It's Good to (have) King

King Bolete, that is. Boletus edulis and, mostly, Boletus barrowsii.

After last week's outing, we figured to head up to the same area in northern NM and see what another few days of rain had brought up, mushroom wise. After a long hike finding not much, A spotted a pair of big king boletes growing right out of the shoulder of the dirt road. After running into some (inedible but spectacular) clitocybes (clitocybe candida),



we started finding more boletes, both the kings and the barrowsii. King boletes:



You can see why they're called that:



Probably no surprise to experienced mushroom hunters, these big guys were bug hotels. Nonetheless, we ended the day with a nice batch of porcini gathered mostly just road hunting. Spotting a big one from the road, then pulling off and searching the immediate area to find younger, more prime for eating specimens.



In fact, the day was so good that shortly thereafter we gathered up friend Matt and headed out for another day of mushrooming. Just a little time had made a big difference. Some of the big guys had really moved past their "best by" date:



However, once we got to looking, we started finding the white boletes almost immediately, scattered and in small bunches.



Mixed in were lots of slippery jacks (not picked), aspen boletes and a few Satan's boletes to keep us on our toes.

We're pretty sure this is a Satan's bolete:





Not something to eat, anyway.

Aspen boletes (Leccinum fibrillosum):



Here's Booker the Chessie wondering what the big deal is about some fungus, right next to another (and our largest to date) cauliflower mushroom, one of two that we found that day.



Here's another cauliflower mushroom that some woodland creature, I'm betting elk, got to first:



We saw evidence of big boletes being browsed similarly. Squirrels and mice just nibble:





Nice eating size, unnibbled, porcini buttons:



We gathered quite a lot, not knowing when we'll get back up or how long the kings will last, then got home and processed until midnight. The dehydrator filled up in no time, moving us to field expedient measures:





Porcini- they're what's for breakfast:

Investment

"No doubt the admonition to 'take only photographs, leave only footprints,' is desirable in certain sensitive or pristine areas. But it is inappropriate in most situations because it is a fundamental denial of who we are: creatures of the earth whose most ancient heritage (or birthright, if you will) is foraging for food in the forest.

This enforced separation of human being from the natural world can only undermine support for public acquisition and protection of habitat. The more we view the forests and fields as a resource...the more likely we are to cherish that resource. Protecting habitat for aesthetic reasons alone lends credence to the argument that a few widely scattered parks are enough. But harvesting a sustainable yield of mushrooms, fish, and other wildlife creates a quantitative demand for habitat on top of a qualitative one."

David Arora, All That the Rain Promises and More, p. 254.

oysters and cauliflower

Oyster and cauliflower mushrooms, that is.

We've been looking for (edible) mushrooms on outings the last couple of years, largely without any success (see here, here, and here, which are only a few of the times we've hunted for mushrooms while out and about). We're still working on the learning curve, using a stack of references and field guides to puzzle our way through identifications and being very, very cautious about what we've picked and handled. Up until the other day, the only thing we'd picked and eaten on our own was a small bunch of shaggy manes and puffballs. Since it has been raining up in the mountains the last couple of weeks, we swung up to 9000 feet or so in a nearby range and checked around a bit. Over the course of the day, we saw elk, deer, turkeys (with half-grown chicks) and grouse (with chicks as well). Although there weren't a whole lot of mushrooms out, we did come across a couple of nice edibles.

First, we found oyster mushrooms, a good-sized bunch growing out of a log right where we'd pulled off the road. Checking that area more thoroughly, more logs had a few scattered oyster mushrooms on them, but no heavy growths. Some of them were past prime, but we managed to get a nice batch.

We also found one large shaggy mane in good condition and one large shaggy mane that was a bit too old.

