

In addition to building the cabinets and shelves and general remodeling, I am collecting wood from Michelle’s family farm. I’ll be incorporating that wood into the dining room set for Michelle. When it is all finished it will be something that I hope will be passed down to future generations on her side, who will be told that it was made by “Papa-G.” Recently the project took on a little more importance because Michelle’s parents had to sell the farm. A brother (M’s uncle) who passed away a couple of years ago didn’t have a will so his interest in the farm passed to his wife, who also passed away without a will. They didn’t have any children so their interest in the farm (there is also a sister who owned the final third) passed to a niece or some such obscure relative who had no connection to M’s family, who saw dollar signs and not the intrinsic value of the farm. Fortunately, the buyer is someone who does appreciate the value of the farm and when I called to ask about gathering wood for my winter office heat, and cutting wood for the furniture for Michelle (and for her sister) he told me it wouldn’t be a problem and to continue as I have.

The value of something like a farm is an interesting and extraordinarily complex thing. I believe it takes someone who has at least a little experience with the pleasure of having a farm to understand that value. My family had a farm in Oklahoma (the farm has an interesting history--for another time) and while I never lived on it (some of my siblings did) I do have many memories of “going to the farm” in the spring and summer. First for planting a garden, then maintaining it and finally harvesting it. It was enough for me that when my parents sold the farm I somehow felt a sudden disconnection that exists to this very day. On my last trip “home” (Blackwell, Oklahoma) I drove to Lamont and then out to the site of the farm. I was secretly hoping to see some trace reminder of what had been “the farm.” There was nothing. Not a tree nor a bush and when I walked where I was reasonably sure the farmhouse had been I couldn’t even find a splinter of wood. Every inch of ground was cleared, plowed and part of what had once been the fields where my father had grown up and later farmed. Now it is all one field and the memories that should haunt it have all but drifted away.

Here in North Dakota Michelle’s family farm was not “my” family farm and yet I had developed a connection to it. For the past ten years I have cut a winter’s supply of firewood out of the farmstead’s dead trees. I’ve hunted ducks and deer on the farm and driven across the harvested fields to hunt other sloughs and dove in the trees. I’m sure the new owner will let me hunt deer in the trees and waterfowl on the slough and dove in the trees, but the connection is forever severed. I’ll cut the wood that I’ll make into furniture and eventually that project will be finished and I’ll be through searching for straight logs to cut into lumber. The only wood I’ll then be cutting will be firewood and finally that too will end. I don’t know if my deer and duck hunting will end before the firewood, or after, but they will end. I have to believe the new owner’s children will develop a connection that will lead to future generations of deer and ducks and hunters.

Think about it.

New Issue of The Pines Review

Ugh! The weatherman is talking about more snow and I was just getting used to seeing my yard! I feel for the people in the "low country" with all of the flood problems. We really do live in a town that is sort of on a hill!
I haven't heard how the bird populations are expected to fare this spring but I am hoping for a good hatch.

I decided not to go to the NRA Convention this year because I've got some other trips that I really feel I need to take. One is south to Colorado to see Chas and do some fishing and the other is west to see my son and grandkids. Somehow, I've got to work on attenting at least two outdoor writer organization conferences. It's a busy year ahead and I haven't figured out how much I want to get involved in the nonfamily stuff at the expense of family and friends.

I have made some progress in another direction--the new issue of The Pines Review is finally out. I am pleased with most of it and because it is the annual list of winners of the EIC awards in both national and regional organizations it is a bit thin on editorial matter. There are over 750 awards given out each year in the outdoor media and collecting all those names and award information is a time consuming job but one that I feel has some merit if it gets a little positive recognition headed our way.

I hope that you will take a few minutes to follow the Issuu link so you can read The Review online. You can read it with page turning technology and if you need to enlarge the page (like me) there is a bar with tools at the top of the screen. You can follow this link to the online Pines Review. http://issuu.com/thepinesreview/docs/v_iv_no_1_winter_2011_jan_-_april?viewMode=magazine. There is also a section where you can subscribe to the online magazine.

