Ladies and Gentlemen,

I had a call from a kid I know who works at the cargo section of our airport.

He said "Hello Saeed. We got a shipment of dead animals here from South Africa, and we cannot find the paparework for it. And I just wondered if you have ordered any dead animals from South Africa?"

I said "How many animals are there?"

He said "I don't know, but there are several large crates, just like the ones you normally get your dead animals in in the past."

I said "OK, I will send Walter in the morning to collect them."

He said "No no please, don't send Walter. It is going to be hard enough sorting this out with no papers, and Walter is only going to complicate things"

I said "Alright, I will send my driver to collect them, would that be ok?"

He said "Yeah, that is fine"

Well, we will find what these "dead animals" are when they get here tomorrow.

Very nice, Saeed.

I can only imagine Walter at SCI or DSC....

Cute turn of a phrase ... but the fella got the idea across and provided some levity for the day!

Did well.

That is funny!

This kid is a bit of a character himself.

He has been to my house several times, and no matter how many times I tell him we have crocodiles, he still calls them aligators!

He also calls our cheetahs tigers!
And cape buffalo water buffalo!

Walter has promised to straighten him out, hence his desire to avoid seeing Walter.

Saeed, that is funny.

By coincidence, the trucking company called me yesterday to tell me that my shipment of "dead animals" had arrived (although they didn't call them "dead animals").

They will deliver it to my house on Monday.

I hope this blizzard lets up by then! I have to bring a full body mounted lion and steenbok and several other shoulder mounts into the house, including kudu, hartebeest and gemsbok!

Last time, the trucking company didn't send a lift truck, so my sons and I had to work with the truck driver to dismantle the crate in the back of the truck. It was the size of a small car.

We were carrying in lion and leopard rugs, cape buffalo shoulder mounts and reedbuck, impala, waterbuck, kudu, wildebeest shoulder mounts, etc.

Cars on the road in front of our house slowed down. Some even pulled over. People gawked.

The truck driver was dumbfounded. His questions were very funny.

"Man, where did you GET these?"

"Are you starting a museum?" (I answered, "Yes." )

"WHOA . . . How much did this stuff COST?"

"Wait a minute . . . you're kidding, right?"

"You SHOT all of these in AFRICA?"

"How long were you THERE?"

"Jeez, these things are pretty DANGEROUS, aren't they?"

I don't think the refrigerators he typically delivered quite measured up after that!

LOL...great humor....and also by coincidence my Kudu (another dead animal) just showed up for the wall from my taxidermist yeaterday.....
I'm making pedistals for the Kudu and Gemnsbok now.
In the future I'll be sure to refer to these bits of taxidermy as "dead animals"

My partner refers to my office as "Ed's dead zoo".

Saeed, at least you know they stayed dead! Who was it that said it is the dead ones that get you?

ON a slightly similar note / theme BUT not dead animals ///

In Zambia we are located (deep bush) near the southern Kafue National Park and of cource we are a (private game fenced ranch) which although we established (Dendro Park ranch) 9 years ago now, the local villiagers had (never ever) seen a (game fenced ranch) in their life before, as ranching in Zambia at that time was still to a large degree in its infancy and very rare, and it is still reasonably rare in Zambia considering the size of the country.

To (cut a long story short) whenever anyone regionally is lost and looking for our [Dendro Park Ranch] whenever they question the local villiagers for directions the Dendro Park Ranch the standard answer they get from the villiagers is .....

OHHHH BWANA [ you are looking for the ZOO ] as it is commonly refered to by the local people in their venacular ...

... in fact the local Zambian people are (quite well verseed in English) as it goes back to the mission schools in the Colonial days and they have a wonderful way of USING the ENGLISH LANGUAGE in sentences and can be very descriptive at times with the use of (big sounding words)

AND on an even funnier note (TRUE STORY) before we actually GAME FENCED the property a local (bush walking track) traversed part of the property and after we had erected the game fence ONE EVENING sitting arouns the campfire we heard this sort of (twanging crashing sound) coming from near camp and when we went out to see what had caused it we saw a LOCAL Villiager CHAP wanderering around (slightly bemused and confused) with his bicycle lying on the ground.

This chap had of cource been walking and cyclying along this bush track for decades and suddenly some STUPID WHITE MEN had erected a game fence across the route

Cheers (-:

Peter

A few years ago a neighborhood kid came to the door selling cookies. It was cold outside so I invited him in while my wife and I made our choices. I has several animals mounted on the wall above his head. As we maade our selection I noticed him looking at the animals.
He looked at them for a pretty long while, then turned to me and said. "Mister, your house is filled with nature".

