Large Fierce Mammal

Northern Spotted Owl (Source: Smithsonian Magazine)

Hunter’s Truth

By LFM

No sunset on a dirty gun,
Nor blade that’s less than keen.
See to your Horse and Dog my boy,
Before your boots are clean.

By night array your clothes and arms
So dark won’t hide their place,
Ere comes the call for girding up
And joining in the chase!

Strike only when the moment’s True,
Leave nought to be forgiven,
Who’s worthy of the Quarry’s Gift,
Bears not a soul that’s riven.

Pure purpose is the Hunter’s Way,
Stripped free of self-delusion,
And lesser men who think him owned
Are prey to his illusion.

I do my best thinking in the woods. (Mrs. LFM photo) Click for more me!

I once watched a standup comedian talking about some bad advice given to him while he was growing up. He said he was warned that you always have to watch “the quiet ones”, and even at a young age that didn’t sit well with him. He wondered, while you’re busy watching the quiet ones, what’s to keep some noisy bastard from coming up and killing you?

Good question.

Those of you pining for my august presence here in these erstwhile silent halls may have even mistaken me for one of “the quiet ones” as my attention, energies, and talents have been directed down avenues that are at once parallel, and now about to be convergent with, those illuminated by these pages. Today I’ll bring you up date and prepare you for things to come.

In my most recent utterance to appear here on New Years Day, I spoke of my (other) professional calling, and offered certain insights into the wellspring from which it draws its nourishment. As I did so, and promised further enlightenment, it was with the knowledge that much of what I intend to convey going forward, and indeed more of what I have already conveyed since this all sprang from the bushes in September of 2008, isn’t well enough served by the written word alone, eloquence and wit bedamned. On top of that, tales from the adventures of the LFM Clan cry out to be free of such encumbrance and will not be denied!

So, while this site will continue as always, it will be augmented by a Large Fierce Mammal move into the realms of other platforms including video and podcasts. Stay tuned here, and watch for this avatar, lovingly created by the inestimable talents of Mrs. LFM.

Driftwood by Adam Oehlers (2017) — Brought to my attention by the Esteemed Master At Arms James Albert Keating

If I were to sum up application of my billable skills in one easy to digest term, it would be “professional troubleshooter”. In general, this means Mrs. LFM and I solve the problems of other people for a living.

What typically motivates someone to pick up their phone and dial us, or equally as common send an email, is loss of stability in the realms of safety and security that may be demonstrably real or simply perceived to the degree where it’s become the same thing for them.

As I write to you on this first calendar day of the year 2021, you will not be surprised to learn that the twelve months just expired were the busiest in the 40 years since I first exposed my ass shingle to the brisk and inconsiderate winds of fate, and I am pleased to report that even that percentage of our clientele who learned to their chagrin that they, or those acting under their guidance, were the common thread in all their misfortunes, paid our fee absent encouragement. This, even if in their heart of hearts they never wanted to lay eyes on us again.

The situations we are called to consult on inevitably affect people, but with amazing regularity come in two flavours:

1. They have a technical; i. e., scientifically identifiable source and path to correction or implementation; that may not have found its origins or perpetuation in human involvement; OR
2. Every aspect of the problem has grown out of, and been perpetuated by, people.

With this in mind, I will leave you today with a little pro bono advice:

1. Beware and eschew misleading vividness.
2. Don’t let your apophenia run away with you.
3. Accept no unfiltered eyewitness testimony, especially when it comes from officialdom, and most particularly when the official is you.
4. When you discover a bomb, don’t assume it’s the only one in the place.
5. When someone suddenly demands your attention and wants you to “look over there”, “there” is not where you should look.

For those of you who survive the next few weeks, I will be elaborating on each of those points, and in whatever order I see fit. As you will come to understand, even if not particularly like, every moment of this year, and that you may ever come to have in or beyond any mark on a calendar, will quite literally be what you make of it.

And as to the stern admonishment that is the title of this particular brain dropping, viewing a new year as a chance for a fresh start is low resolution thinking indeed when, in fact, every moment is — including this one.

Happy New Year.

On this date last year I treated you to a Christmas ghost story, The Shepherd,  written by Frederick Forsyth as a Christmas gift for his wife, Carrie.

“‘The Shepherd’ is set on the Christmas Eve of 1957, at which time I would have been eight months plus a day upon the Earth, snug as a bug in a rug far away from the fictional runway in Germany from which our 20 year old hero is about to launch his de Havilland Vampire into the night on a routine flight to spend the holidays with family in England. Along the way, Murphy’s Law, unfortunate weather, serendipity, and the timely assistance of a de Havilland Mosquito converge.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night — 2019 Edition Day 5: The Shepherd

This year I’m going to continue the tradition with another offering of Human travail in the face of every portent doom can provide. Tonight I offer Christmas at Sea written by Robert Louise Stevenson, and as presented by the YouTube channel Way of the World. (more…)

“Hands up!” (1912) by Will Crawford. Original from Library of Congress.

My message for this Christmas Eve comes from the perspective of my 17 years as a police and fire dispatcher, taking the reports and facilitating the arrests of belligerent half wits who can’t stand the sight of each other at any other time, but who annually, and if temporarily experiencing the convenience of being out of jail, feel the compulsion to assemble in a volatile mixture of sibling hatred, testosterone, alcohol, recreational pharmaceuticals, hot chip fat forgotten on the stove, candles, and one or two of their dysfunctional geriatric parents, because somehow, this time the magic of Christmas will make it all different.

The Gift of Choice

By LFM

Each Christmas Eve throughout the land
Goode Santa comes with bag in hand,
Inside it gifts rewarding good,
And all that’s sweet in childhood.

