A Passionate Process

Cutting Wild Game as Artful Connection

By the evening of my second day cutting, I’ve put fifteen hours into processing this elk. The freezer is stocked. I lift the body cavity and stripped quarters onto the portal roof for scavenging birds and the succession of decomposers that will break the body down further. I set the skull to boil and begin fleshing the hide to send to the tannery.

Both Waggoner and Gomez gasp when I tell them how long it takes me to process an elk by myself. Waggoner exclaims, “What?! I can do that in about an hour or two!” He invites me in to come watch and learn. “You come on in anytime. I’d be happy to show you and share.”

I consider the offer while reflecting on my solo time, elbow deep with the elk. I know now that these folks who process meat aren’t just anonymous factory robots but real people invested in bringing the meat to its most impeccable finished state. Their hands touch, cut, handle, and wrap with personal care, lifelong knowledge, and artisanal wisdom.

I look forward to my next elk hunt this November. If I’m fortunate enough to harvest an animal, perhaps I’ll gather around the butcher blocks of these two processors to share in the labor of harvest and love.

A Symphony of Species:

Beyond Human Regeneration

“To become earthlings, citizens of our planet, is to remember and reactivate a land-based connection that embodies reciprocity and respect. Rather than viewing water, soil, plants and animals and even air as resources to be extracted and used for our own sustenance and profit, what would it be like to embrace them as beings equal to – or greater – than ourselves? What would we see as intrinsically valuable and, therefore, worth protecting and cherishing?

Reciprocal relationship, a balance of give and take and a long view as earthlings, situating ourselves within the web of life, alters the conversation, centering non-human species as the generations for whom stewardship efforts may be directed.”

Blood Bone Oil Water

“I skin and butcher the deer under the carport, separating hind and front quarters from the backbone, severing the heads from the necks, cutting away tender meat, one muscle group at a time. I rub the wet, dark clay between their hooves, see the pulverised corn between ungulate teeth, feel the stubborn ticks clinging to the thin skin around their anuses and genitals, touch the long, delicate lashes over dead, glazed eyes. The questions I hold about the ethics of an easy kill circulate again through my brain as rhythmically as the knife in my hand separates hide from muscle. Am I worthy of this meat? Is their sacrifice for my sustenance justified?”

Confluence: Life and Death at Water’s Edge

“I lay in the back of my pickup, thick blankets and sleeping bags keeping me warm while the bloated moon presses into me. I toss and turn through the night.  Just after sunset, I witnessed two young elk standing tall on their hind legs, pawing at each other in what looked like a playful sparring match. I picture them again, alternating their elevated paw prance play with practical grazing.

I envision the turkeys and wonder if the moon illuminates their iridescent feathers. Could I see more than their silhouettes if I crept down beneath the cottonwood again? Would they be making middle-of-the-night sounds that I’ve never heard? I want to know the meaning of turkey tongue, the messages of elk tracks pressed into wet mud. Which way do they go and why? My words and ways of making meaning seem so dull, flat, one-dimensional. Isn’t there something more than the rationale of the human mind?

The bulging brightness of the moon seems to grow weightier the longer I lay wide-eyed beneath her.  I finally surrender. I stop trying to sleep and decide to absorb the starry screen above, try to make myself nocturnal, too.

A west wind tousles my hair and rattles the nylon lawn chair. The elk, turkeys, deer, cottonwoods and the creek cast their dreams to the moonlight.”

Illustration by Tracy Seidman of Wagon Mound Ranch.

edible New Mexico. May 2021

$1.67

"Let me see if I've got this straight", I say to them all. "You want to harvest water, have those edibles in containers the neighbors at the meeting said they wanted, have lots of shade trees and nice patios with screening plantings. And you don't want any mess, no maintenance or pay more than $1.67 a square foot." I continue, "Have you ever considered fake plants with a remote control device? That way you could have quick, easy, cheap, on-demand eye candy with none of the cost or hassle."

"Yeah, you got it", the developer grins as I adjust the wide leather belt around my waist, push my hair back and put the pencil to my lips, biting down.

I breathe in, exhale and ask, "Isn't it interesting and a little ironic that you're asking me to offer ingenious design, using the elements of life that sustain us - plants, soil, water, air - and you're offering to pay the least for these, to value these the least? What legacy are we leaving and doesn't it matter?"

Greenhorns , New Farmer’s Almanac, Volume V 2021

Hunt Locally

“I was raised in Alaska and worked on my grandfather’s wheat farm and cattle ranch in west Texas during the summers. I know a little bit about being a fledgling local farmer, but have never relied on agriculture to make a living. I grow as many edibles as I can on my two-acre parcel in Santa Fe County. Anyone who knows this area knows the 7,000-foot elevation, combined with highly alkaline soil and extreme weather patterns, is a challenge to growing food on a consistent enough basis to feed a family. It’s damn hard work, even if you don’t have a full-time job.

To complement my vegetable and fruit cultivation, I decided to try hunting. It’s been in my family for generations. All of the men hunted, never the women. I worked a couple of seasons in a hunting lodge in Alaska where I learned to butcher, pack, process, and cook wild game, always for the male hunters who rarely had anything to do with the animals once they were down and dead. I fleshed the hides, scraped brains from skulls, and pulled grizzly bear claws from heavy furred paws. I toiled through the night to get just the right amount of meat, fat, and flesh off the hide in order for the taxidermist to take over, making pretty for the wall what once was wild.

I wanted to hunt to see if I was able, yes, but I also I wanted to be self-sufficient with my food in as many ways as possible, from meat to greens. Why not? New Mexico has plenty of access to public lands and a rich diversity of wildlife species to hunt.

Before my first hunt was over—for cow elk—I knew I was hooked.”