Further up the hill, we came across a cauliflower mushroom. Pattern recognition is a funny thing. If I see something through brush that I think might be a piece of an animal, say a deer's ear, it will occasionally prove to be part of a deer, but more often turns out to be a branch or something else that bears a passing resemblance to fauna rather than flora. On the other hand, I'll frequently spot a deer, or other critter, that is only partially visible but I'll immediately know that I'm looking at an animal. In much the same way, this mushroom was unmistakable when spotted on the forest floor. Though I'd never seen one in the flesh before, it was pretty clear what we were looking immediately. No pictures of the mushroom in situ, though, as cameras only work when you charge their batteries. Here's what the piece of mushroom we harvested looked like back home:



Here's a pic of the oyster mushrooms, up close and looking rather shellfish-like:



We decided to try a recipe for the cauliflower mushroom that called for serving it in a salad dressed with walnuts and lemon after first sautéing it in a bit of butter.





The scent of this mushroom is unlike any other that I've encountered, not woody or fungal but rather spicy with citrus notes. The flavor was somewhat similar, although not as pronounced. The texture was really nice- toothsome with not quite a crunch. Overall, very good and something completely different from anything I've had before.

Of course, oyster mushrooms are available in the grocery store, so they weren't the same sort of surprise. These were nice and big, though, so we prepared them in a fashion similar to what we've had in a tapas bar. First, we dry sautéed the mushrooms until they had released most of their liquid, then we brushed them with a little garlic-infused olive oil and gave them a few quick turns on the grill while the meat rested, sprinkling them with salt and parsley.





A light red wine, some buttered noodles, green beans from the garden, a bit of oryx and you have a nice summer meal with just a little more wild to it than the meat alone provides.

One of these days we're going to figure out where the boletes grow, and the chanterelles, and the morels, and hedgehogs, and really big puffballs and....

nearly authentic

Just about everyone is familiar with the near ubiquitous fajitas- marinated strips of meat that are grilled and, in most restaurants served on a hot iron platter with onions and peppers. I'd imagine that most folks even know, or can easily enough discover, that "fajitas" (Spanish for "little belts") originally referred marinated and grilled skirt steak, which was thinly sliced across the grain to make the tough meat easier to eat. That dish- marinated and grilled skirt steak, probably originated in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Down there, fajitas were served on a plate with beans, rice, perhaps guacamole or pico de gallo, and with tortillas for wrapping it all up. Since skirt steak was cheap, it was good party food. However, there were no iron platters, no bell peppers, no shrimp fajitas (takes a fine hand to get those off the carcass), and no chicken fajitas.

The best way of serving fajitas also started down in the Valley, in the form of the "botaña platter". Botaña is Spanish for "snack" and in many Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurants ordering a botaña platter would get you a selection of appetizers. In Pharr, a restaurant called the Round-Up started serving tostadas (fried tortilla chips) covered with refried beans and cheese, then topped with fajitas, guacamole, chopped lettuce, onion and pico de gallo. When visiting my grandparents back in the 70's, we'd go by there and order one or, if enough folks were together, two, as a botaña platter is served communally. A good botana platter is crispy chips, smoky, chewy meat, hearty creamy beans, rich guacamole, spicy and tart pico de gallo with crunchy lettuce and onions- just about everything good in that style of food, all at once. The lady that started the Round-Up came up with the dish and you can still find good examples of it down there. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend trying one. Alas, for all the many virtues of New Mexican food, it does not include a botaña platter. Homemade is the only option.

Personally, I'm not fond of the cast iron platter fajita variant. I never order it in restaurants anymore because most the time they use some cut other than skirt steak, the marinades tend to be overpowering, the onions greasy and the peppers overcooked. That's not even mentioning the lack of refried beans and the unlikelihood of getting decent pico de gallo. In addition to those many sins, it isn't what I grew up eating.

Though I am disdainful of the more recent incarnation of fajitas, I do not hold that attitude with any sort of pretense to authenticity in my own cooking. This is because I myself stray from the true path of (beef) skirt steak. Dressing out an elk or a deer, you get meat on the front shoulders that you can take off in big flat sheets and which features long muscle fibers (and a lot of silverskin). Too thin to cook as brisket (unless you get a really big elk), I noticed a long time ago that it resembled fajita meat. Rather than grind it or cut it up for stew meat, I like to remove most of the tough connective tissue (but don't get worried about getting it all) and leave the meat in fairly large pieces. Then, every so often, I'll get hungry for something close to the real thing, fajita wise, and marinate some of that meat in some (cheap) tequila along with lime juice, a little oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Then I'll grill it quick of a hot fire and slice it across the grain. It's a good way to get a little Tex-Mex flavor.

