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jackSeveral people have commented that my journal is too prosaic, and my prose too sane, and that I'm altogether not confusing enough[1]. Hence I reproduce, in response to the link text of the beautiful picture Dungarees in the wild, the comment I found myself making.
My wife is a maths teacher, and even she doesn't get as odd looks as I do when people ask what my job is. "I thought they were... made. Out of cloth," people say with a puzzled expression.
"Oh no!" I always respond. "People have tried to make artificial dunagarees, but no manufactured process could approach nature's elegance. It's like haggis, you have to go out and catch a wild one."
I find a spot in the woods, lay out a bit of denim for bait, and wait on my folding chair. The wild dungaree doesn't have very good eyesight or smell, so I don't have to hide, but it's incredibly fast and slippery, the only way is for me to pounce and wrestle it into submission.
They're basically just bags of skin. Skeletally thin (not much denim to be had these days, the denim bush has died of as people found a way to weave *that*), they're bags of guts that squish under your hands. Get them round the neck and kneel on the the legs, and try to slit their throat.
Then skin them as soon as possible. The innards are discarded easily, as if they were bread to be separable, and you have a pair of dungarees. You can wear them right then, and most hunters make it a point of pride to come in wearing a new pair when they've had a good hunt, though in fact you need considerable drying and tanning before they're fit to be sold.
I often don't catch one -- the rarity is why they're so highly priced by fasionable women -- but only occasionly does anything do wrong. They're not that vicious but completely unlovable, so I never normally feel guilty, except once.
Dungarees mate -- or bud, we're not sure -- underground, and generally the children fend for themselves, but occasionally a (female?) dungaree will stay to try to feed the young. When I was a green hunter I killed a dungaree without knowing any of the signs, and as I was tramping out of the woods, half a dozen baby dunagarees frollicked out of the trees and began nuzzling round by denim clad legs, asking for food.
I was gobsmacked, these things were cute, and I couldn't bring myself to kill them, even if I could have caught them. (Dungarees for babys come from one fo the dwarf species of dungaree, or from adults which are cut down too much in processing. Immature dungarees are hard to catch and moult too much to useful as clothing.)
I fished out the rest of my bait and fed it to them, and they seemed content. Most wandered back into the wood, but one insisted on following, until I picked him up and let him ride on my shoulder.
Now he lives in my house, brought out to show doubters. He hasn't grown much in all the years, but has shown his worth -- even a small dungaree coming in at neck height is enough to deter all but the most determined salesman!
[1] Irony.
My wife is a maths teacher, and even she doesn't get as odd looks as I do when people ask what my job is. "I thought they were... made. Out of cloth," people say with a puzzled expression.
"Oh no!" I always respond. "People have tried to make artificial dunagarees, but no manufactured process could approach nature's elegance. It's like haggis, you have to go out and catch a wild one."
I find a spot in the woods, lay out a bit of denim for bait, and wait on my folding chair. The wild dungaree doesn't have very good eyesight or smell, so I don't have to hide, but it's incredibly fast and slippery, the only way is for me to pounce and wrestle it into submission.
They're basically just bags of skin. Skeletally thin (not much denim to be had these days, the denim bush has died of as people found a way to weave *that*), they're bags of guts that squish under your hands. Get them round the neck and kneel on the the legs, and try to slit their throat.
Then skin them as soon as possible. The innards are discarded easily, as if they were bread to be separable, and you have a pair of dungarees. You can wear them right then, and most hunters make it a point of pride to come in wearing a new pair when they've had a good hunt, though in fact you need considerable drying and tanning before they're fit to be sold.
I often don't catch one -- the rarity is why they're so highly priced by fasionable women -- but only occasionly does anything do wrong. They're not that vicious but completely unlovable, so I never normally feel guilty, except once.
Dungarees mate -- or bud, we're not sure -- underground, and generally the children fend for themselves, but occasionally a (female?) dungaree will stay to try to feed the young. When I was a green hunter I killed a dungaree without knowing any of the signs, and as I was tramping out of the woods, half a dozen baby dunagarees frollicked out of the trees and began nuzzling round by denim clad legs, asking for food.
I was gobsmacked, these things were cute, and I couldn't bring myself to kill them, even if I could have caught them. (Dungarees for babys come from one fo the dwarf species of dungaree, or from adults which are cut down too much in processing. Immature dungarees are hard to catch and moult too much to useful as clothing.)
I fished out the rest of my bait and fed it to them, and they seemed content. Most wandered back into the wood, but one insisted on following, until I picked him up and let him ride on my shoulder.
Now he lives in my house, brought out to show doubters. He hasn't grown much in all the years, but has shown his worth -- even a small dungaree coming in at neck height is enough to deter all but the most determined salesman!
[1] Irony.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:50 pm (UTC)