A primary goal of parenting or teaching is to awaken the man within the child. It is to allow the child to grow in his independence. A parent or teacher is to come along the child as a helper, not a server. One who is served does not learn independence but impotence. The mother who feeds her child with a spoon but never allows the child use the spoon himself becomes a hindrance to the child’s natural desires to learn. She hinders the joy the child receives upon learning to do this simple task for himself. But a mother who helps her child creates opportunities for a child to do basic tasks for himself, praising him when done well. In this way the child also partakes in the joy of accomplishment and completes the task with joy.

Traditional discipline is “done well” when the child is rendered mute and motionless as a paralytic, obeying the will of the parent or teacher. The child obeys out of fear. A well disciplined child, on the other hand, though free to do as he likes, chooses actions agreeable to himself and to the community. Obedience comes from a deep respect for his parents, teacher, and for the other children. Discipline, for Maria, is not a fact but a way. There is only one rule to obey, be respectful of everyone and everything. The parent and teacher are to help the child by giving examples of proper social relations. They are to show how to properly interrupt someone who is busy or how to tell someone to move out of their way. To tell a child “no” without instructing how to properly accomplish their goals is to frustrate the child. A child does not inherently know what it means to be kind or respectful, he must be shown.

Now has its own thread.

My premise for supporting a monarchy over a republic is as follows:

1) The Church has held, by (arguably non-binding) tradition that Monarchy is the best form of government. Monarchs are used as symbols in the bible. God instituted the ancient line of Hebrew kings, and Jesus was born, quite significantly, of the house of David. Christ is the King of kings, not of presidents and prime ministers.
2) modern liberal democratic republics justify themselves by claiming that the power to rule is derived from a mandate of the masses. We know, as Christians, that this is not so. Power comes from God, and God alone. To reject this is offensive.
3) A proper Catholic monarchy is held in check by the church. For instance, the election of the Holy Roman Emperor can be vetoed by the pope. In many kingdoms, the monarch would be deposed if apostatized or excommunicated, thereby giving the bishops authority to keep the monarch in check.
4) Monarchies tended to be smaller governments that taxed it citizens less than republics. Even if the monarch and his family were greedy, it doesn’t take nearly as much theft from the populous to satisfy his ambitions, compared to the ambitions of the president, his cabinet, 104 Senators, 500+ congresscritters, their staff, lobbiests, etc., etc., etc.
5) Monarchies tend to have very little control over the day-to-day lives of its citizens. Society was very tiered; a monarch didn’t directly tax his citizens, but instead demanded tribute from his dukes, who demand it from the tier under them. Life from one community to another could be vastly different; if one marquis was charging too much in taxes, they could move over to the next town.
6) In hereditary monarchy, the most important unit of government is family. This communicates to society, by example, the importance of the nuclear and extended families, from the top down.
7) The fact that rule monarchy is de jure exclusive, rather than de facto in a republic, it quells political ambitions of men. Peasants know that they can never be king, and thus will not try. This quells the problem of an ever-growing leech-like political class we see in modern republics.
8] Hereditary monarchs are typically on the throne for life, and thus can make real, meaningful changes to the long-term benefit of his people. He has a strong vested interest in leaving the nation in a better state than he received it, because his family’s name is synonymous with the nation.
9) Most monarchs actually have less real power than modern bureaucrats, even though they had real authority. To get anything big done, like a war, they would have to convince the nobles under them, who in turn would convince the peasants to follow them. Thus, the monarch needed a fair degree of consent to get anything really big done.

There’s many more points that favor monarchy, but that’s on the top of my head.

Bravo to Elinor Ostrom, the first women to win the Nobel Prize in economics. Paul Romer offers these thoughts on her ideas – ideas that are very fitting to our discussions here.

Most economists think that they are building cranes that suspend important theoretical structures from a base that is firmly grounded in first principles. In fact, they almost always invoke a skyhook, some unexplained result without which the entire structure collapses. Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics because she works from the ground up, building a crane that can support the full range of economic behavior. [...]

If you haven’t discovered TED, you’re missing out. In this lecture Paul Romer discusses his idea for Charter Cities, a modernized construction of Garden Cities, in which land somewhere is separated out from the mother country and given an independent government structure known to work (think Hong Kong) via a charter with the mother country. The beauty of it is that the success of the city will bring reform to the mother country and it forces no changes on anyone. People from the mother country are not forced to move to the new city, they go on their own free choice.

