There are unique people around us if we are lucky enough to meet them. I received an email in response to a magazine article about activities in which I have been involved, particularly as a kid on the farm. A reader assumed we might be kindred spirits. She wanted to know if I tanned deer hides when I was young.
A female interested in tanning deer hides? That’s unusual.
Her name is Kelly Calkins. She is a Doctor of Audiology, Alpha Hearing Center on Northlake Parkway. Been there for 20 years.
I told my wife about the email and what the lady did. She said, “Good, you’re starting to need her services.” Maybe so, I’ve noticed that the world seems strangely quieter lately.
She lives in Lilburn. We had coffee at Chick-fil-A. She said she was 49 years old, trim, looking maybe in her 30’s. If I were still in business I would want her to model sable.
“I’m equally at home in Saks or Bass Pro,” she said. “My mother taught me to love fashion and my father taught me to love the outdoors.”
“Where did you get the hides?”
“I hunt. We eat venison,” she said. “My husband and I also grow much of the food we need.”
“Where do you hunt?”
“With friends, and occasionally with a farm owner.”
“What do you use?”
“A 308 Ruger. I shot a wild boar last year.” She grinned.
I was amazed when she said she had canned bushels of tomatoes. “They’re from our garden. We want to be independent, not using grocery stores with their sprayed vegetables and meats loaded with steroids and growth hormones. We also grow herbs and other vegetables. I can everything. I have three bee hives. I’d like to have cows and chickens, but not enough room.”
“I sensed we had a lot in common,” she said. She invited me to her house to have venison stew and to see where she plays in the dirt. She gave me a tour. I saw her touch things growing that I didn’t recognize. I saw a kaleidoscope of floral colors.
“I like doing this,” she said. “We began gardening in 2003. It is addictive and rewarding. People have become much too dependent on others.”
The stew was delicious.
“So how did you tan deer hides?”
“I scraped off the tissue. I soaked the skins in tannic acid water from a stump of an oak tree we felled. I had chopped out a concavity. Rain had filled the hollow and within two years the water became acidic. I tumbled the skins in wood chips in a wooden whiskey barrel, turned by a Briggs and Stratton. That pulled loose hairs from the follicles and stained and softened the hides. Then I stretched them out on a frame to dry. My grandmother made mittens, earmuffs and leggings.”
“I have a manual showing how to soften pelts by rubbing animal brains into them,” she said. “I may try it.”
“I know Indians in Canada who do that and I think a Foxfire Book explains it, also.”
There is something satisfying about discussing earlier times. We agreed we would like to hear cows mooing and roosters crowing at dawn. Time slows, less anxiety.
Bill York has lived in Stone Mountain for 35 years. Reach him at sioux2222@gmail.com
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