Where I live and travel, it's a matter of fact to see deer hanging on poles. This time of year, we see dead deer hanging all over the place.

It is as much a part of life as moving hay and pushing snow.

We went on a truck tour a few days ago and saw a deer hanging that was not the same one we had seen there before.

This one was a small doe; the other had been a fork-horn buck. “First one must have been cut up,” was the consensus.

I cannot understand why people have a problem with this. Sure, it's a dead animal. But it came from here, lived its life here, died here and will be used here. Contrast that life with feedlot beef. Or pigs. Or lambs.

What is it with the public's seeing dead animals? Most people eat dead animals but never see them. With vegetarians, I'm ready to give some slack.

Still, I want to look at their belts, their pocketbooks and their shoes. Come on now. Everything comes with a price. If it is visible, is it somehow more wrong?

But here we go with hanging deer. For some people, it is a hard thing to see.

With us, the interest is whether the deer is hung from the neck or the feet. This is an age-old controversy.

If you want to get an argument going in a deer camp, this is a sure-fire way. In my youth, at Clarksville Pond, it was instilled in me that the way to go was to hang a deer by the legs. You'd cut a hole through the hind-leg tendons and run a stout stick through and that's where your rope would go. It was easier to take care of a deer hung by the hinds.

Similarly, you can get a good argument going about how long to hang a deer before cutting it up — the age-old “aging” argument. I'm one to cut and wrap the moment the hide's off.

There are many others out there who advocate letting a deer hang for up to a week to “tenderize.” But then I suppose it depends on how you intend to cook it.

Because I dislike roasts and savor the wildness of the meat, my preference is to cut the deer into small slices and trot it through one of my Griswold frypans, with onions and garlic, at the last minute, after everything else is on the table.

The wild-game taste is part of the treat.

I have two friends hunting on my property who have made a point of coming by to make sure they are welcome (anyone is) and to make me aware of where their stands are. They have promised me a piece of whatever they get.

If only life and neighborliness and the food-chain were so simple elsewhere. But in this ever more developed world, that cannot be the case.

John Harrigan's column apears weekly in the New Hampshire Sunday News. His address is Box 39, Colebrook 03576. Email him at hooligan@ncia.net.