I was a little disheartened Thursday when I learned that Contagious Equine Metritis (CEM) has made its way into the United States and has infected several horses at one farm out East. This is especially surprising because the United States was declared to be CEM free as late as 1998.

Growing up, my family had six horses – one for each member of the family and an old Shetland pony we rode as young boys. We even traded a colt from our best Missouri Fox Trotter for my older brother’s first truck.

Horses were a big part of our family when and where I grew up. Evenings were often spent riding through an area my dad called “the motherland,” in search of deer and other wildlife and always culminating with watching the sun set from the same ridge we’d been to a hundred times before.

Once it was dark, we turned the horses back, and ran them fairly hard back through the motherland towards home, them knowing they were headed for oats and water. I unsaddled many more horses in the dark than during the day, I know that for sure.

For my three brothers and I, horses played a prominent role in our entertainment on the farm, our bond with each other and our bond with our parents.

We had very good luck with horse health, and it seemed our friends did too. No one really had to be concerned with diseases like CEM.

TheHorse.com reports that CEM, a highly contagious venereal infection, causes short-term infertility in broodmares. Foals born to infected mares can also become infected while in the uterus. The danger, to me, seems to be the ease with which the infection can spread, either through natural breeding or by artificial insemination. Since there are no visible or behavioral symptoms, the likelihood of a widespread outbreak is even higher.

Stallions, too, can become carriers of the infection, and harbor the organism (Taylorella equigenitalis) externally on genitals and can spread CEM to mares and farm equipment. It can also be spread by farm hands, handlers, breeders or grooms who don’t maintain proper hygiene while handling horses.

The scary thing, for people like myself (though I don’t currently own horses), is that this infection surfaced at a prestigious farm, and mares bred at this farm now may have been sent back to their home farms and further spread the infection. At that point, CEM would seem to me to become very difficult to track. The surfacing of the infection could also affect equine transport.

Again according to TheHorse.com, currently, no known vaccination will prevent the infection. Treatment involves strict cleansing and applying chlorhexidine, and then nitrofurazone ointment once the chlorhexidine dries.

Hopefully, these animals can be quarantined and the infection can once again be eradicated from the United States. Get the most current information at www.TheHorse.com.

Anybody else out there heard more about this issue?

Photo courtesy TheHorse.com.

Our buddies tend to make us better; pushing us to do everything a little better, a little more thoroughly than some of us would do if left to ourselves. I don’t know whether you can call it a fundamental flaw in human nature or not, but I think it’s regrettable.

With hunting, it’s no different. My hunting buddy Bobby and I share a pretty good relationship. As an older and wiser man than myself, I’ve learned a lot from being in the field with him, like the advantage of using a whisker biscuit compared to regular arrow rests. He’s given me advice both on equipment and tactics.

So it comes as no surprise that I was disappointed to learn Bob fell over a concrete form at work last week and roughed up his knee. He swears he’ll be hunting by late-season doe hunting – although it could be as bad as a torn ACL, so that would be a stretch.

But I found myself sitting in the woods Saturday thinking about the hunting buddy relationship, and it’s a bond unlike others you take on in life. With this sort of relationship, the friendship is drawn from a mutual appreciation for nature and the appreciation for being a part of it; even, dare I say, triumphing over it.

But there’s no jealousy in the hunting buddy relationship. Seldom are we altruistic enough to accept others’ success and not be envious. However, when Bobby shoots a deer, I don’t wish that it was me instead of him. He made the shot, and I’m thankful that one of us saw something and it was a productive hunt. Maybe you could even say I don’t want the deer he shoots, because they’re his deer from his hunt. Jealousy doesn’t come into play because, although he may have the meat, I still have my hunt. There’s nothing to be jealous of. In this day in age, rarely is that type of altruism evident.

The relationship makes everyone involved better, too. It’s been my experience that I’ll sit a little longer, and I’ll go out more frequently, if there’s another person going along.

When I’m out by myself, I don’t need to worry about spooking deer off of anybody else, so instead of sitting for that extra 15 minutes as the sun goes down I’m making my way down out of the tree and back towards my truck.

You always here the saying, about not appreciating the good things in life until they’re gone, and I sort of feel that way now that Bobby can’t hunt.

What about you? Who are your hunting buddies and what can you say about the quality of your friendship with them?

I’m giving in.

Coming into work Monday, one of the first people I saw was Mother Earth News Art Director Matthew Stallbaumer, and he summoned me over to his desk, saying something along the lines of, “We had a good weekend.”

I knew that this meant one thing for sure, good hunting results and pictures of big bucks.

Here we are, about halfway through early rifle season, and Matthew, his brothers and their buddies all have deer that would make any man proud.

In instances like these, it’s natural for any hunter – surely it’s not just myself – to be envious and causes a bit of self reflection into how I can achieve those same sort of results.