Saeed,

The gators/croc's thing reminds me of my boy's third grade school teacher. Never could get it accross to her that the small antelope in my trophy room was a dik-dik and not a peter-peter.

Rich Elliottt

Poor Walter, yet again.

Here we go again , everyone is picking on that lovable guy...

Mike

Congrats Saeed -- you won the shooting competition, now your trophies have come home! Busy week!

I suspect a part of why Walter is so lovable is because everyone has and knows all these stories about him... but the ones who really know why he is so special is Saeed's kids (not to mention Saeed, himself).

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by retreever:
Here we go again , everyone is picking on that lovable guy...

Mike

I'm surprised Walter hasn't blown his brains out by now. It seems that all anybody does is laugh at him. Not with him at him.

Is he really as simple as he gets represented to be here and on Saeed's tapes?

quote:

Originally posted by Mickey1:

Is he really as simple as he gets represented to be here and on Saeed's tapes?

I've been told he is quite a reputable professional gunsmith with impressive German qualifications, and not a backyard "dabbler".


PS The "ordering dead animals" comment by the worker is funny.

I would have been so tempted to reply,

"What do you mean they're dead!!!"

Along the dead animal story lines I have two. The first a large box arrived fedex at my house from hawaii. It was sent overnight delivery and marked perishable. The gal that delivered it asked my wife what kind of goodies we were getting to eat? Ellen is a non hunter but grew up in a hunting household and is not one to miss a chance to watch what she knows will be a funny reaction. So she told her it was 3 pig skulls and hides from Niihau that I was going to take to the taxidermist. She said you should have seen the look on the drivers face. She looked like she wanted to throw up and neede to wash her hands just from touching the box! I wish I would have been home to see it.

The second story is about one of my friends daughters who is autistic. She is a sweethart and we both get along famously. She is always pestering her dad to come over and see "uncle Mikey's dead animal zoo". She is in kindergarden this year. Those are her words and no-ones else's. I get a laugh out of it. Her mother is a rabid anti hunter but a friend nonetheless. Anyway Kirsten fell in love with a full mounted duiker I have and asked if she could have it. I said sure as long as she could get her mother on board. She looked at me real serious and said "I will just have to wear her down uncle mikey." That was 6 months ago and she has not let up yet! I dont think I will be forgiven for that one anytime soon. Everytime I go over to the house I hear her say "Mom uncle mikey said I can have the little reindeer." I just laugh and go get a beer ignoring the dirty looks.

Kongoni skin



Warthog skin - specially for Walter!



Buffalo tanned skin

Wow!

Nice delivery.........

Saeed,

Great trophies...Congrats!

Got a kick out of the "ordering dead animals."

Does this kid not have the concept of hunting down or what ?

Regards,
Dave

Saeed /

Damn those look very impressive ...

Some WONDERFUL SKINS & HORNS .... that is certainly a nice mixed bag of excellent trophies you have on display there in sunny Dubai ...

I guess your actual trophy room will be starting to get rather full by now !!

Is it possibly time to consider building maybe a (special museum or similar) to house the vast array of mounts and skins that you have built up over the years

Thanks, Peter

Some nice skins.

Awsome

Well, the kid was right. They're all dead!

Rich Elliott

Nice looking stuff. Is that a chrome tanned buffalo hide?

I am kind of suprised how nice warthog backskins look.

My favorite are Red Hartebeast.

Toooooo funny!! This got my day started on the right track!!

I see Walter is still making his mark wherever he goes......

I also liked "uncle Mikey's dead animal zoo".

Saeed.....time to build yet another trophy room!

Congrats,

Bob

Saeed,

That is IMPRESSIVE! Wow ... Congratulations on a fruitful trip.

Saeed,

How long does it take the creases from shipping to settle out of the hides?

Or do you have to do anything other than lay them flat awhile?

Saeed,

I would say the collection looks like the result of an enjoyable hunt. Double congratulations are in order, first for your Silver at the West Asian Games and secondly for your fine specimens. I saw some of your team mates at the Marriott in Doha. I figured they must have been discussing your medal as one of the men was gesturing as if holding a shotgun as he regaled the listeners with his story.

Non-hunters do have a funny take on our sport. One of my friends on the job here often refers to the Qatari Oryx as "goats". When he got here he asked me why Qatar Airways has "that goat with funny horns" on the tail of their jets.

Again, congratulations.

Regards,
Eric

Very nice, Saeed.

Very nice Saeed.
But I don't see any Sabor Tooth Tigas. My boss says he saw the Viet Cong shoot some during the Viet Nam War. I guess they killed them all.