You better watch out Bambi, Bob is back

The house is smelling wonderful right now because I've had two big pork roasts in the oven since about noon. But that's not the big news.

The big news is that Bob the crossbow hunter was here setting up his tree stand earlier. He hasn't been around since I saw him get that doe in early December. A nice clean shot. She ran maybe twenty yards and then laid down next to the creek. Bob told me that he's also gotten three bucks on the property this year. So the score to date is Bob four and deer minus four. Things are just as they should be in the great circle of life. There are still plenty of the lily bud ravagers running around so I wished Bob well in getting a bunch more if he can.

Bob mentioned that his son is heading back to China with his family soon. He's a missionary there. Bob tells me that it varies depending on the province; but the Beijing authorities have been reasonably tolerant of Christian missionaries. Bob's son must be a pretty brave man, for the Chinese government has not been at all tolerant of the Falun Gong people they've been persecuting for the past few years. There are some pretty shocking but credible stories out there about the things they've been doing to Falun Gong folks. Bob said his impression is that the Chinese government is moderating it's oppression in general as a result of all the world attention from the Olympics and all; but it's hard to be sure.

Time will no doubt tell; but the view of time in China's governing circle is a bit different than here. There's a famous quote out there about one top Chinese leader's response in the 1970's when asked his opinion of the French revolution. He said, "It's too early to tell yet." For those of you who went to high school in the last thirty years I'll add that the French Revolution happened in 1789 or thereabouts.