As it turns out, many willing government leaders can’t bring the liberating reform needed to their country due to the power of interest groups seeking to keep the present system in tact – a system which benefits them in particular (the opposite is true as well). But if a leader creates a Hong Kong, there is a possibility of reabsorbing the city at a later time, reaping the economic benefits that entails and providing a model for reform in other cities. It also provides competition as non-reforming cities will lose population to reforming cities. Thus reform can be self propagating. Charter cities creates a rule for changing rules.

Paul Romer also mentions the possibility of self-financed city services, such as police, healthcare, infustructure, by capturing increasing land values – again, like Hong Kong. Such common sense reforms are nearly impossible in existing cities due to special interests but could be extremely beneficial to all if set up correctly from the beginning.

I think the idea of wage slavery is fascinating. How could it be that free individuals in a society defined by laws protecting individual freedom could find themselves enslaved? Many argue that this state of being has in fact arrived in part in America but more clearly on the shores of many of our trading partners. Is this really happening? If so, what is the cause of such an off phenomenon? How is it that freedom might beget slavery?

Well, I’m in no position to answer these questions adequately at this moment but I believe it is a worthy study. I hope to consider in more depth and post my thoughts as I learn more.

My starting position is that wage slavery does, in fact, occur in all capitalistic countries to varying degrees depending on the negotiating power of the proletariat. I differ from socialists, however, in that I do not blame the inner workings of capitalism, or class struggle, for the phenomenon. It is common because the common people have been systematically ripped off by capitalism – trading means of production for temporal gain.

The root of wage slavery is power and property. Insofar as workers have an alternative to their wage labor for subsistence, than wages will be justly regulated by market forces. If, for example, your name is Branden and you rock at backyard gardening, then you won’t put up with Wal-Mart only paying you beans. You’ll grow your own food and sell the surplus at the farmer’s market. Your refusal to work at such low wages, due to the alternatives available to you, will drive wages up. Hence, the power you have to supply your own means of subsistence is the antidote to wage slavery. And power is only made effective through property. Branden needs a backyard. And once he has his backyard, the wage Wal-Mart offers will be what is necessary to tempt Branden back into the workforce. Wages, then, will be based on freedom as Branden will only choose to work for a wage if he wants – not because he must.

But is it wrong that Branden must work for a wage? Say Branden’s landlord refuses to let him garden. What then? Well, my position is that Wal-Mart must drive his wage down to subsistence, not because they “want to” but because competition forces them to.

And what do I mean by subsistence? In short, it is defined by society and is different for each society. In America it is the “poverty level”. The wage is set as the “minimum wage”. In China, “subsistence” is far lower. It’s not that the mechanisms of capitalism wouldn’t force the wage lower in America, it’s that there is both taboo and legal restrictions against doing such – the later being a enforced form of the former. On this front there is in fact a class struggle and it might be beneficial to discuss further.

How is it that the working class, the proletariat, doesn’t have an alternative to wage labor? Why do they not have power and property? The answer, I believe, lies in history and will fill another post.

And what of other questions? Is it true that globalization creates wage slavery? Are whole nations enslaved because of poor negotiating power? It is certainly food for thought and future posts.

I love philosophers. The good ones seem to be able to communicate what they want to say in clear terms. I’m jealous.

Last week a friend asked me to explain my view of land as it relates to ethics. As everyone here knows, I have some strong views on this. But I always struggle to put my views into clear, short, and defensible statements. I responded to my friend with some links for further reading and a brief outline of the logic I like to use to explain my position. I hope it helped…but I also hope he hasn’t written me off as some commie.

Well, it’s been a while so I would like to try to revisit the land question here. With everyone’s help, maybe I can arrive at a short paragraph or two that clearly defines my view – whether or not others fully agree with the premises.

So let’s get started. I come to the land question from at least three perspectives all or which, in my view, are valid. They are:

1) A monotheistic understanding of the world. There is a God and He gave us a right and obligation to use the earth – that is, to steward the earth. No man naturally has any more or less a right to use the earth than another. Also, it seems reasonable that no one has a right to restrict another from using the earth provided there is as much and as good land available for others to use – but since the whole world is long past that proviso, land use must be regulated by some means. The land-value tax and other such mechanism are human inventions designed to equitably distribute land use – as opposed to less equitable land use distribution mechanisms such as the fee-simple property rights (a reasonable solution in less populace times, but not today).

