local practices

on my daily walk, i pass two sites that often contain a gruesome reminder that this area is the second to the last frontier (alaska being the last). both are "ditches", where natural drainages run under the road. for some reason, perhaps the same one that drove the former owners of my farm to have their dump on the stream on my land, people dump illegal deer carcasses in these sites. there is always an emptied plastic bag nearby.

there's nothing i can do about this. i will make art about it. i will, perhaps, collect a  bone to make some bone folders. or i will take these photos and use them in art. i have done so with photos i've taken of a coyote hunter's winter kill, boasting and hanging outside his home, or a road killed critter. it's not the death or even the hunting that disturbs me, it's the illegal killing. and last week i saw my neighbor dragging a deer carcass into his field. the edible bits were removed. it is not deer season.


for me, to live in this place i must be amicable. but i can make art that says: this is happening. this is how it is here. sometimes. perhaps a young hunter will see this and be reminded of their obligations to the animals they hunt.