Of course, if you're going to go to the trouble of marinating and all, you might as well go the whole nine yards. Here's one version: first, before putting the meat on the fire, fry up some fresh tostadas, as they taste so much better than anything out of a bag.



That, and have some beans on hand to cook into refritos.



A little cheese:



Into the oven:



Once hot, add the (also hot but not put into the oven so you don't lose too much moisture) meat:



Chopped fresh or pickled jalapenos, guacamole, chopped onion (no pico de gallo- in foodie-speak the pico was "deconstructed"), some lettuce and you're just about done.



This botana platter is made with oryx and really ought to be layered a bit higher. However, since it was only for two, we left it low.



No cast iron platters in sight.

New best friend

My new best friend is this stuff. Self-fusing silicone repair tape. The why is a somewhat long story.

See, A's house has been landscaped, at least in front, with way too much "xeric dirt" and we set out to change that. At one time, long, long ago, the front yard had a sprinkler system. In keeping with the lower water use that we in the Southwest should all be practicing, I set out to put in a drip irrigation system for various soon-to-be-installed native and low-water-use shrubs. Digging out the four sprinkler on/off valves, I found a 2 or 3 inch galvanized line coming in and a tangled mass of corroded galvanized 1 inch pipe going out.



Too much for my (lack of) skills. We talked to a plumber who agreed that, yeah, the big line coming in probably tied into the main line into the house and he could tie to that with a backflow prevention device and a pressure reducer. Now, with the summer rains coming, we set out to get the new stuff in the ground during the cooler, wetter time so that it'd have a chance to get established for the winter and a good start next spring.

We plotted out and dug trenches for the irrigation lines, bought risers, manifolds, emitters and pvc and put the whole thing together. This past Friday, that was all taken care of and we were ready for a plumber to tie into the old stuff and we'd be off planting and other fun stuff. The original guy who'd looked at it wasn't available, though, so we talked to another outfit. They took one look at the original pipe and said that no, they couldn't fasten to that and they'd recommend replacing the main line from the house to the meter.



They further opined that, while we could get someone to try to fasten to the old stuff, and we might get lucky that doing so would not engender any leaks, we'd be living on borrowed time. So far as we know, the original line is nearly seventy years old or so.

The quoted price was about our original budget for the project but, we talked it over and then got to digging out a deeper trench to get the water line to the house, including digging out everything up to the meter including under the sidewalk. That was Saturday, plumbers due this morning.



After much patient digging to get to the meter, ginger excavation premised upon the truly rotten condition of the water line, I managed to whack that pipe with a shovel about two p.m. on Saturday afternoon (Not that hard! Really! It was a tap!). Water began blasting out across the yard, I began cursing and sprinting for the key to turn off the water at the meter. Geyser subdued, it was off to the local hardware store. I was thinking of a couple of big pipe clamps and some thick-ish rubber sheeting but the guy at the store recommended trying a ten-dollar roll of "Rescue Tape". Self-fusing silicone wonder tape in hand, I returned home and cleaned some of the scale (not too much, it's about all that's holding things together) off the pipe and laid in a couple of layers of tape. It's funky stuff. You stretch it to activate it so that it'll stick and it gets hot as you do so (and smells funny- I don't really want to think about what those chemicals might do). The harder you stretch it, the faster and tighter it fuses. One hard part is just stretching the section you're trying to lay down- stretch further up the roll, it'll fold onto itself and immediately become permanently useless (of course, I'm doing all this two feet down in dirt and mud, so nice even wraps are a bit of a challenge). Two courses of tape did not stop the leak and blew out. Approximately five courses of tape, the whole roll, did. Dry as a bone-40 psi nicely contained. Ten dollars. No call to an emergency plumber. A shower that evening. Water in the dog's bowl. I love that stuff.



