This will be an instructional/how to article, though I feel the need to set the stage first as to how I acquired the skills I write about and how I implement them regularly. Before attempting anything described in this article, check local laws and regulations.
Introduction
About fifteen years ago, when I was a younger man and had an answer for everything, I overheard some cowboys call their Queensland Healer dogs as “tools, not pets.” As I listened to and watched the cowboys work their dogs, I scoffed at their comments about their animals being tools. I looked at a friend of mine who was with me and said, “They’re comparing their horses and dogs to hammers and screwdrivers.” My friend and I laughed at our irrational comparison, looked once more at the cowboys and walked away. Though I had grown up in a small mountain town, most animals I knew of, be it dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, goats, etc., were all pets to their owners. Before that day, I had never heard of an animal referred to as a tool. Every animal I knew of had a name, a cozy bed, countless toys, and were typically talked to like a child.
It was not until I became an avid hunter, a federal trapper, a “homesteader”, a husband and father that I truly understood, and greatly appreciated, what those cowboys said years ago. I did not grow up in a hunting household, yet, from my earliest memories I yearned to be a hunter, a trapper, a mountain man. Even in my youth, I wanted the freedom to provide for myself, be it through trapping, hunting, fishing, gardening or trading for what I needed. I romanticized the idea of producing my own food and “bringing home the bacon” for a family that didn’t need anything I couldn’t provide or procure.Continue reading“Homesteading: A Trapper’s Perspective – Part 1, by Lodge Pole”