2) An egalitarian understanding of the world. I don’t think you have to believe in a god to arrive at the conclusion above. In fact, so long as you believe that we are equals – that no one has any more of a right by birth to common wealth (as opposed to human created wealth) than the other conclusions follow.

3) A pragmatist view. Arguing from pure economic efficiency and real world examples there is strong evidence that a land-value tax creates the most efficient land use and thus the most efficient use of energy and material inputs. It also creates a wealth distribution that promotes economic growth by enlarging the middle class. See my paper on these ideas in a previous post.

So, what are the glaring questions that come to mind when you read this? What strikes you as total crap or poor logic? Obviously, I could have said a lot more. Do you disagree with any of this? If so, why?

And maybe after we flesh some of that out, you can help me rewrite my view. Thanks.

Hi All, Jennifer here.  Branden asked me to post.

Respect for the child.  Our children are born with everything they need (God’s a pretty good designer) including their senses with which to gather information about their environment, their personality, their likes and dislikes.  Also, Montessori regards children as the equal to adults.  Obviously they lack knowledge and experience to be granted complete liberty, however, they deserve nothing less than the same respect Branden shows me.  Anyone who affirms the existence of our Triune God must also affirm that equality and submission are not mutually exclusive.  Eva must obey us.  No questions asked.  But I must remember that she is created as much in the image of God as I am, and speak to her accordingly (of course, taking into consideration what she can comprehend).

I also like the theory of the Absorbent Mind, meaning that children learn best when they learn what they are interested in.  This is true of all of us.  I’ll never learn French because I don’t want to.  Some of you may say “but we all have to do things we don’t want to and the earlier children learn that lesson in self-discipline the better.”  Montessori asserts that a child develops self-discipline gradually, much like walking starts with lots of floppy movement. Let them learn to ignore distractions and finish a task that captures their attention first.  Later, after they have developed these skills, require more of them.  One can not know what their child is interested in and thus capitalize on that interest unless they are carefully observing their child.  Observation and following a child’s needs is another key aspect to Montessori and one I very much like and long to be better at implementing.

Branden has already mentioned the importance of the child’s environment.  It’s hardly fair to expect a little child to be happy in a world where they can’t see anything above adult knees.  The lower shelves of our book shelves are dedicated to Eva’s things.  Some think this is ridiculous.  But I like it for two reasons.  Eva is as much a part of this family as I am and therefore has as much claim to the space in this house as I do.  Also, what’s easier?  Fighting over her not touching things I put directly in her line of vision, or allowing her space that logically fits her?  We also like providing beautiful objects for Eva to use.  Glass cups and pitchers are a dime a dozen at the thrift stores and what better way to teach Eva how to handle delicate objects than to give her some and let her see what happens when she’s not gentle with it.  “Broken” means a lot more to a one year old who just watched glass shatter on the floor.  And then she gets to learn the all important lesson of keeping her environment clean.  Now I can’t let her clean up glass alone (or really at all at this point) but she does enjoy sweeping crumbs off the kitchen floor and she cleans up after herself at dinner.  Lately she likes scrubbing the kitchen floor.  All of these tasks take much longer with Eva “helping” but our hope is that soon enough, she really will be a help.  Raising children who care for their environment is a wonderful way to better society.  She’s not used to someone else taking care of her messes and she takes the initiative to fix the problems of disorder on her own.

Montessori designed all of her work to be self correcting.  This allows children to become independent and self-reliant.  I demonstrate how to use a particular piece of work and then Eva is free to choose it when she likes and can complete it without mother hovering near by.  She learns to solve problems without help.  I’m here when she needs it, but it’s my job to guide her into solving problems on her own when they’re within her ability to do so.  This is extremely hard for me and most adults who would rather hang up a child’s coat for them than wait around while they fumble for the hood and then fumble for the hook.  But teaching Eva how to hang up her own coat has been great.  We don’t pick up after her, and she reminds us (almost obsessively) to hang up our coats as well.  She has a real and beneficial function in this family.  We also like that the Montessori work is based on the idea that children learn first in concrete reality.  Much like “broken” has more meaning when Eva sees the pieces of glass, “big” and “little” take on more meaning when a child can touch and feel how big or little an object is.  Math is introduced with a series of wooden rods that lengthen according to how many parts they represent, one, two, three, etc.  Before children see 1 + 2 = 3 they have used the long rods to see that a 1 rod with a 2 rod is the same length as a 3 rod.  Montessori focuses on developing all of our senses.  There are fabric swatches and sand paper numbers to develop our sense of touch.  There is tasting work to develop taste.  The silent game helps children learn to focus all those twitching muscles.  There are body movement opportunities to develop gross and fine motor control.  Children learn to match various geometric shapes and then to do so wearing a blind fold.  All of the Montessori early education is based in reality.  No smiley faces on the cows.  Montessori argues that young children are so hungry to learn about their world that we should allow them to do so without confusing them with fantasy.  There is plenty of time for fairy tales once a child is old enough to understand reality from fantasy.