After you've browsed the online version you can order a printed copy by using the below link to MagCloud's website to jump over and order a full color printed Review. The printed copies are really impressive and say a lot about how print media is changing.

The Pines Review Issue 6: Vol. IV No. 1 Winter 2010 Jan. - April

Annual list of the winners of the Excellence in Craft Awards, the premier awards for American and Canadian outdoor writers, phototographers and broadcasters.Kathleen Clary Miller's column "High On The Wild," plus columns by Andy Lightbody, Jeff Davis and Rachel Bunn. Short fiction by Ken Keiser, re…

After you read the Review don't be afraid to write me and tell me what you think.
Take care.
glg

I really am here

I've been try to put up a post that I am still here. I just finished the new issue of "The Pines Review" and now dealing with taxes. I'll be back before the end of the weekend.

My Line In The Sand

I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to the two questions I asked in my previous blog posts. The comments that I received from all of you were very insightful and gave me pause. I wondered if I should rethink my position on the NRA. Were my associations with various officers and other, well-known members, clouding my vision about the organization? It is not an easy question to answer because for nearly thirty years I’ve been a life member and before that I was an annual member. I’ve worked with the NRA and helped organize the first “Friends of the NRA” fund raising banquet in Colorado and I have relied on the NRA to provide information for hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. Finally, of the two individuals who are the closest to me as friends one is a life member and the other a benefactor and also a member of the NRA Board of Directors. The questions I have been asking myself I wanted to give more than casual thought. I wanted to probe my thinking as deep as I possibly could.

Here’s my conclusion.

Many years ago I unconsciously drew for myself a line in the sand over the Second Amendment. I had just passed through a phase of my life where I decided I would give up hunting and guns. For several years this “hunting-free” lifestyle seemed adequate but when I came face-to-face with a choice about whether I would once again hunt or leave it forever I chose to hunt. A few years later I wrote a story about that decision and the events leading up to it and the story won several awards and has been reprinted in a number of magazines. At the time I wrote it I did not equate Second Amendment issues with my return to hunting. The transformation occurred when I was sitting in a Colorado Springs restaurant with a young lady I knew only casually. In the course of the conversation I said that on Friday I would be taking my daughter to stay with my mother over the weekend because I was going dove hunting with two friends. Out of the clear blue she asked if I owned a gun. I explained I did and then she asked how I was able to buy a gun and I told her where I’d bought it and the other details. She then screwed up a very serious tone and facial expression and said she thought people who had been in Vietnam should not be allowed to have guns because “everyone knows the fighting and killing ‘over there’ had messed up their minds and they couldn’t control themselves.” She went on to offer, in great detail, how Vietnam Veterans had committed “thousands of murders” and other crimes after coming home and she had believed that they could no longer own guns--she also believed that the police had an obligation to find those Vietnam veterans and take away their guns. “They are easy to find because they dress like they are still in the army,” she said definitively, obviously forgetting I was one of those veterans.

I don’t remember a lot of the conversation after that but I tried to talk to her about how I’d grown up in a family that did a lot of hunting and I started hunting with my father--all of the typical arguments about hunting and guns. She wouldn’t hear any of it. She finally stood up to leave and matter-of-factly said that I could call her “after you get rid of your gun and quit killing animals.” I never again saw or heard from her, nor did I try to contact her.

Now, after days of thinking about the NRA comments here on this blog and where I position myself today I’ve slowly realized that on that warm, late summer afternoon I drew a line in the sand. At the time I didn’t realize I had. I only knew that I felt betrayed because the freedom to own a gun is woven into the fabric of the nation. In the recess of my mind there was also the realization that this national fabric that I had taken for granted was not sewn of steel but of the finest threads and its red dye is the blood of its sons and daughters. We take for granted that those ideas and beliefs that have formed our national fabric will stand for themselves and will always be there. We expect our fabric to stand in sacred honor. It does not. We have learned it is a gossamer fabric that shimmers and shakes in the political and emotional winds that threaten to tear each of the threads from its anchor.

We are a nation of choice; the national fabric has been woven from the threads of choice. Our nation stumbled by fitful starts into weaving our fabric of choice, a democratic republic if you will, where finally nearly every man and woman can choose. We are not perfect, so we must try to be better.