A roll is going in the truck, another in the house, and one might even get into my daypack.

McDonald, the 2nd, and the States

The Supremes handed down their decision in McDonald v. Chicago today. This case follows D.C. v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court held a city ordinance banning the possession of firearms violated the right to keep and bear arms expressed in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The Heller decision was limited, though, in that it only dealt with a firearms ban that was in place under Federal government authority, since it dealt with the District of Columbia.

Once the Heller decision was filed, a number of challenges to various ordinances limiting or banning firearms were made. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision signed by now-Justice Sotomayor, held that the Second Amendment did not apply to the states. The Ninth Circuit, in a decision which has been referred for en banc review (which is on hold pending the word from the Supremes in McDonald), held that the Second Amendment did apply to the states, as it dealt with a fundamental right (I talked about it here).

Right now, the decision only appears to be available as a 214 page pdf. So, most importantly, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment does prohibit state and local governments from restricting the right to keep and bear arms (too much). The decision is 5-4, with the Opinion of the Court written by Justice Alito and Justice Thomas concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. Justice Stevens dissented (no surprise) and Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor (not really a surprise, either). Lots of meat there, lots to read. I'm sure scholars of Con law are working on analyses right now. In the meantime, the Sullivan Act's progeny are going to cost lots of cities and towns lots of money.

For further reading, but less than the 214 pages of the McDonald decision, Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive article on the Second Amendment and Court decisions which I'm sure someone is updating right now.

Update
Well, having read the opinion of the Court, the concurrences, and one dissent, I'll add a couple of things.

First, there is a fair bit in here for attorneys who will argue as to the continuing validity of various restrictions on firearm ownership. On page 26 of the Slip Opinion, the Court cites to language from Heller describing handguns as being protected as they are the weapon of choice for self defense. On page 39, the Court describes the "central holding" of the Heller decision as "...the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home." I predict this language will be cited in response to any argument that restrictions on automatic weapons, any long guns (including short barreled shotguns), nunchucks, switchblades, or suppressed firearms is unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court has held that the right preceding and underlying the Second Amendment is that of self-defense, only "undue" restrictions on weapons that are both "preferred" (which, likely, will mean in common use today) and "suitable" (which, likely, will mean whatever a given judge decides) for self defense will be overturned. Want a Remington 1100 chopped off right in front of the gas port and loaded with buckshot to protect the homestead? Don't hold your breath. This conclusion is reinforced by the plurality's admonition (p. 45) that it is important to keep in mind that Heller held a right to keep and bear arms is not "a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose".

Second, and very good news, is that the Opinion of the Court makes it pretty clear that Justice Breyer's repeated calls for an "interest balancing test" to decide whether given statutes infringe the right to keep and bear arms is, for now, not going to become law. The plurality twice notes, at page 45 of the Slip Op. and again on page 50, that it explicitly rejects such a test and that the majority in Heller did so as well. Combined, that's precedent. Also, the majority characterizes the Second Amendment right as "fundamental". The Seventh Circuit had held in this case that Chicago's handgun ban had a rational basis to a legitimate state interest. The "rational basis" test is less demanding than an "interest balancing" test rejected here. I believe this will only leave lower courts with "strict scrutiny" at the test for evaluating firearms restrictions. So, those restrictions will have to be narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling governmental interest and must, in addition, be the least restrictive means of accomplishing that interest. While this is good news, you have to keep in mind that the limitations inherent in the right being protected as described just above. Great news for the folks in DC still trying to get handguns in the face of persistent foot dragging by the city government, though.

Justice Scalia's concurrance is a fairly vituperative calling out of Justice Stevens' dissent and political philosophy, I'd speculate that the tone would be a little different if Stevens was staying on the bench. Interesting read, depending upon your definition of interesting.

