The meaning of life on a spring drilling

I’m currently entering week eight of my enforced sabbatical from pigeon shooting. It’s hard to find silver linings except that I’m learning a lot about the anatomy of jaw bones — mandibles — and how long they take to heal, and at least I’ve been able to spend time with friends in the field.

It’s a core principle of mine that if you have a pigeon shooting permission, you need to stay on top of the birds no matter what. This means that, over the past few months, I’ve been setting up hides, putting out decoys and inviting mates along to pull the trigger. It will be some time yet before my jaw can take the recoil