Cannon Fodder

First off, thank you so much to those of you who emailed to tell me you missed my blog. It really meant a lot! I have been a little under the weather (great joke about that later) and slammed to boot. I think I know what people were up to long about last January! (I am an OBGYN people, think about it)

Anyway, here we are again. This entry may sound just a wee bit like a crab session, but so be it.

So, to the eternal embarrassment of certain of my children and the dismay of fellow rural dwellers, I simply do not like guns. I will admit to liking target shooting, in certain highly controlled circumstances, but guns on the loose, guns going off in my vicinity that I did not fire, things like that - well they just either make me nervous or mad as you know what.

So, a week or so ago I had a friend over for coffee and treats, and we decided to walk the property since she hadn't seen it yet. I love taking people for a walk up to my upper field, it has a really nice view of the coast range, Willamette Valley, and Cascades. So we are just strolling around the fields and the shooting starts. The most disconcerting thing about it was that I simply could not tell where it was coming from. It seemed to be close, it seemed to move, and it was FREAKING ME OUT. I felt like one of those ridiculous characters in Westerns with someone firing at their feet and saying "Dance, Podner!". Like I was going to have to start dancing, or running, or perhaps dying in a pool of blood in a row of burned out kohlrabi or something. I just wanted to get my little party safely across the frontier to HOME without encountering the hostile natives.

Instead, I went to my default mode of SCREAMING. This was not random, high-pitched wailing, but quite definite and quite insistent and quite inordinately pissed off English. "STOP SHOOTING! NOW!" These people must have been my long lost children, because they paid no attention to me whatsoever. The shooting just went on.

It went on for days. Weeks. It is still going on. At one point, my husband thought it sounded like shotguns (like I could tell a shotgun boom from a rifle boom from a handgun boom from a tractor backfiring), but thought whoever it was must be a lousy shot because of the frequency and pattern of the shots. He thought they must be shooting at birds and missing a lot. We did think perhaps it was deer season, as another recent guest had shot a deer the morning of their visit (I decided to like him anyway since his wife is a friend). There are a lot of deer on this property. I LIKE deer. I forgive them eating my plants, so long as they will continue to grace my pastures and pond with their ineffably lovely presence. So the thought that persons unknown were up in them thar hills shooting at the deer didn't please me.

In addition, it was growing incredibly tiresome being awakened daily by gunshots. Did I mention that I am an OBGYN? Do you know there is no more sleep-deprived occupation on the planet except perhaps President of the United States? Sleep is a holy shrine, to which I like to repair on a daily basis, at unfortunately random times of day, basically whenever I can. So to be, finally, after a long night of being awakened every 30 minutes and going in to the hospital at 4AM to do a C-section, to be finally blissfully snoring away and then roused abruptly to consciousness by the sound of guns in your bedroom (that's what it sounds like) - this did not make me a happy camper.

One night I got home well after dark and the guns were still going off. IN THE DARK. Either these people were incredibly gifted in the night vision department, had special forces goggles of some kind, or were hunting by flashlight. Seriously, people! After DARK??

Finally I took the easiest recourse - I bitched about it on Facebook. And to my surprise, and OK a little embarrassment, it would appear that no one is hunting Bambi in my woods. No one is an incredibly lousy shot at migrating geese. They are "cannons." Some weird kind of "fake guns" that are set to shoot off frequently and randomly in the vineyards. To keep the birds off the grapes that are ripening. Ahhhh. This makes sense, and I am no longer in fear for my life, or that of the wildlife hereabouts. And I do like wine. And I do understand the economic vicissitudes of dependance on a crop.

But. BUT. I am sorry, but THIS IS GETTING OLD. Harvest the grapes already. Mine are ripe, aren't yours?? Can't the grapes be covered with netting or something? When I suggested this to a friend, they told me that the "premium" vines are covered but not the others. Soooooo - you don't care enough about them to cover them but I am supposed to care enough about them to listen to cannons for weeks on end?? This does not seem quite reasonable.

Now, I know, I am going to get hate mail from vineyard owners. I have friends who are vineyard owners. I may even get hate mail from them. So here is what I propose.

You know who you are. I do not know who you are, I do know WHERE you are, but I am not going to walk onto your vineyards and up to your house and say "Howdy. Can you turn off the damn cannons, pretty please?" But if you are reading this, you know who I am so you know if you are one of the "guilty" parties. If you are, send me two bottles of your best cabernet and all will be forgiven. I can drink it to sleep through the gunfire next year!

Oh yeah - the promised joke. This is courtesy of my country guy friend Bill. The sheep guy. The one without a tranquilizing gun. Remember him? So, apparently neutered boy sheep are called wethers. Do not ask me why, I do not know. Personally, I think it is a little dumb, but there you go. So, one sheep breeder is talking to another sheep breeder, and comments "I just don't understand why all your ewes are pregnant and mine aren't!" (I didn't say he was a GOOD sheep breeder). Anyway, the other guy responds "Because back in the summer when my ewes were under a ram, yours were under the wether!"

Well, I thought it was funny!