Scrounging For Antlers

Scrounging for Antlers  

 Two men at the Sportman's Show, appreciated the  artful fall arrangement 

for sale.     

   One remarked,  tipping back his camoflauge cap,  "I like this one with the rusty saw and the shed deer antler! I wonder if the lady will sell the  deer antler separate."

When my husband  and I lived in Montana, we   hiked up to the top of the Madison River Buffalo Jump  late in the summer.  The  mountainous terrain was  mostly tan rock, tan grass, tan sage, and a tan teepee ring.  On our  way down, making our way through a tan gully,  I happened upon a pile of pheasant feathers and had the urge to decorate.   "Color!" I explained.  

Muskrat Carved

The World Taxidermy & Fish Carving
CHAMPIONSHIPS
St. Charles, Missouri  May 3-7, 2011

     This brochure came in the mail  with Jay's last mail order of lacquer paints. 
He carves  decorative fish decoys.

     What caught his eye most, was an article about the Friday Carving Seminars of Bob Berry, who created many of the trout fish designs for Big Sky Carvers (Manhattan Montana) where Jay once worked as a finish duck decoy carver.  These days Jay carves and paints folk art  and contemporary fish decoys.
    

     But when Jay was a teenager- during high school, he sent for a correspondence taxidermy course -  his first project,  a pigeon.  

     He says,  "The pigeon didn’t turn out - it had thin skin." 

     The taxidermy course ran its course, and instead, he  raised a flock of white king pigeons that flew around in  the haymow of the barn where  he shot baskets aiming for a basket ball hoop to the rhythm  of a 45 rpm playing Sweet Georgia Brown.  

Muskcrat wood carving by Jay