I've never liked the idea of hunting. It always seemed pretty awful to me, a sport that I just didn't get the point of. It wasn't until I came up to Calgary and met Brian's superintendent, John, when I changed my mind a little. John's a big guy, and a big hunter. I once asked him why he did it, and he said something along the lines of how nice it was to be able to get his own source of meat. When he was talking to me about this, I was hit by flashbacks of my college days when I spent hours upon hours researching food, and learning just how horrendous our meat industry is. Hunting was put in a whole new light for me, and I have really respected John ever since that conversation. He went out hunting a couple weeks ago, and I jokingly told him to bring something back for me. He came back to work with four buffalo legs in the back of his truck. I was pretty excited about these, and got a few pointers from him and a couple other guys on how to skin them down and save the hooves. I spent a couple hours today messing with the legs, which was a whole new experience for me. I kept thinking about how Native Americans would utilize every part of the buffalo that they could, and I am hoping I can end up preserving most of these legs. I'm excited to have at least gotten a few interesting shots out of them.
I'm lucky to have a balcony, and to have received this gift in January. I've stashed the legs loosely in a trash bag in the corner of our balcony for the day, and probably won't be breaking them out again until next weekend. I only hope the balcony isn't taken over by dozens of birds - it doesn't seem like that will be the easiest thing to explain to the landlord...