What I don’t yet understand about Montessori is how it functions beyond the preschool and early elementary years.  We have not chosen Montessori over Classical but rather intend to blend the two.  I don’t understand how Classical education functions before a child is able to read.  From what I understand there is a lot of child dictation and adult writing before a child can read and write alone.  Since we plan to have several children running around I don’t know how I could possibly play scribe to a couple of children who can not yet write while keeping smaller children’s hands and minds busy.  Montessori seems like a perfect preschool educational philosophy.  We’ll always maintain the respect for our children and a lot of the underlying philosophy of Montessori.  What that will look like as our children move beyond color matching I don’t know.

A new blog I found much agreement with.

A quote:

“The same thing happens in the world of social issues, where there is an obvious ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ perspective. These, in turn, suggest either ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive’ solutions to our collective problems. But, if you dig a little deeper, you will find other ways of seeing the world, which lead to other alternative courses of action. Ours is a website dedicated to digging deeper.

Some might call this ‘third’ position politically “centrist,” others may call it “social libertarianism.” We prefer to see ourselves as putting forward an alternative analysis; one often left out of the ‘mainstream’ political debate, and therefore alternative solutions to social problems. In short, what we’re putting forward is ‘Huxley’s Third Alternative.’”

Introduction

A lot of Christians encounter the world of non-Christian philosophy as a kaleidoscope of falsehoods.  Most of us see some non-Christian worldviews as obviously wrong, and others as very nearly true, but not quite.  Where do your sympathies lie in the universe of half-truths and false starts?

If you weren’t a Christian, what do you think your philosophy or worldview would most likely be?

Here is a nice video that I thought some would be interested in. It is about 30 minutes long. I think she brings up some very interesting points for people wanting to start a community.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlMDckgqU30

Sorry, but I could not figure out how to make it play in wordpress.  May Trevor can show me how.

There are two strains of our argument that often get intertwined and mixed.

One part is the discussion about the idea of owning land in the abstract: Is land fundamentally different from other forms of property and capital? Can you own land the way you own other things? This is a very difficult arena because we are very close to a dogmatic dispute about our first principles. I feel like I understand the other side’s view, but I remain unconvinced. I need to work on finding a way to approach this disagreement from a common ground that we can agree on.

The second part is the discussion about whether instituting the land tax would be a net gain or loss for society. Apart from the question of rights, would a land tax make us poorer or richer? What if it would make some people better off and others less well off? I think the internal dynamics of a land tax can be analyzed by treating it as if the government owned all land and rented the land to the citizens, according to certain customs. In those terms the normal perspectives and tools of economics can give us a fairly good picture of what to expect. This is the easier side of the discussion, no matter how convoluted it gets.

But maybe we’re missing the point. How relevant is that second argument? If I was convinced that the georgist land tax was a net gain for all members of society, I might still oppose it on the principles of private property and limited government. Maybe not, I’m not sure because I haven’t given it enough thought. And suppose I spend the next three years convincing Trevor that the land tax system will make us all slightly poorer. If he still thinks the georgist system is more just, I might have been wasting my time.

Is justice all that really matters?

Saturday night I had the joy of staying out way past my bed time. I was hanging with Jeremiah’s family and friends, Sage, and our mutual friend Daniel. And our other mutual friend, the Hookah. I took the opportunity to declare my intent of writing a serious of posts on libertarian inconsistencies. You see, I would very much like to call myself a libertarian (I sometimes still do) but I hesitate because the world, it seems, is filled with libertarians of a type I find troubling. I often hear these odd fellows speak of personal freedoms, small (or no) government, a hands off foreign policy, free markets, the value of personal property, and the evils of socialism. But just as often I read in their writings a defense of Wal-mart, support for Suburban sprawl, compassion for big business, hatred for mass transit, and disgust with any environmental regulation that might adversely affect some business.

