I’m out of sorts today, way too much nonsense. Joe Biden said boldly that “A Range of Programs” are needed for Americans to Not “Pull the Trigger”. Of course this is all about his new ideas about gun control, and effectively getting rid of the 2nd Amendment. Is he aware that most murders are not committed with guns, but with blunt objects? We have a long tradition of Western movies where the hero always has a gun in the holster on his hip, but that’s not real life, and wasn’t, even in the early days of the West.
Rural people are more apt to have guns than city people. Rural people have to deal with rural wildlife, which is not plentiful in cities for the most part and a little more dangerous than city rats. These days, wildlife that city people see only in zoos, gets major headlines if seen on city streets.
I know I had learned to shoot a .22 by the time I was 7, at least. I did grow up very rural in the mountains of Idaho, heard cougars scream, coyotes howl, and killed, over time, one lynx, two porcupines, 2 rattlesnakes and lots of woodrats. Nasty critters. The lynx was trying to kill my dog, one of the porcupines was trying to get in my bedroom window right next to my bed. Bear came around when the crabapple tree bore fruit, but I never even saw one, just their scat.
Our place bordered National Forest and BLM land, and we had no neighbors within a mile. Now ‘environmentalists’ are all eager to re-introduce wolves, so we’ll see how that goes. Most probably, not well. There’s a reason why the wolf population has declined so far. They are not nice neighbors.
A rancher in eastern Idaho was written up nationally recently because Bald Eagles killed numbers of their young lambs. City people are not familiar with rural life, even though they may go camping on vacation. But of course the opposite is also true. Rural people are not accustomed to city life.
The Northwest is having a heat wave. Temperatures this week expected over 100 degrees, and we’re just not used to that. Not many here have air conditioning. I lived in Phoenix for several years, and learned all about air conditioning. The old timers all shut the doors of their small businesses in July and August and went to San Diego.
Here we are accustomed to mild, sunny weather in the summer, good for boating and camping. We have a whole range of mountains separating us from Eastern Washington. which does indeed get hot., but this is the Coastal Range, and hot weather is not the norm. We will, I am sure, survive, though the beaches may be crowded, and lots of boats will be out on Lake Washington and in the Sound, and everyone will complain. It is currently 960 out and theoretically the high point for the day, sky is blue and cloudless. Fans going.
American Elephants 