P. 67 of the Slip Op.- Justice Thomas' dissent- A great (from an originalist perspective) treatise on the doctrines of selective incorporation, the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment in general. Most legal textbooks are less informative. Personally, I think his argument that the Second Amendment applies against the states due to the Privileges and Immunities clause is logically and legally unassailable, despite the hundred and thirty years of (bad) decisions stemming from the Slaughterhouse Cases (which are a fine example of authority justifying its conclusion by tautology) and Cruikshank.

the rain

"The next day, at about three in the afternoon, the western horizon would be a wall the color of lead. On the front of the wall would be little clouds, pale silhouettes of torn cotton. I'd try to remain calm; baby storms would have been skittering by for a week now, teasing the powdery earth with sprinkles and infusing the dry air with a breath of mountain pine, but nothing had happened yet. I'd go back to work.
A half hour later, a dark blast of wind, laden with the odor of wet dust, would punch through the yard, swirling sand around the windows, rattling the panes. From the yard I'd see a wall towering over the town and know that we weren't going to have to water the asparagus again. We'd stand and inhale for a moment, stretching our arms toward the storm; then, as the hiss of a billion approaching raindrops bore down, we'd run. Pick up the hawk, call the dogs, slam the windows as the rain bashed in, soaking papers five feet from the sill. In the roaring cascade outside, we could not see the ground, hidden in the white smoke of atomized rebounding droplets. And then, hail--BB-sized, pea-sized--drifting in windrows beside the walk; thunder, shaking the house, lightning flashing all around, a nearly simultaneous bang and flicker. We'd grin and the world would smell like water."
Stephen Bodio, Querencia, Clark City Press 1990, p. 8-9.

Right now, we're in the "baby storms teasing" stage, hoping for the big ones to come in and wet things down.

blogroll

A few additions to the blog roll, a couple of which I've been meaning to add for a good while.

Long stalks, tense ambushes, tricky shots, and more, including movies, culture, and recipes for the lagomorphs collected. Rabbit Stew, Hubert Hubert's blog (mostly) on rabbit stalking with an air rifle in England.

Tovar Cerulli's thoughtful blog: A Mindful Carnivore, which, among other things, features a lot of thought about hunting from a former vegan who turned to hunting in part as a way of ensuring ethical meat.

Beautiful landscape photos of the Southwest at Crest, Cliff, & Canyon by Jackson, also known as Peculiar of Odious and Peculiar. If you can't get out in a big landscape yourself, get a taste of one there.

Last, there is author and gun writer Tom McIntyre's blog, McIntyre Hunts, pointed out by Steve Bodio at Querencia and Chas Clifton at Southern Rockies Nature blog.

birds on a wire

Courtesy of my Dad over in SE Texas, photos of the whistling ducks that have been hanging out on the powerline by their house every morning. Something just wrong about seeing that waterfowl silhouette from this angle and in such a location.








Ah, the melodious chirp of the duck, greeting the dawn!

revolver

Here recently Steve Bodio put up a couple of posts about revolvers over on Querencia and I thought I'd throw up something on the subject as well. Revolvers, like pump shotguns, are something mostly and, bestly, American. The Webley aside, most other-than-American revolver designs are more curiosities than commercial or military successes (bet there's a comment from someone about the Nagant). From the U.S., though, there are the entire series of Colt single actions, culminating with the Single Action Army, the Smith & Wesson top-break revolvers, the Smith and Wesson Military and Police in all it's various guises (one hundred and twelve years of production and counting!), and then there's this gun:



This particular revolver is a Colt "New Service" manufactured in 1934 and chambered for the .38 Special cartridge. The New Service model was the largest-framed double action revolver built by Colt and was introduced in 1897. By the time production ceased during World War II, three hundred and fifty-some thousand revolvers had come off the production line. The reason for the large frame is that it was originally designed to accommodate the .45 Long Colt cartridge. Thousands of New Service revolvers were sold to law enforcement agencies in the United States and abroad, as well as to the U.S. military. Also, a substantial number were chambered in .455 Eley (a slightly longer version of the famous .455 Webley cartridge) and purchased by Great Britain as military sidearms.