Although I agree with so much of the base philosophy of libertarians I often find that the libertarian “on the street” is at odds with his own philosophy. This odd right leaning yuppie ideology we find on the street (and can be seen on Mises, Acton, and to a certain degree at Cato) is, I think, what most people have in mind when they hear the word “libertarian”. So I hesitate to connect myself with this vocal majority.

But, alas, the good often outweighs the bad so I persist with the group. I supported Ron Paul. But I must make clear exactly why I think he and other libertarians are often, I believe, quite inconsistent and, to steal an adjective from Kevin Carson, quite vulgar in their libertarianism. So in step with Kevin I hope to flesh out my thoughts through a serious of posts under the heading “Vulgar Libertarianism.”

I’ll start with a short essay by a libertarian I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with for some time now, Dan Sullivan. I’m certain you will find this essay thought provoking and to the point. I believe it will lay down a solid foundation for future discussion.

Are you a Real Libertarian or a ROYAL Libertarian?
- By Dan Sullivan

We call ourselves the “party of principle,” and we base property rights on the principle that everyone is entitled to the fruits of his labor. [...]

You have probably already seen the news from last week: an uncontacted tribe in South America is “found” by a low-flying government aircraft. A routine flight low over the Amazon jungle allowed officials to “discover” a remote tribe believed to never have had contact with us, the civilized. Later in the day, the plane returned with cameras and took pictures to prove that such peoples do exist, because the locals in Peru and Brazil have come to think of such tribes how we think of Bigfoot — some claim to see him, there are dozens of stories, but the mainstream doesn’t take it seriously.

Well, now that the skeptics are believers, what is the future of these so-called “primitive” folks? Officials say there are approximately 100 such tribes worldwide with most of them existing in South America. At first, I think, Wow, that’s cool there is a hundred. Then my soul casts itself downward as I consider, There is only a hundred.  

Oh, and I forgot to mention something: when the government guys returned with their cameras, they noticed the women and children had fled into the forest, and all the men were now painted head-to-toe in war paint and pointing their bows and arrows at the plane, preparing to defend their thatched communal homes. From what, a terrible dragon? A giant vulturous bird? 

But the point is, I suspect there are people who are excited to get in contact with them. Anthropologists. Missionaries. Fortunately, as it turns out, most anthropologists are typically more sensitive to issues of indigenous cultures. Missionaries, on the other hand, have another set of priorities. Spreading the gospel. Upsetting the traditional way of life of these people, one that has worked for them for centuries, possibly millenia.

And sure enough — and this ought to be interesting to those of us from the Lake area — New Tribes Missions in the past has attempted to contact such tribes in this area. Initiation was hard. They flew over and dropped them gifts, and the pagans eventually warmed up. Then they became dependent upon the white man’s modern technology. And their immune systems weren’t use to what they had to bring: like the flu. They died. A lot of them. The Peruvian government forced the missionaries out in 1991. Thank God.

So now maybe they won’t be allowed back in, but there are always others, those who are willing to destroy these folks’ stories, myths, manners, habits, traditions, and, uh hum, religion. But there are a couple organizations (again let us bless the Lord) fighting to protect these natives. Read about it here: http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340.

I’ve added a new category called “Wisdom from Authors We Love.” My thought is that we can all share bits and pieces, with comments, from books we’re reading or have read under this heading. Also, I wanted to point out this category making feature on this blog. It’s especially helpful if you want to publish a serious of posts on a single subject over a long period of time and/or want to have others contribute on the same subject. Years later we will be able to click on the category and sort out all the blog postings under that category. So feel free to create new categories as you see fit.

And since I have a few minutes more to write I’ll begin with some wisdom from the American philosopher Henry George, writing against nineteenth century progressivism in his most famous work Progress and Poverty:

It cannot be said of the Hindoo and of the Chinaman, as it may be said of the savage, that our superiority is the result of a longer education; that we are, as it were, the grown men of nature, while they are the children. The Hindoos and the Chinese were civilized when we were savages. They had great cities, highly organized and powerful governments, literatures, philosophies, polished manners, considerable division of labor, large commerce, and elaborate arts, when our ancestors were wandering barbarians, living in huts and skin tents, not a whit further advanced than the American Indians. While we have progressed from the savage state to Nineteenth Century civilization, they have stood still. If progress be the result of fixed laws, inevitable and eternal, which impel men forward, how shall we account for this?

But it is not merely these arrested civilizations that the current theory of development fails to account for. It is not merely that men have gone so far on the path of progress and then stopped; it is that men have gone far on the path of progress and then gone back. It is not merely an isolated case that thus confronts the theory – it is the universal rule. Every civilization that the world has yet seen has had its period of vigorous growth, of arrest and stagnation; its decline and fall.

