March 2009 Updates page 13
23 March
Motivation
Remember Bill from Alaska (see January 2009 update) that is now the long distant traveling hunter champion of his Association. He also set the bar higher by being 70 years old showing most of the rest of us just how to live life. He sets the bar higher once again by taking on another pup in anticipation of the fall bird season.
Bill it seems like we should congratulate you. A role model for the rest of us.
Keep sending us your progress, from the earlier member feedback you have more influence than you or we probably realize.
A Deer Hunt'n Story
We receive a fairly regular stream of member feedback through the year with variances that follow the seasons. Most of the feedback we keep to ourselves and it adds to the overall psyche. This story we asked to share with others due to its simple wisdom. We offer it in agreement of non-attribution.
An older Association hunter who has had good success with eyes-on but has yet to draw back on the buck of desire sponsored in a friend. They went hunting the next season. The older hunter having scouted and hunted the previous years knew where he wanted to hunt prior to the trip. The newer Association hunter came out cold without any scouting, put up his stand and on the second day harvested his personal best buck, a P&Y. The older hunter harvested nothing that year.
The following spring turkey season the older hunter returned to turkey hunt and deer scout. The newer Association hunter could not due to work.
That fall the two hunters went deer hunting with the older hunter knowing where he wanted to put his stand well before the trip. The newer Association hunter dropped off at a second farm he had never previous to that hunt stepped foot on.
You can probably guess the rest of the story.
The older hunter on this trip harvested nothing and the now second year Association hunter harvested his second big buck that was bigger than the previous year's buck.
Conservation
Hunters and their conservation groups currently are not the salvation for farmland conservation practices that hunters so heavily depend on for their hunting recreation. All the current debate in congress has been on farm commodity subsidies and very little and mostly nothing on conservation. It appears the lobby effort for conservation is being waged by non-hunting groups such as the World Wildlife Fund and others that find that water conservation is one essential to the success of all conservation.
A kansas wheat farm where the end dump terrace ends well within 100 feet of the field allowing water runoff in the field rather than outside of it.
The terrace is gone for unknown reasons the effects is that field runoff has from the previous fall thorugh winter into spring collected fertilizer and soil off the field and into the adjoining creek bottom.
The same end dup showing the extent of the soil erosion, how much fertilizer went with it is un-measurable. This field controlled by this terrace looked to be something less than 20 acres.
Last picture shows just how short the terrace is from where it should be.
Farming Effects:
"...Kansas typically produces more wheat, grain sorghum and beef than any other state in the nation;...one of every five Kansan is employed in a job related to farming..."
Agricultural week in limelight, Dave Bergmeier, Mar 22, 2009, The Abilene Reflector.
As climate changes, is water the new oil?, Mar 22, 2009, by Deborah Zabarenko, Washington, (Reuters).
"...80 percent of all disease borne by dirty water...well-managed or restored river systems that cope best..."
Rancher proposes water pipeline from Mo. to Colo. Would tap Mississippi River to alleviate state's increasing demands for water by Joe Hanel, Herald Denver Bureau, March 22, 2009.
"...If Colorado doesn't build it [pipeline], its rapid population growth will continue to dry up farms...easier to pump Mississippi water west across the gently sloping plains than east from Western Slope water through the Rocky Mountains...it wouldn't do anything to solve short-term water troubles...the Department of Energy's 2004 Oil Shale Development Roadmap discusses the possible need to import water to Western Colorado to run a future shale industry..."
The latest congressional letter to the new USDA Secretary signed by:
U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)
U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
U.S. Senator James Risch (R-Idaho)
U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)
U.S. Senator John Thune (R-S.D.)
U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-La.)
Discussed nothing about conservation.
3/19/2009, Senator Roberts: USDA Should Stop Pitting Farmers Vs. School Nutrition Programs, Washington, DC, The Cattlenetwork, the source for cattle news.
