The 2023 Season. Third Year (or more) Running

I noted last year, when I did this report, the following:

The 2022 Season

The 2022 hunting season has ended.

In 2022, when I wrote about the 2021 season, I started off with this:

 It wasn't a great one, for a variety of reasons.

And that statement was true once again for 2022, but for different reasons, a lot of which had nothing much to do with the hunting season itself.

That's because 2022 has been the year of the field of Medicine, or age, or perhaps lifestyle, or whatever, catching up with me.

Well, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record on that, as it was once again quite true.

On big game, I didn't draw anything.  So, no antelope tag again.

Indeed, sometime in the fall, in one of the blogs linked in here, an out-of-state hunter posted about the great time he'd had in Wyoming antelope hunting and I nearly posted a crabby linked in post regarding that.  If out of staters are getting tags, in staters should be.

I didn't want to insult that person, so I didn't make that post, but I'm still not very happy about it.

I had general deer and elk tags, and I did go out for deer, but no luck.  For deer, I did have a very pleasant early winter hunt, if that's what we call this frighteningly warm mid-year season this year, but the only white tails, and that's what it was limited to, that we saw were on private land where I didn't have permission.  So, no deer.

Bird wise, the season was good for the most part.  Blue Grouse, which are illusive in my experience (a Game Warden who checked me didn't seem to think so) did make an appearance this year, so we did okay, but not great.

Doves were abundant, but I mostly missed shooting at them, which was sort of the story of the year in a lot of ways.  I did get a Mongolian Collared Dove for the first time, so was able to appreciate how much larger they are than Mourning Doves.

Sage chickens were also plentiful this year.

Chukars and Huns, which are in my experience very hard to hit, were abundant, but I didn't do well with them as I missed them more than I hit them.  I did get in a lot of late season chukar hunting close to town for the first time.

Waterfowl, which we hunted more than anything else, was very abundant.

So, not a self-reliance banner year. . . or was it?

Last Prior Edition:

The 2022 Season

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Before legislating, political newcom...:   

Blog Mirror: Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

 Before legislating, political newcomers should try something else: listening

Oil & Gas and Trees.

Oil and Gas development and the encroachment of trees onto the sagebrush steppes are contributing to a decline in the number of antelope in Wyoming, according to a new study.

The Agrarian's Lament: Our Only Home.

The Agrarian's Lament: Our Only Home.: 

Our Only Home.

Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.

I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.

I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.

This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable.

William Shatner, actor.

The Agrarian's Lament: Blog Update. New Feature.

The Agrarian's Lament: Blog Update. New Feature.:  

Blog Update. New Feature.

 We have added a "pages" feature to this blog.  The currently visible page is:

• An Agrarian Manifesto.

There's a couple more in the hopper.

This blog has gotten more active than it was originally, as more original posts are now included here.  Originally, it was just a feed for Agrarian topics from Lex Anteinternet.  Showing, I suppose, that this is more active, this page is visible on that blog as well.

Bill on Rocks Springs RMP Revision.

 Very unusual to see a one off bill like this:

H. R. 6085

To prohibit the implementation of the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming, and for other purposes.

---

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 26, 2023

Ms. Hageman introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources

---

A BILL

To prohibit the implementation of the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. RESTRICTION ON DRAFT RMP AND EIS FOR ROCK SPRINGS RMP REVISION, WYOMING.

The Secretary of the Interior may not finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming, referred to in the notice of availability titled “Notice of Availability of the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming” published by the Bureau of Land Management on August 18, 2023 (88 Fed. Reg. 56654).

FWIW, a really good look at the plan was featured on Governor Gordon's podcast. The big complaint with the plan (which I don't think is that bad) what that it was sort of dropped on the area by the BLM after people believed that the groups they were working in with the BLM would have an impact on the plan, and didn't appear to.

I'd guess, but don't know, that the chances of a one off bill passing in the current Congress is really small.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 7. What would that look like, and why would it fix anything, other than limiting my choices and lightening my wallet? Wouldn't every one be just bored and poor?

