“How’s your day goin’?” the young woman tending the cash register in the Linton, N.D., convenience store asked me Sunday afternoon as I laid my ice cream bar on the counter and reached for my wallet. “I need some ice cream,” I replied, handing her some cash. “That wasn’t what I asked you,” she said, somewhat cheekily I thought. Then …
Jan. 1, 2021. 2020 is finally over. It was a helluva year. It wasn’t ALL bad, but it was different. Very different. Here’s an example. At about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving, just as hints of daylight were appearing in the southeast sky, four (relatively) old men huffed and puffed their way for about half …
I’ve about had it with snowflakes and it’s barely December. I saw on Fox News that the #MeToo movement is trying to stamp out romance. What’s under assault is the revered seasonal classic, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” A Cleveland radio station took the song off the air under pressure from radicals in pink hats because it’s about a guy trying …
You might have seen, or heard reference to, a goofy little ad North Dakota Democrats ran on Facebook the other day about hunters. I think it was only up on Facebook a few hours because the wording was a little unclear, and it was generally misunderstood by those who read it, and the party got a little heat from some …
I just learned this morning of the death last April of an old friend, a fellow named Tim Williams, from Ohio. I say “friend” even though I only knew him a little. His dad, Tommy Williams, also from Ohio, and my dad, “Doc” Fuglie from Hettinger, N.D., were friends and occasional hunting buddies. Tommy loved to hunt pheasants and ducks …
One more time around for pheasants and Paul Southworth Bliss, in honor of Saturday’s 2017 Pheasant Season Opener. This will be my 59th pheasant season. Actually more because before I was 12 in 1959, when my dad bought me my first shotgun, I had tagged along since I was able to keep up with him in the field, probably starting …
With the arrival of the autumnal equinox, my writing will begin to shift away from the garden returning to the topic of Dakota Trails, among other topics. My two favorite days on the calendar are the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, when the light of the world is equal, in complete harmony between day and night. Although autumn is my favorite …
Here’s a question for some of you who spend a lot of time in the outdoors in the fall: How was your pheasant season? “Good enough, I guess,” would be my response. All of us who hunt pheasants in North Dakota are loathe to say anything gloomier than that, because saying “It wasn’t all that great” might mean admitting: We …
Editor’s note: Jim Fuglie wrote this before this past weekend’s pheasant hunting opener in North Dakota. Tomorrow, I’ll join about 90,000 or so of my best friends on one of North Dakota’s favorite days, hunting pheasants on the opening day of pheasant season. I thought I might share here, for those of you who don’t read a magazine called Dakota Country, an article …
Over the past couple of years, I have written several times about the decline in North Dakota’s wildlife population since the Bakken Boom began. It may just be a coincidence that numbers of game species (deer, sage grouse, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope, to name a few) have been decimated at the same time as the big oil boom took …
I learned about this earlier in the week, but today it became official, when my copy of North Dakota Outdoors arrived in the mail: Add bighorn sheep to the list of species for which there will be no hunting season in North Dakota this year. Or for the foreseeable future. At least not likely in my lifetime. The Game and …
Kea snarled at her Master when he tried to get into bed last night. Yes, the dog was occupying His space, which sometimes is shared territory, until he needs to sleep, which is far less than the dog’s requirement these days. At least the spot her hairy body vacates is warm, a good thing when the temp is set at …