Orange Elegy

Gunshots echo through our valley this light-filled Saturday. It's orange vest weather, but I'll let mine dangle until the new year, except on Sundays. Meanwhile, let me grouse about the expanding roadside collection of cans and bottles as these irritating holiday decorations sparkle in the sun.

This is not a diatribe against smart, responsible hunters. Each year we're blessed with gifts of venison for our freezer. I can admire graceful white-tail deer until they decimate my beets and carrots. I've even been known to contemplate shopping at Nuckols Gun Works. Without hunters, we might have no chance of keeping the deer population under control.

Unfortunately, two heedless hunters have spoiled this season in our neck of the woods, stilling the hearts of two young people. May other guns not point at human targets. And why, tell me, do the cans and bottles pile up this time of year?

Virginia wore orange through November and December as she renovated her sylvan church. She welcomed pressure-treated venison and recycled the cans and bottles tossed from pickups.