I don’t consider myself totally unsuccessful, as I did manage to take a doe two weekends ago, and does are good eating. In that regard, I’m very thankful. However, I’m not an accomplished enough hunter to be past the obsession with shooting old deer with the biggest racks out there. Those are the bucks that have eluded trouble for the longest amount of time and are the most seasoned, so it follows that taking old, big deer is that much harder and more rarely accomplished.

Bowhunting is something I’m very passionate about, and I’ll continue to do it throughout the remainder of the winter and, hopefully (assuming my land access around Lawrence holds), into the spring with turkeys.

But at the same time, I don’t feel any shame about using a rifle, nor do I respect those that hunt with them any less. I can’t imagine there’s quite as much intimacy with the animal, since you can shoot to about 300 yards with a good all-around rifle cartridge, while I’m only comfortable sending an arrow at a deer up to about 40 yards.

For an argument on the merits of rifle hunting though, you need only to talk to a hunter – one concerned with ethics, at least – who’s ever felt certain they hit a deer with an arrow, only to lose the blood trail and never recover the animal. I’ve done it myself. Completely demoralizing. Probably any bowhunter who’s hunted for any length of time has experienced it. I know it’s caused me to seriously rethink the range of my bow – the yardage you think you can shoot when deer are on you and you want a shot – and it’s made me kind of obsessive compulsive about having my bow zeroed in every time I step into the woods.

What are your thoughts on bowhunting vs. rifle hunting? I’d love to hear other hunters’ input and, as always, I’d love to see photos or read stories of your successful hunts. Send them to me at cregan@grit.com.

Happy hunting.

Top photo of Doug and son Chase courtesy of Doug Stallbaumer. Bottom photo of Jesse Knight taken by Matthew T. Stallbaumer. Both bucks are 10-pointers taken in Kansas.

A little over a month ago, the editorial team here at GRIT was engaged in a fairly spirited debate – they usually are spirited in my experience – regarding the proper manner in which knives are sharpened.

The discussion stemmed from one of the pieces in the January/February issue of GRIT, entitled, “How to Have the Sharpest Knife in Your Drawer,” written by Tom Larson.

Although a couple of us had sharpened knives before, the difficulty arose with trying to craft the words and sentences so people would know exactly what was being done, especially since being right and left-handed plays a big part in this skill.

This led us all to agree – after four of us editors spent a considerable amount of time sitting in a circle with props, sharpening plastic spoons and such on our personalized bench stones (our hands) – that the package for our online edition of the story should include a video.

The need to sharpen my skinning knife was imminent, so the timing couldn’t have been better for me, and I set about trying to acquire a bench stone that would sharpen a skinning knife.

I sprung for it last year and bought myself a new Gerber knife since I’d always used a grinder to sharpen knives. Come to find out, sharpening with a hand stone, and even a strop, is much better than grinding. Grinding your knives can overheat and damage the temper of the steel, and knives once able to shave hair off your arm are rendered dull. The worst thing that can happen to your knife through grinding is for the blade to become curved in places, making it completely ineffective. I was ready to try manually sharpening my blades.

First on my list in setting out to find a bench stone was www.sharpeningsupplies.com, and those folks didn’t disappoint. I was immediately attracted to a very cool-looking Hard Black Arkansas Stone (Model HB376). It came in a wooden box and is beautiful to look at, plus the stone is a hard black Arkansas stone so it’s for achieving the sharpest of edges.

But after talking with SharpeningSupplies.com Manager/Owner John Carmona, he urged me to also consider a combination stone, since he worried that the hard black stone was so fine it’d be tough to employ when dealing with extremely dull knives. He was absolutely right.

Within two business days, I not only had the Hard Black Arkansas Stone in Wooden Box but also the Norton Combination India Sharpening Kit, which includes a combination stone (this one was 8-by-2-by-1 inches), sharpening stone oil, and a black case (Norton IM50 Case-Black) that sits on four little rubber stoppers so you don’t have to hold the case in place when sharpening.

The case is more useful than one might think, since with it you’re allowed to sharpen without using a hand to hold the case in place – very important when trying to keep your extra hand out of the way and your fingers unharmed.

Come to find out, the hard black stone is great to use, but I could have gotten away with just the combination stone. I wouldn’t want to now though, since the hard black stone provides such fine, smooth sharpening that your knife truly will take hair off your arm like never before. I was sharpening last night to the point that I was out of knives and all my blades looked and cut perfectly, but I was so pleased with myself I couldn’t put the stones away.

In the future, after dealing with hides, I will turn to the coarse side of the combination stone (black side), then the finer side (red) before putting the finishing touches on my Gerber with the Hard Black Arkansas Stone. All three made my once-dull knife look and cut just like new once again.

I can only imagine how useful the stones will be when I resharpen blades for filleting fish, an experience that only goes as smoothly as your blade cuts.