George is often criticized for his utopian philosophy, for too much hope for the way things could be if only. But the popular view of his day was a blind progressivism. An idea that science and reason had set in motion an unstoppable linear progression toward an ever better world. Compared with this George is the pragmatic realist. He his wise enough to see that the progressive is not progressive enough. There is no evolutionary impulse driving man forward but rather a long history of progress and regression. THAT is the general rule. The truly progressive civilization, as George will later point out, is the one that retains the Hebraic version of equality, freedom, and justice for all men.

Many defend the idea of a mechanized progression by appealing to greed and Adam Smith. George writes, “We are apt to assume that greed is the strongest of human motives, … that the fear of punishment is necessary to keep men honest – that selfish intersts are always stronger than general interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. Carlyle (?) somewhere says that poverty is the hell of which the modern Englishman is most afraid. And he is right. Poverty is the open-mouthed, relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society. And it is hell enough. The Vedas declare no truer thing than when the wise crow Bushanda tells the eagle bearer of Vishnu that the keenest pain is in poverty. For poverty is not merely deprivation; it means shame, degradation; the earing of the most sensitive parts of our moral and mental nature as with hot irons, the denial of the stongest impulses and the sweetest affections; the wrenching of the most vital nerves.”

George continues to reason that “From this hell of poverty, it is but natural that men should make every escape.” It then comes naturally that the rule of modern man is summed up in the popular phrase of his day “Get money – honestly, if you can, but at any rate get money!”

No, greed is not what powers the mechanized progression of capitalism. Rather it is the fear of poverty, and in George’s view this base progressivism so popular in his day should be reformed into a truly Progressive state based on justice, freedom, and equality for all men – one in which man would reap the full fruit of his labor and few would fear the cold hand of poverty.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, and my legs are still a bit sore. I am hoping the margaritas Amanda and I are about to share will loosen me up, make me feel a little better. Not that I haven’t had some booze in a while; actually I just spent the weekend sitting around a campfire drinking good, ole, canned American lager: Busch, Old Milwalkee, Pabst Blue Ribbon. And walking. Boy, did I walk. The reason for the sore legs.

Michael, our coworker and newly-made friend Taylor, and I left work at noon Friday. After cashing in some aluminum cans we’d been saving for the last few months  (some from my house, some from Michael’s, some from the recycling bin at work) we jumped in Taylor’s dad’s minivan $22. 50 richer than we were before we went to the local iron & metal works. That helped pay for the Pall Malls. It was then off to the my parents’ house, about two hours north.

The occasion: Spring turkey hunting.

Last time I wrote on the ethics of hunting, it was November, and Michael and I had gone deer hunting. One difference between that trip and this – besides that this time we brought an extra body, we were hunting a different animal, and we were more active — was that my dad had arranged for us to stay at a cabin owned by his neighbor down in an idyllic setting near the 2200 acre Fiery Fork Conservation Area. One room. Water pumped from the creek that runs in front of the porch. Fire pit.

Best part of all was we didn’t have to drive a half hour at four in the morning to get to our hunting grounds; we simply rolled out of bed and entered the woods.

First day, running on no sleep from staying up too late, we sat in blinds and sounded stupid trying to call in some gobblers. I guess we did the job, though, because we heard them call back. That’s always exciting. Not long afterward,  Taylor, who I shared a blind with, leaned over, whispering, “There’s two of them. A gobbler and a hen.” Sure as shit, there they were. They spent some time walking behind us as Taylor kept his barrell pointed their direction and I clumsily attempted using a boxcall to stop them from their ascent up the hill, away from us. No luck. Got away.

A while later, Taylor again leans over to tell me of a new find. (We had our backs to each other, he facing the woods where all the action was, me facing the bordering field staring at a rubber turkey decoy.)

“There’s a coyote,” he said. Looking behind me, I saw a dark, scruffy, wild canine running around, followed by another, sniffing, stopping to scratch his neck, just like a regular house dog. We had probably lured them in with our attempt to sound like turkeys, and they probably then smelled the scent of the real ones that got away. They came from the opposite direction but went the same way as their feathered cousins, their soon-to-be lunch. Probably no luck now snagging one ourselves. Nothing from the other blind either, which contained my dad and Michael. They didn’t even get to see or hear anything.

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