Saturday, November 19, 2011

Dave's House

So I was checking some pictures I snapped of my friend Dave B's dooryard.  Every hunting season, his barn is the barn all the cool locals use to hang their kills prior to hitting the butcher shop to be turned into edible chunks of this or that.   This year so far I have counted at least 6 deer, one huge moose, and Water District Dave told me he saw a bear hanging there for a day.  Everyone wants to hang their game at Dave B's.

I like Dave.  He lets my circle of riding friends use his property to access the trails off the railroad bed out behind his place.  Off and on I have tried to get him into riding bikes, but well, it ain't happening.  Dave likes to putz around his yard making sure it is well kept, planting huge gardens and of course hanging as many deer as possible during hunting season.  Once in awhile I see him strolling up or down Main Street with his significant other.  Nice folks, just not into cycling.

I took a few quick shots of the couple of small bucks hanging from the trapeze contraption he has hanging from his hay bale lift.  They all came out my usual a tad out of focus, but good enough to make any point I wanted to about Dave, the hip local hunters and life in my small parcel of Maine during November of any year you would care to check.

 While deciding which image to head my post about Dave and his deer hanging dooryard, I noticed in  the small window next to the barn door, this moose skull staring out towards Main St.  I copied the image, cropped it, and what you see at the top was the result.

I am never sure what draws me to some images over others.  This one grabbed me for several reasons.  The out plumb variety of lines, the rough texture of being slightly out of focus combined with the old barn wood and window.  Or maybe it was shape of the skull behind the grid which was wrapped in a contrasting border that interrupted out of plumb verticals.  Whatever.  I just liked how it turned out.  I am sure in the scheme of artistic effort, it rates somewhere between Ho and Hum.  I say this because  I showed it to Keith when he swung by the bike shop and he said something like, "Cool".  It was a lukewarm "Cool".


Once I decided I liked it I had to play with it.  Soon I had 5 or 6 copies of it in various shades, light treatment, shadowed hard, or saturated with colors to bring out whatever other cool looks I could drag out of it.  After all my dubbing around with it I think I like the original and the sepia one to the left best..

I most likely  have used up about all the interest you might have regarding this kodak moment.  I figure I ought to close by treating you to the original image I cropped it out of.  So enjoy or not.  If nothing else, it is a small piece of the reality I live with here in southern Maine.  Some things are timeless - Hunting Season in Maine is one of them.

13 comments:

Ol'Buzzard said...

For those that don't know about the seasons up here in Maine: We got Snowmobile season, mud season, bug season, fishing season and hunt-n season.
Did I miss any?
the Ol'Buzzard

John Myste said...

That last picture epitomizes the barbarism of humankind. We hunt down innocent prey and enjoy killing them. We then hang the victims outside like trophies, as if they ever had a chance to survive.

In this game of life and death, the hunter, the one who revels in the agony of another, is never threatened and really cannot lose.

It is the perfect sport.

John Myste said...

Wait, did that sound judgmental? I certainly hope not. After all, deer hunting is just a sport, right?

MRMacrum said...

YELLOWDOG GRANNY - No. They killed two Bambis. That's okay, Maine grows more than the hunters can kill.

Ol'Buzzard - There's Ice Ridin season. Comes just after the first good January thaw when the that freeze/thaw cycle kicks into high gear. It is probably my favorite time of the year to ride my bike. The frozen creeks become trails, the flooded bogs and swamps become alien landscapes to explore.

John Myste - Judgemental? Why not. But I will let the hunters defend their "sport". I accept it for what it is- something that happens every Fall in Maine no matter what.

Whether it is "sport" or not is in the eye of the beholder. The only hunting I consider even close to sport is bow hunting. But over all I would not categorize Hunting as a sport just as I do not consider NASCAR a sport.

jadedj said...

The black and white and the sepia get my vote. Great art comes from accidents.

okjimm said...

Just as long as We don't start hanging liberals from the basketball hoops!

Mr. Charleston said...

I like the original picture myself, although the rest are good. Not much for killing and hanging deer so I'll stick to hiking and biking.

BBC said...

I don't have any problem with controlled hunting as long as the meat is used up. It's a big business and income producer for states and those selling lots of things to sportsmen. I use the word sportsmen lightly of course.

I haven't shot a deer for years, generally speaking it's cheaper to just buy the meat I eat.

When I lived in Utah it was cheap to get it, just open the door and pop one off.

Dave, hand over some bear jerky and no one gets hurt.

oh fuck..they kilt Bambi.
Fuck Walt Disney. They kill cows for her hamburgers also.

Randal Graves said...

If I had a band, I'd want to steal the sepia-toned shot for an album cover.

MRMacrum said...

jadedj - One man's Great Art is another man's liner for his bird cage.

okjimm - I doubt a basketball hoop would be strong enough to hang an entitlement fattened Liberal for more than a second - ;)

Tom Harper - They do seem to congregate closer to populated areas when Hunting season in full swing.

Mr Charleston - Yeah I like the original one best also. I gave up hunting when I was in my late teens. I found it boring. But I respect the right to hunt. Without them, Maine would lose out on a sizable charge of income. And we have so much game here, the winter kills way more than hunters do.

BBC - I find the process of the meat industry way more disgusting than hunting.

MRMacrum said...

Randal - You also stole your way in here while I was preparing my clever series of replies. Tenagrin is right. But go ahead - just give me credit and 50% of the profits from the album

BBC said...

The deer in this area are small, hardly worth going after for what it costs you with license, tabs, gas, etc.

Some of them must only dress out at 34/40 pounds of usable meat.

BBC said...

I've never seen a deer here in the state forest lands I go camping in, lot's of them (and elk) in the National Park but you can't shoot them.