The revolver is fitted with a Fray-Mershon "Sure Grip" adapter and, as you can see, has lots of holster wear and wear in general- not surprising for a working pistol carried on a regular basis. The grip adapter is designed to fill in the stocks a bit and improve double action shooting.





My father started with the Border Patrol in the early 60's and, interestingly enough, was first issued a .38 Special Colt New Service, albeit one fitted with a heavy barrel, rather than the tapered barrel of this pistol. Dad recalls the Colts as having a remarkably good trigger, which is high praise considering he carried and shot thousands of rounds through a Smith and Wesson Model 19 in the course of his later career. You can read a short article about the New Service revolver in the Border Patrol here.



One of the attractions of firearms for those of us who enjoy guns is their durability and history. Some of the more useful and durable designs were produced for decades and used around the world. Any given gun can be beaten into junk, but a lot of worn old pistols, rifles, and shotguns have years of use behind them and, if cared for a bit, left in them still. While worn finishes, nicks, and scars aren't necessarily sought after features, the stories that attach to the dings render them less marring.

So, what makes this old gun special? No particular romance is associated with it and it would be nothing special to a collector, as those folks mostly look for pristine condition. On the other hand, there is this provenance- the pistol spent a career in the U.S. Customs Service, belonging to a family friend who, at one point, was the District Director of Customs for the Port of San Diego. The original owner has long passed so any particular stories attaching to the gun are unavailable. The pictures, though, tell of thousands of hours of carry and likely hundreds if not thousands of shots fired at the range. So, this old pistol has a family connection and over seventy-five years of use- it's good for another seventy five, or longer, too.

Up North (NM)

Last week we had the opportunity to hang around a bit in far northern New Mexico, up near where the Sangre de Cristos cross over into Colorado. A short drive near dusk on the highway leading to the York Canyon Mine, which cuts through a portion of the Vermejo Park Ranch, provided us with the chance to watch Merriam Turkeys- including a gobbler with a couple of hens who obligingly strutted and called, elk- including a small bachelor band of bulls, one of whom already had three feet of velvet over his head, lots of mule deer, and a couple of bears. Apparently, this road is well known for providing bear sightings. After A asked if I wanted to drive up there to "see the bears" I explained that bears are pretty rare in NM, even where they do well, and that we'd be lucky to see one. A's previous drive up there resulted in a couple of bears, and, true to (her) expectations, we saw a couple on this drive. One was quite big, all black, and wary. The other was this young blond fellow, who found grazing on green things much more important than worrying about the pickup stopped on the shoulder of the road some fifty yards away:



He even grazed through the fence and got a bit closer:



The next day, we drove on through the Valle Vidal and saw more deer, another bear that, like the one above, was quite blond. He was, however, much larger and didn't hang around close enough to get his picture taken. We saw more turkeys, too. Three bears sighted in two days is exceptional, in my experience.

Snow is still in the shade, everything is green and there is water everywhere; very much like you'd expect the Rockies, even down in their southern tail, to look.

Goldilocks rifle

A few years ago, dissatisfied with the rifle I carried for big game hunting, I purchased a brand new Savage Model 116, which is that company's long-action, bolt action, rifle made in stainless steel. One of the reasons I chose the Savage was that it came with the company's then new "Accutrigger", which features a center blade on the trigger that must be depressed in order to then press the trigger and fire the rifle. The Accutrigger was a big step in triggers available from factory rifles, as is not only adjustable, but is free of creep and breaks (that is, releases) very crisply. At the time, it was the best factory trigger available and it may still be. Another factor leading me to this particular model of rifle was the rust-resistance of stainless steel. In addition, it came with a synthetic stock, which does not cause changes to point of impact the way wooden stocks can as they minutely warp or flex due to heat or humidity. The actual rifle that I bought came as a package with a scope and nylon sling. The package was less expensive than just a bare rifle, though in the end all that remains of the package is the barreled action, one scope base, and the sling swivels.

