Hot Dogs, in Hunting Stories

It's the “dog daysâ€ of summer. . It's going to be Hot, and humid. Not too many of my co-workers are thinking about the upcoming winter. There all pretty busy tossing salads, or golf clubs, sun tans and ice tea recipes.

My mind with the heat starts to wander down a slightly different path. Maybe it's a mirage for them, but to me in this heat I get thinking about keeping warm.

In January I wear a full tailed coyote hat. I can't walk through the building without folks stopping to ask what “thatâ€ is on my head. Many ladies wonder at its warmth. When I hand the furred headgear to them, they are simply speechless at how little it weighs atop my head.

Make no mistake, it's a full coyote pelt finely tanned and winter primed. The guard hairs, yot’e pelt aside, really catch everyone's attention. Two women love to run there fingers through the dense under fur and suddenly understand why I don the cap at any below zero air temps.

Then almost each and every gawker sez, can you get me one of those? This is where I try to explain we trap them in January, you pelt them out, you send them out, and about six months later I get a pelt back. Then I find a dear lady over in western Minnesota who needs your hat size and about one month sewing and return shipping time to mad hatter your personal headgear.

In the late summer I get my winters worth of “outdoor carpetsâ€ in sporadic bunches coming back from the tannery. This week I got back on otter that I’m not sure if I’m going to have ear muffs made or a neck muffler sewn, but that pelt is so perfect it's going to warm something on me or my daughter for many years to come.

It's a mids summer dream to get some people in a large metropolitan area to understand and plan that far “aheadâ€. Every pun intended. But sure as shootin this upcoming winter when I walk the illustrious halls they will once again envy my outdoor headgear, ask for one just like it, like I have a spare in my back pocket and wonder what online store they can order it from. How do I explain it comes not from the online, but the long line chain store?

To my city pigeon friends I’m the proverbial wood tick at the office. But to my way of thinking, I’m going to be once again the warmest wood tick these northern winters can come up with, even as I bask in the summer sun.