Sunday, December 6, 2009

You can tell right away that this building was never intended to be a family residence. No self-respecting woman would ever sit still for her tar paper to be installed on the horizontal and vertical axis. At least most of the women I know wouldn’t. (Well, maybe a couple — and you know who you are.) In any case, this is the namesake structure for the Chateau Log Cabin Hunting Club.

From all outward appearances, it would appear that the CLCHC hasn’t been active for a number of years. The front porch obviously took a tumble a while back, but there is no detritus left scattered promiscuously about the premises, so it is apparent that someone cared enough about the old place to clean up the mess. This one is not far off Arkansas Highway 48 east of Carthage, Arkansas. We’ve been there before on these pages.

Deer hunting in Arkansas and particularly in the woods of south Arkansas is serious business. People plan their vacations around the hunt. They spend heavily on weaponry, four-wheelers, and other appurtenances considered to be necessary the sport. Back in the day, in a town near where I formerly hunted in deep southern Arkansas, the male attendance in the local school system during the one-week season (it’s longer now) was so sparse, the administration admitted defeat and closed the schools for the week.

In the years that I hunted, personally, I was never patient enough to sit on a stand and wait for Bambi’s dad to amble by. Fortunately, in that day and time, hunting with dogs was still legal and popular. My relatives had a pack of deer dogs and a couple of horses. They assigned me to be one of the mounted “dog-pushers,” a very cool job. The horse, the dogs, and I would chase the deer, hopefully in the direction of the hunters. There is something to be said about “riding to the hounds,” and it is all good.

At the end of the day, we would gather back of the club building, wax eloquent and sit around and talk about how tough we were. Something similar probably went on at the Chateau Log Cabin. And at the end of the week, we would “call in the dogs and **** on the fire.”

N O T E S:  
Nikon D300, tripod mounted, ISO 200, Nikkor VR 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 G ED, on all shots which are composites from multiple exposures. Base exposures were cabin side and front were 1/125 @ f4.5, the sign 1/25 @ f4.5.

But wait, there’s more!
See the second building, inside and out, complete with gunshot holes, on our blog, Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind. Also an 1850 Methodist Church and a pore ol’ house about to cave in.

Click the jump wings to see the previous Photo of the Week.

Click the camera for an index to every Photo of the Week.

Most of the time, there is more to the Photo of the Week story than can be told in an essay. And most of the time there are more pictures to be seen. Presuming that some folk will enjoy being privy to this trove of information, I have created a blog, “Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind,” where I am showing and telling “the rest of the story." There are also some blatantly commercial mentions of some of the things we do to earn our beans and taters. Click on the Weekly Grist logo and go to the blog.  — J. D.