And also there, though seldom seen’s,
His penalty for being mean.
A darkling lump of anthracite
For those imbued with bile and spite.

Yet each year on his next return,
Olde Santa finds some never learn,
And so for those he changes gears —
A binding choice for future years.

So hearken to the coal’s demand
Or meet what fills his other hand.
Learn bugger all from coal in stocking,
And hear his big revolver cocking.

Choose what’s in the bag or gun,
Two choices and no other one.
Don’t try to claim it isn’t fair,
Your time is up, he doesn’t care.

Tearful lies that sound sincere
May work in court but never here.
Try to waft that bullshit smell
And Santa blows your soul to Hell.

V2 rocket damage in southwest England. Source: Getty Images

On our last Long Winter’s Night I spoke of the role “position” can play in meeting the onset of hardship, and staying functional as its challenges unfold. Today we’ll expand on that and look at a 20th century historical comparison. One of two we’ll be talking about this season.

History is rife with massive social upheavals of both man-made and Natural cause, and outcomes having far more to do with the the coping mechanisms brought to bear by the common man than the commandments of any sovereign or elected official. While it is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, one of those coping mechanisms I refer to is a determining factor in making that happen. You see, coping continues through and beyond the upheaval until the return of something resembling stability permits acceptance of the new reality, and the tentative daring of hope for its improvement. Among those who shared the experience, little needs to be said, if it even can be said, and subsequent generations may thereby become progressively more detached from its grim realities in the spirit of being spared it. (more…)

Source: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.896051!/image/youarehere.jpg

Position (Oxford Languages)
verb
gerund or present participle: positioning

• put or arrange (someone or something) in a particular place or way.
• promote (a product, service, or business) within a particular sector of a market, or as the fulfillment of that sector’s specific requirements.
• portray or regard (someone) as a particular type of person.

You may have noticed, and quite possibly been reminded recently, that life is not always smooth sailing. If you are the sort to pay attention to such things you’ll have also noticed this — (more…)

Yes I know we’re missing a few marbles, but you get the drift.

Welcome back thou Goode and Weary Traveller, and well met at our Homely Hearth as we’ve only just thrown on another fine log just for you!

Here in Nova Scotia, the Winter Solstice of 2020 stole in on rain sodden moccasins at 06:02 Atlantic Standard Time this morning, marking the official “first day of winter” with the season’s longest period of darkness at the celestial end of a dark year indeed.

On this day three years ago I wrote:

“Winter in Nova Scotia will arrive at twenty-eight minutes past noon Atlantic Standard Time today when the Solstice heralds the start of the long, slow plod to Spring. For those of us of whatever species who haven’t already migrated or gone into hibernation, this is a time of uncertainty tempered with incipient joy.

“The Black Bear sow impregnated in June will give birth in her den in January, and nurse her offspring in her warmth as the very dead of Winter holds sway outside.

“The pregnant White-Tailed Deer doe who survives the Winter will carry her fawn through the snows to late May or early June.

“As to Human kind, Winter will bring challenges at the end of which the result will lie on a spectrum ranging from the greatest of joys to the gravest of sorrows, and in this it stands as no different from any other aspect of life but for bearing a greater degree of urgency and inexorable deadliness in the face of any vulnerability.

“And so it goes.” ~ A Long Winter’s Night — 2017 Edition: Day 1

Looking back on my comments at the start of previous seasons in the history of this series discloses an interesting yet unsurprising pattern, that being the sky seems to be perpetually falling on someone, somewhere, for some reason. So now, what might appear to distinguish this Long Winter’s Night from all the rest is that this time it’s falling on everyone, everywhere, for the same reason. (more…)

Mind ye now the river’s flowing,
Sift ye out what’s wished from knowing,
Master thee thy come and going,
Trim thy sails, the wind is blowing.

So here’s the lesson you must learn,
To prep thy vessel, stem to stern.
You choose alone what bridges burn,
Then steer her hence, there’s no return.

~ Commitment ~

The swearing of oaths has become so entangled with the affairs of men as to be valueless, afloat as they are in a morass of end user agreements, credit card and loan applications, and court proceedings where swearing to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth is just noise, even to officers of the court and law enforcement.

I have written much over the years about Truth, Honour, Loyalty, and Commitment, and what it means when I use a word with its first letter capitalized. If you come here regularly you will know this, but for those who don’t but should, here are a couple of samples that should help clear up any confusion before we go forward.

First,

“For the children of Nature, once you’ve been given Life, the race is on to keep that upper case “L” in front of it before time runs out ….” ~ Of Cycles and Rhythms

And,

“A Gentleman is not a saint, nor should he aspire to be, and for those among you who would like to believe such an animal no longer exists, if it ever did, please note the upper case “G”. It’s significant, although less so I suppose for those who can be counted among the mean and miserable maggotry that infests the Earth.” ~ An Intervention

Put quite simply then as some last ditch guidance for those who still find the matter clouded in mystery, “… I only capitalize the name of a thing when the reference is to the thing in its entirety ….”, much in the way First Nations peoples use the word “Medicine“:

“In its truest form, the term “medicine” far transcends the very limiting definition of common usage. As employed by the Mi’kmaq, it refers to all the physical and spiritual properties inherent in a thing ….” ~ Medicine Man

Now that we’re all on the same page, let us move on further down it together. (more…)

“It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.” ~ T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

A lovely Dark Sentiment to close out this eleventh season, n’est-ce pas? It remains to be seen if mankind can muster any real combined force of arms in the face of this year’s plague of microscopic dragons and rocs. Yea or nay, and looking on the bright side, most of us are here because in the face of such past joys as 536 AD and the Black Death, our ancestors ended up only mostly dead, which is of course the same as slightly alive. (more…)