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...:   

 

His life will grow out of the ground like the other lives of the place, and take its place among them. He will be with them - neither ignorant of them, nor indifferent to them, nor against them - and so at last he will grow to be native-born. That is, he must reenter the silence and the darkness, and be born again.

Wendell Berry, A Native Hill.

So we've gone through this and lamented on the state of the world.

We looked at how working for largely local businesses, in an economy in which most were local, would work, in terms of economics.

In other words, if you needed an appliance, and went to Wally's Appliance Store, owned and operated by Wally, rather than Walmart, owned and operated by anonymous corporate shareholders, how would that look?

And we looked at something more radical yet, Agrarianism.

So how does this all tie together, and what difference would it really make?

Let's revisit the definition of Agrarianism.

Given the above, isn't Agrarianism simply agricultural distributism?

Well, no.

Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society

Bradley M. Jones, American Agrarianism.

Agrarianism is agriculture oriented on an up close and personal basis, and as such, it's family oriented, and land ethic oriented.

We also noted that agrarianism as we define it incorporates The Land Ethic, which holds:

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.

The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac.  Aldo Leopold.

So what would this mean to society at large, and a distributist society at that?

To start with, it would mean a lot more family farm operations, and no remotely owned and operated ones where the land was held by Bill Gates or the Chinese Communist Party. Combined with Distributism, it would also mean a lot more local processing of agricultural products.  Local packing houses, local flour mills, local bakeries.

It would also mean a society that was focused on local ownership of homes with residents who lived a more local, land ethic focused, lives.

Indeed, the local would matter much more in general.

And with it, humanity.

There would still be the rich and the poor, but not the remote rich and the ignorable poor.

Most people would be in the middle, and most of them, owning their own. They'd be more independent in that sense, and therefore less subject to the whims of remote employers, economic interests, and politicians.

All three major aspects of Catholic Social Teaching, humanity, subsidiarity, and solidarity, coming together.

An agrarian society would be much less focused on "growth", if focused on it at all.  Preservation of agricultural and wild lands would be paramount.  People would derive their social values in part from that, rather than the host of panem et circenses distractions they now do, or at least they could. 

They'd derive their leisure from it as well, and therefore appreciate it more.  If hiking in a local park, or going fishing, or being outdoors in general is what we would do, and we very much would as the big mega entertainment sources of all types are largely corporate in nature, preservation of the wild would be important.  

And this too, combined with what we've noted before, a distributist society and a society that was well-educated, would amount to a radical, and beneficial, reorientation of society.

We won't pretend that such a society would be prefect.  That would be absurd.  Human nature would remain that. All the vices that presently exist, still would, but with no corporate sources to feed them, they'd not grow as prominent.

And we will state that it would cure many of the ills that now confront us.

Such a society would force us to confront our nature and nature itself.  And to do so as a party of a greater community, for our common good.

Which, if we do not end up doing, will destroy us in the end.

Last prior:

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

Directly related:

What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 3. Agrarianism.

Finis

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day: Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day : A Celtic cross in a local cemetery, marking the grave of a very Irish, and Irish Catholic, figure....

 In the afternoon, I went out fishing and took the dog.  On the way, I was listening to a podcast, like I'll tend to do.  It was a Catholic Answers Focus interview of Carrie Gress and it was profound.  I'll post on that elsewhere.  

We didn't catch any fish.  Nothing was biting, so we came home.

Lex Anteinternet: The traffic circle.

Lex Anteinternet: The traffic circle.: 

The traffic circle.

 

Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

John, Chapter 21.

The theme of this week, I fear. 

Approximately 30 years ago, I was presented with an opportunity that I desired greatly to take.  It was, however, irresponsible in about every way a serious person would regard something to be irresponsible.  I accepted it, and then back out.

It was a mistake.

History does not really repeat, as they say, but rhymes. 

