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Howdy! Does anyone know if a good source for antler. I want to try to craft a set of grips but not sure where to get good product. Would appreciate any help. I would be open to elk, deer, moose and even ram horn. Looking to play on a 58 NMA or a SAA. Thanks Dark Horse

I have one mule deer, one white tail deer, and one antelope head mounts. Looking for the best way to pack these for moving. Thanks. LDD

First, the shark: Sunny Hawaii, the north beach, first time in the living surf: a wave would come in, lift me like a fishing bobber, set me back down on the crushed coral. Delightful! Waded out until I was shirt pocket deep, new experience, looking around, something dark, streamlined and fast comes toward me, sails past, the lightest brush of ... sandpaper ... Quick inventory, what weapons do I have on me? ... drilled a dry hole on that one ... here it comes again, all I've got is the lightning bolt in my good right arm ... I cocked my fist back beside my ear and get ready to draw up the power of the Hawaiian gods through the soles of my feet, focus it through the lens of my diaphragm, drive it out my fist and hit that oncoming shark on the nose just as hard as I can and genuinely turn it inside out. Here it comes. Dark, fast, wait, wait, wait, FIRE ONE! I put every ounce of killing power into that one powerful blow and my fist unerringly blasted into the leading edge of the oncoming dark shape, and my wife looked at me like I'd grown a third eye as I came bearing my vanquished attacker triumphantly out of the surf ... ... it was a black plastic trash sack ... ... my mistake entirely ... I try hard to be courteous. I regard it as revenge against the discourteous. My wife and I were in Best Buy and a woman I'd never seen before looked over at us, then here she came, she gave me a warm look, turned to my wife and declared what a naturally nice fellow I am ... soon as she started to talk I recognized her voice ... I've spoken with her on the ham radio nets but never met her in person until then. Happened again when the girl leaned head and shoulders out the drive-thru window to talk across me to my wife: "You have the most polite husband!" Now I do try to be polite, but last night it was cause for amusement ... y'see our treatment plant is in the bend of the Black River, surrounded by high ground on two sides with a swamp on the third, and a Metropark across the river from us: we live in a nature preserve for all intents and purposes, and when I walk my hourly firewatch circuit, I'm looking well ahead for hazards. Like skunks. When I startled one and it brought its aft battery to bear, and I performed that classic military maneuver known as Getting the Hell Out of There, I told the superintendent my lateral maneuver (think Get Off the X) was out of politeness: had ye Skunk discharged, it would have been defenseless for some time afterward, and I was very politely sparing it that uncertainty. The superintendent allowed as I was full of second hand horse feed but my heart was in the right place. Anyway -- last night I went out to gauge the tanks as I always do, and no skunks were seen, but halfway down the walkway, right beside the walk, what's that ... is that ... that's a bedded deer. That's not that unusual. What struck me as out of the ordinary was the large black lump beside it. I reasoned that this may be a sign that the end times are upon us, when the lamb and the lion lay down together: I reasoned this was possible because Odecoleus virginianus is but one DNA pair from being able to breed with goats and have a fertile get: black bear have been seen in Ashtabula County this year: we have neither lions nor lambs native to this part of the country but a bear and a deer ...? I walked a wiiiiide detour around them, until I could get up on the catwalk and hit them with the hand light. I was trying to be polite. I was trying to be considerate. I was trying to be nice. I'd just been polite and nice and considerate ... to an orange, five gallon bucket, and a black tarp. In the background I could hear the Greek chorus serenading me ... "Duuummmmbbbbb ..... Duuummmmbbb ..."

Her name is Sandy. She was critical before going into surgery. Now she has screws & plates enough to send a metal detector into low earth orbit. Brand new Harley dresser and a crooked road, a deer came right out in front of her and she was slung right-side-to into the guardrail. She was Life Flighted to trauma ER in Columbus. Fractures of right upper and lower arm, upper and lower leg, not a single intact ligament in the involved knee. This is a woman with whom I fought fire, with whom I ran squad, we were law dawgs together. She could dance like a feather on the breeze and handle the sidehandle baton like a blademaster handles a fencing foil. I taught her how to split a playing card edgewise with a Smith .357, and she used to win bets after qualification by doing just that. We needed a generator moved at the firehouse -- it had a two-man handle and one of the guys said "Hold on, Sandy, I'll get someone to help" and she said "Don't bother" and picked it up and packed it across the truck bay. I've laughed with her, I've ground my teeth in frustration and listened to her snarl as we tried to save a life whose time had run out, we've strode into buildings with an inch-and-a-half hoseline while sane and rational people ran out of the building as hard as they could go. If you could bend a knee for this remarkable woman I would be very much obliged.

With the cooler fall weather here, I've noticed a doe starting to hang around the neighbors back yard. I understand she may have fawned there this past spring. A fawn, I'm guessing one of hers, was in my back yard foraging for acorns as I haven't cleaned up the leaves yet. I grabbed the camera and quietly walked out on the back deck to take pictures. I left the slider open because I didn't want to spook them. My cat, who weighs all of 8 pounds soaking wet decided it was a good time to come out and chase leaves on the deck. The deer couldn't see him because of the way the deck is constructed, but they could smell him. They both went into alert and ran off. Could it be that my cat smelled enough like a natural predator, e.g. mountain lion, that they were afraid of him? Will they come back? The dogs in the neighborhood don't seem to bother them. . . . . . . . . Or am I way over thinking this and should put a slug of Bailey's in my coffee and go back to bed..........?