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Travel Log - Hunting, Hitchhiking, Painting & Getting Dirty: Traveling Across America


Keepitrail

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Re: Travel Log - 2011 - USA

 

I thought this was a rather funny thing to come around the corner and see.

 

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I found some crank levers in the shed in front of my house and put some hooks through the wrists and tried to crank them up. It worked pretty well and I had a great spot to do it, though I wished that it could be higher. It was entirely something different than a squirrel. I had shot lots of squirrels and skinned them and everything, and it was all just sort of like a toy, like you could play with it and the guts came out and you could see the little liver and the heart and the little toy guts. And there's thousands of squirrels. You're practically kicking them out of the way just going to the bus stop.

 

But the deer was different on a very humbling level. It was formidable.. imposing. You could fear it. And they weren't toy guts, they were your size. You could be holding a person's liver, it was massive. And there aren't as many deer, though there are a lot, but they're more real, and when I was skinning it and pulling it around... it was very powerful.

 

 

(edit - aren't as many deer as squirrels)

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Re: Travel Log - 2011 - USA

 

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They took my video down. I hope somoene got to see it...

 

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This is the stomach I believe, witht he intestines and maybe a second stomach, I don't know. The sunlight was perfect that day. Up inside you can see the diaphram which you halve to cut it's a thin sheet of muscle that separates the lungs and heart from the rest. This one also held about thirty gallons of blood and thick-warm fabrick bundles of clot

 

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which came out rather suddenly

 

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I don't know maybe if a moderater on the forum could put a warning on the title I don't want to freak anyone out who just thought "oh cool a travel thread" and then sees all this.

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Re: Travel Log - 2011 - USA

 

But, you know... anyway

 

So I took it down from the hooks and pulled up a leg and then pulled the rest of the intestines and bloodmatter out. You have to cut all the way down to the anus and right around the side of the penis. I kept saying "sorry dude" every time I had to hold his penis and testicles to the side to pull the knife up under the skin and grab the intestines.

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Re: Travel Log - 2011 - USA

 

The chest cavity always has a luminous quality which, though not well represented here, shines with a bluegreen reflection whenever light is thrown upon it, it's really something strange and arresting.

 

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Pulling the whole skin off at one time was a mistake. I should have cut from the crotch down all along the inner thighs and to the ankles, and peeled the skin off, instead I pulled it off like a sweater, and it got hung up at the knees.

 

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Dull knife makes life difficult.

But it wasn't that bad. It just wasn't that sharp, either.

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Hair, hair, everywhere, let's all have a drink.

 

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This was a strange day. I had woken at two in the morning and painted till five, in silence. Then I had gone outside just before dawn, and walked quietly for a long time. The whole interaction was silent. Silence for nine or ten hours, working very hard. I had a radio, but I did not want to invite anyone else into the event, at least the way that voices do. so it stayed in the studio. I could have went down the road to ask for assistance from my landlord, as he knew far better what to do, but... I just wanted it to be me and the animal. It seemed right that way, and even though it was extremely difficult to do, not only by oneself but without instructions, it felt really, really good to do it by myself, quiet and alone, with only the jays and hawks and various songbirds narrating the experience...

 

It was kind of symbolic in a way.. The only real mechanical or artificial sound that I had heard the entire day was the deafening shot of the 30.06 in the soft and quiet opening of the alder trees.

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Re: Travel Log - 2011 - USA

 

Yeah that's it, right next to the shoulder blade where the meat is darker. I just ate the first meal with it last night... I just fried up some neck meat this morning. Kind of at a loss as to what to do with all the bones and stuff. It won't decompose because it's so cold out here. Weird. I think I'll bury them and see if they're clean when I move out.

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