This week, I'll start dealing right off the bat with a crisis, and it's a multi party crisis.  From crisis, comes opportunity of all sorts, and if not traveling into a fork in the road, I'm definitely traveling into a traffic circle.

I know with certainty which road I want to take, and that it goes where I want to go, and it can be travelled.

I also know that another road is the responsible one, in every conventional fashion.  That will be the one I'm expected to take.  And even now, that's the one I'm going to.

But I don't want to.

And that will be a mistake.

The Agrarian's Lament: What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 3. Agrarianism.

The Agrarian's Lament: What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). ...: 

What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 3. Agrarianism.

And what's this thing about Agrarianism?

I believe that this contest between industrialism and agrarianism now defines the most fundamental human difference, for it divides not just two nearly opposite concepts of agriculture and land use, but also two nearly opposite ways of understanding ourselves, our fellow creatures, and our world.

Wendell Berry.

Given the above, isn't Agrarianism simply agricultural distributism?

Well, no.

Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society

Bradley M. Jones, American Agrarianism.

Agrarianism is agriculture oriented on an up close and personal basis, and as such, it's family oriented, and land ethic oriented.

We have noted before:

Farm Resettlement Agency poster from the Great Depression. The FRA was not a success, by and large.

Agriculture has always been close to the hearts of Distributist and in regards to it they can really be regarded as the close associates of Agrarians. When we read older Agrarian texts, we're basically reading Distributist ones. That's why modern Distributists can be found quoting Thomas Jefferson, who basically lived in a naturally Distributist world, mixed with Mercantilism, and who never heard the word Distributist.

Agriculture, for that part, has remained somewhat in this category anyhow, although in recent decades this has been heavily impacted by various developments that threaten that.  Absentee land ownership has always been a problem that has been there.

In a Distributist economy the US would adopt policies that actually do exist in other Western nations. France, for example, has had a Distributist set of agriculture policies since World War Two and I believe that Germany has as well. Greece also does.  In Germany's case, the road map for a Distributist agricultural sector has been set out in book form at that, in Wilhelm Von Roepke's "Economics of a Free Society", in which he addresses it.

In short, in a Distributist economy those employed farming would own the farms.  Absentee landlords and remote corporate ownership of land would not be allowed.  Indeed, a purse Distributist might take this even further on land ownership, and not allow it for use outside a person use or business entity in general, but that's straying from main topic.  In agriculture, it's pretty clear that's what Distributist would have to advance. So, no more wealthy people from one state buying a land and claiming to be "ranchers" in another.  And no more lawyers or doctors in town claiming that their small hobby farm is a farm.  Farm, or practice law, but don't do both.

This part of this is, we'd note, truly radical.  More on that in a moment.  But what this would do, is to make individual farms more viable economically, but worth considerably less individually.  It would therefore be easier for people to enter agriculture, but it would be much less lucrative to sell out of it in some ways.  And I suspect in a pure Distributist economy regulation in this area would come in to further advance this set of goals.

But Agrarianism goes much further than this.  It retains something that the rest of society has tragically lost, which is that we are inseparably bound to the soil, and inseparably bound to nature.

The fact that we have lost this has been massively corrupting and is massively destructive.  Indeed, it threatens to destroy us.

Not everyone in a modern agrarian economy would be farmers, as some like to either imagine, or criticize. But society would be family farm oriented.  And it would value the land ethic.

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.

The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac.  Aldo Leopold.

Realizing that agrarianism is, whether we like it or not, and that we ignore it at our ultimate peril and destruction, is the paramount task of agrarians today.  No one thing every cures all of a society's ills, but a modern agrarian economy would come pretty darned close.

Which presumes not only a well grounded society, but a well-educated society.

We've lost that.

Lex Anteinternet: Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns

Lex Anteinternet: Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: 

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Greens and Guns: Ted William's recent article in Audobon lambastes hunters, anglers, and environmental activists for failing to make common cause. In ...

Interesting comment.

I have long thought this very thing.