The first season, I carried the rifle as-sold. Lucked into an elk, too. Before the next season, though, I got rid of the nylon sling and replaced it with a good leather Whelen sling. The Whelen sling is a simplified and somewhat lighter version of the military slings used for highpower rifle competition. Not only does it work as a carry strap, but you adjust the upper section to form a standing loop that you can slide on your upper arm in order to steady the rifle from a sitting, kneeling, or prone position. This is much more steady than a "hasty sling" and, if you have some time to set up your shot, will really help accuracy. The Whelen sling isn't as stiff as one of the aformentioned military slings and is a bit less complicated, made of less material and with fewer parts.

The second change to the rifle I made was to replace the inexpensive variable-power scope that came on it with a Leopold fixed four power model. The shorter Leopold scope required an extended front base, which intrudes a bit over the top of the action. This isn't ideal, but isn't really a problem. I was surprised to have to do it, though, given that the scope pretty far forward as I tend to crawl the stock a bit, particularly when shooting sitting. In any event, the fixed scope is brighter, more sturdy, and more simple than a variable.



In that guise, I carried the Savage for another couple of years and another elk. At some point, I replaced the factory recoil pad, which was a bit hard, with one of the Pachmayr "Decelerator" models. Even then, I could not warm up to the plastic stock. For one thing, when you shot the rifle the stock made a sort of harmonic "sproing!" note, which is just a bit odd. More importantly, the fore end is too flattened on the bottom and the corners of it are a bit too sharp, making it fairly uncomfortable to carry over the course of a day. To me, the plastic felt a bit cold. Further, the mold lines running down the top and bottom of the stock were also surprisingly annoying until I took some fine sandpaper and smoothed them down. Last, the stock is noisy when a branch or twig hits it. This is surely a minor thing, but still hunting is partly about confidence and minimizing every sound you can control. The extra noise from any source is hard on my confidence and, who knows, might make a difference.

Not being willing to finish my own stock and wanting to maintain the stability of a synthetic, I got a laminate wood "drop in" stock from Boyd's. Because laminate stocks are essentially plywood- thin layers of wood held together by glue, they don't warp or move with weather. While not nearly as pretty as a nice piece of walnut, laminates look better than plastic, to my eye, and are quieter, too. On the other hand they are heavier than most synthetics and natural wood, all that glue adding weight.

Unfortunately, "drop in" wasn't quite drop-in and I had to do a little work to get the action and barrel into the stock. Also, the Boyd's stock didn't have bedding pillars like the factory stock. The pillars are tubes of aluminum or steel that fit around the action screws (which hold the rifle in the stock) and which relieve stress on the action and generally improve accuracy. Off the rifle went to the gunsmith for pillar bedding (and to replace the thin pad on the Boyd's stock with another Pachmayr Decelerator. Once done, the Boyd's classic style stock, while not entirely classic in lines or materials, is much more comfortable to carry and shoot than the original stock.

In all, the Savage started out as a pretty light, fairly accurate stainless steel rifle with a good trigger. Now, all up, it weighs 8 pounds, 12 ounces, which isn't too bad, to my mind. It balances right about the middle of the action and, with that weight, the 30-'06 cartridge doesn't beat you around with recoil. I've spent about the price of the rifle on the new scope, stock, sling, recoil pad, and work, but the result is getting much closer to a rifle that, for me, is "just right".

pasque flowers

A few weeks ago we came across a nice stand of pasque flowers in a not-too-old burn.





Kind of appropriate given that one of the names for the flowers is "prairie smoke".




So, how many morels are in this picture?




Hope you didn't spend too long looking, as the answer is "none". This is a second spring trying to find black morels. We know they can be found in NM, if rarely. A local restaurant has a commercial forager that brought some in one time while we were there. He found them "at about 8,000 feet" in a mountain range that is fifty miles long and has at least that much elevation for pretty much the whole distance. So far, we've gotten some time on the ground and established places where the mushrooms aren't, at least at the time we were there, assuming that we didn't overlook them.....

flying viszla

'Cause life isn't just about hunt tests.