Wannaskan Almanac for Thursday, October 4, 2018

So many dark cloudy skies of late

     We’ve had so many rainy days lately that when a patch of blue sky appears, then disappears, it’s noteworthy. It reminds a person that at 35,000 feet the sun is always shining. But who really thinks of that when your jeans, jacket and toes of your shoes are wet?
 
     I’ve taken to wear my slip-on Sorel pacs lately. Well, it is fall and all. They’re warm and light and keep my feet dry. I recall that my late cousin Jack used to wear them. He was the first guy I saw wear them and, as he was a woodsy kind of person, it made sense it would be the perfect outdoor casual shoe for me too. I finally bought a pair and wore them for years. One warm fall I even wore them while I hunted deer. They were warm enough if I kept moving but weren’t much for standing in the cold for more than an hour at a time. Waterproof and insulated with leather uppers ankle high, I always secretly longed for the original L.L. Bean boot that were similarly styled but were calf high.

Hunting boots

     During hunting seasons boot wear varies, but another boot that’s popular, that I see, are made by LaCross and are knee high. Of course, they’re camo-green-colored--everything is camo-green, especially during duck and goose season, caps, vests, jackets, pants, gloves, stocking caps--even goose calls. Boots are seemingly, all one piece, with the soles, feet and shafts all one. Oh, they’re spendy, not surprised that they’re sometimes $200, but expenditures like that are worth it if they keep your feet warm and dry in ice cold water and wind under dreary skies.
     
     Then, of course, there’s Sorel insulated pacs that sport heavy felt (removable) liners a half inch thick, lace-up leather uppers, and heavy-duty insulated rubber foot and sole. Every deer camp in Minnesota must have two to a dozen all-sex hunters that wear them and have worn them since they were kids--well, and have purchased new bigger boots as they’ve grown of course, the little boots they had in first grade being decidedly too small by the time they’re eighteen or so. That being said, it may explain many of their complaints and whining about their feet being cold all the time with the blood being cut-off from their feet, and as suspect, from their brains as well.
 
     Although Sorels are great boots (or used to be)(the ones actually made in Canada) you can’t expect to never buy new ones over rhe years that fit your feet. I have seen old Sorels patched with duct tape, tire patches, Shoe Goo, and building caulk. The leather uppers never wear out, although the laces will rot off after a few seasons being corroded by swamp water and possibly urine deposits found along trails between deer camps located closely together, as in Palmville.
 
     Chest waders, unlined rubber knee boots, sneakers--you might get your feet wet and cold, but at least you’re not walking barefooted.
 
     Hunters--well, the die hard kind-- dress for it. The other kind of hunters aren’t outdoors long, and some of them never venture out except from the house to the truck and back, them being ‘road hunters’ that drive around the country in their warm trucks and cars hoping to see an easy shot close to the road whether the game is on private land or not.
 
      In some instances, road hunters spoil shooting opportunities by other hunters that they see on fields hunting, by positioning their vehicles in the line of fire, gambling that the hunter won’t shoot toward them, and the game in question gets away, hopefully somewhere where the road hunter can get a shot.
 
     We had an instance of that last fall when my stepson held off shooting a nice buck because a vehicle slowed and stopped in the direct line of fire, the deer then running in front of the truck, across the road, and continuing onto an adjoining field, when the driver backed his vehicle to a nearby crossing then gave pursuit. My stepson was not happy.
 
     Takes all kinds. Some of them are even issued hunting licenses.
     Go figure.
 
     A few dark and cloudy windy evenings ago, while out in the

corral west of our house, the sun broke out just above the horizon.

      It kissed the very tops of the hybrid poplars along our road and bathed the hundreds of bright yellow leaves of the paper birch in our yard with amazingly wonderful sunlight, a phenomenon we have been wont to see for weeks and in the past took for granted all those weeks in August that we never received rain.
 
     I stopped where I was, then moved over about twenty feet, just to cast my shadow.
 
     It’d been awhile.