When the Turkeys Busted Loose
Me and Poach and the Window Wizard, walking this scrubby sheep pasture west of town. Sheep got buck teeth and clip the grass right down to the dirt. Canada thistle and prickly ash take over, tight clumps around the boulders the glaciers brought when they came and...
Belle Baruch: The Troublesome Child
Ever the tomboy, Belle Baruch hunted and fished, chased German spies, surprised her family with equestrian triumphs and scandalous affairs. When it was all done, she willed 17,500 acres for public education.
Adventures in Minnesota’s Black Bear Country
They look cute from a distance but up close, they are like a 400-pound racoon. A momma coon may have six or eight coonlets in a year, a bear might have twins, rarely triplets and then only every two years. Cubs are born bald and blind at about a half pound during...
Bullets and Blessings: An Easter to Remember
The fork-horn buck was big trouble, even after he was dead, and the wild stories about the little deer rattled around town like
a rock in a milk pail.
The Steakhouse Stickup
Hugo, Minnesota, straight up U.S. 61, the murderous old two-lane between St. Paul and Duluth. Up and down some timbered red-iron hills, around others, potholed, icy sometimes, frosty others, slick always, so deadly Bob Dylan wrote it into a song: “God said to Abraham,...
Joshua Slocum: Lost At Sea
His interests were narrow but deep—deep as the deep blue sea. Joshua Slocum was born to a sea-faring life in 1844, “on a cold spot on coldest North Mountain on a cold February 20,” back when ships were wood and men were iron. His granddaddy was an American Quaker, a...
Confessions of a Lead-Slinging Luddite
What if I told you more white-tailed deer have been taken with an 1894 30-30 Winchester than all the other sundry deer hunting cartridges combined? What if I told you that you could hunt worldwide with a battery of only three rifles, a 22 Long Rifle from 1887, a 7...
Cold Mornings on the Little Choptank
It’s icy on the river, but with geese hovering above, it’s a mighty good place to be.