One choice that we have is whether to own a firearm. That choice, that thread of our fabric, is one where I have drawn my line in the sand, and yet every year there are new pressures to change that choice, to erase that choice, and to rip the threads of that choice from the national fabric and in too many cases the foes of that choice have won small, but compounding victories, ripping one thread at a time from our fabric.

Protecting the Second Amendment is not a simple act of maintaining a stand in its defense but of being aware that each and every day someone is reaching for our national fabric and brushing threads away by claiming they are clearing cobwebs. That now nameless young woman I had found so attractive wanted to clear away what were, to her, cobwebs. Often, in so many people’s eagerness to clear away what they believe are cobwebs surrounding the birthrights they call relics, they soon discover they have forged their own chains.

I cannot, individually, stop people who are determined to clear away the Second Amendment, whether they are doing so in small pieces or plan to by one motion, but I can stand firm with others and keep them from tearing down this part of our national fabric. This is my vigilance. Each person must draw their own line; stand their own watch against the darkness and pray they have made the right decision. That is each person’s birthright.

Semper Fi

Next post, new subject.

Abrams and the NRA--First Look

Humm, well, I read the responses and took notes and I spent several hours researching the actions of Sandy Abrams. I am doing some more research on the questions raised but I do have a couple of comments. The first is that where there is smoke, there is fire. I won’t excuse Abrams’ actions and I am curious about the reasoning behind the NRA’s investment in his defense. Perhaps there are some other circumstances that need to be considered. As for the flood of online reading about the Abrams case I did spend quite a bit of time reading a variety of material, including the 26 page report by the Brady Campaign. Therein lies the problem, I waded through more than 50 different web sites and postings on the Sandy Abrams issue and all but one was either by, or originated with the Brady Campaign or an element of it. But, as I said, where there is smoke there is fire. I am trying to get a few more details on Abrams and the NRA’s policy regarding any felon serving on the board. When I have this information I will share it with you.

Please note, however, that my initial reading of the dates, charges, offenses, etc. all show that during his time on the board he had not been convicted of any crime and therefore, even though he had been charged, he was not convicted and could serve. I could very easily be wrong and if I am I’ll let you know.

One of the problems with the Internet is that a massive amount of material can be placed on the web so that an organization actually floods the Internet with “their” side of an issue. All it takes is for the material to be slightly repackaged, even though it is essentially the same material, and because there are changes in format, style, layout and other details, but not in the actual content, an organization can flood the Internet, making it appear that a number of different organizations, including organizations that resemble legitimate news organizations, all share the same viewpoint. The crawlers, spiders, search engines, and whatever else, pick up the sites as being different, thought linked to the question. This is exactly what the Brady campaign does and does very effectively. Every (there was not an exception) site that contained information attacking the NRA and Abrams I traced back to the Brady Campaign. I was unable to locate a single independent source to verify their claims--even when I examined the Brady Campaign’s endnotes on their most official appearing PDF file it was filled with information generated within the Brady Campaign’s other publications. Granted, not all of the sources cited were Brady sources but so many were that it invalidates the Brady report on Abrams.

Still, I am not convinced that Abrams should be allowed to go unpunished and the transfer of guns that Swamp Thing mentioned does stick hard in my craw and I feel it is a violation of the spirit of the law, though it is apparently not a violation of the letter of the law. Too often the spirit and letter have been allowed to drift apart and the law suffers for it, especially in gun laws.

The final question I have is whether we would still have the right to own firearms if we did not have an NRA in Washington? To really understand the possible answers to the question we must get past all of the hyperbole and consider the history of firearms issues. If the answer is that the Second Amendment would stand as a sacred protection that does not require constant defense then the NRA should return to its roots of promoting marksmanship. On the other hand, if the answer is that the Second Amendment, like the First, and in fact most of the amendments of the Bill of Rights, must be constantly examined and defended, then the NRA’s role is an essential one, just as the organizations that are watchdogs of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, etc., are all essential. I believe it is a valid question worthy of discussion.

What do you think?

glg