By Chad Love

November. 1998. Opening weekend. This is my place. My name may not be on the deed, it may even say “public” on the sign, but it’s mine nonetheless. I’ve purchased it with the coin of time and sweat and shoe leather and blistered skin. And I sure as hell don’t want to share it. Yet here they are, the bastards. Rich ones in their new trucks pulling shiny trailers. Poor ones in rustbuckets with plywood boxes thrown in the bed. And all of them--regardless of social class--here to take what’s mine; what I thought I was jealously guarding by keeping my big mouth shut. Self-delusion: I was born to it.

I drive around the area--my area--and the license plates read like a litany of the dead for what used to be bird country: Alabama. South Carolina. North Carolina. Tennessee. Florida. Kentucky. Virginia. Georgia. Arkansas. Louisiana. Mississippi. The In-state-but-out-of-towners. The Mongol hordes of landless Texans. And me. I want to hate them all for being here, for screwing up my little set-piece dream of solitude and birds and the pup and me and not another living soul under this brilliant bowl of sky. But of course I can’t. Because they are me. He is us. Not enemy, but kindred seekers trying to sate the desperate hunger for a moment when sky and birds and dogs converge into an instant of pure meaning.

By Chad Love

If you have a dog with sore, cracked or tender pads, here's something I can heartily recommend.

It's called Tuf-Foot, and I used it liberally on my dogs' feet earlier this year after both setters developed sore, tender pads while on a hunting trip. It worked wonders. According to the maker, Tuf-Foot toughens soft pads, protects feet against bruises and soreness, and acts as a healing agent for minor cuts and scratches.

Sounds like a do-all snake oil pitch, but it works. It stings a little going on (I applied with a cotton ball) but after a few days of applying Tuf-Foot the dogs' pads were obviously feeling better and both were good to go. I had no more problems the rest of the trip.