The Hunting Continues. . .

Day three, bitter cold.  Ground is frozen.  Wind is howling. The dog's water dish, out on the front porch, has an inch of ice in it.  Let's not even talk about the dismal state of the chicken waterers with their shallow pans.  Time to clear a spot in the basement for them to thaw.

But enough about farm chores.  It's deer season!  Back to the main focus here.

I don my trusty Carhartt Arctic insulated bibs, as well as a fleece jacket that zips to my chin, my orange fleece gator and an extra hat.  These are all additions to my hunting ensemble of the previous two days.  So now I'm wearing: two layers of socks, long johns, a turtleneck, the zip-up fleece, a sweatshirt, jeans, Carhartt bibs, hunting coat, fleece gator on my neck going up the back of my head, a black knit hat, my reversible hat that is fleece camo on one side and orange knit on the other, and thick camo gloves that I will have to take off to work the safety and trigger on the gun should a deer actually come by.  Whew!  I have so many layers on I walk kind of like the tin man--not very gracefully. 

The walk out to the woods, through the open field, is a chilly one.  No, scratch that, chilly doesn't begin to describe it.  It's a frigid one.  This feels like muzzle loading season, or the late doe hunt around Christmas time.  What a change from the temps near sixty we had on opening day.  Have I mentioned before the wind we get here?  Seems like the only non-windy days at this little place here are in July and August when it's so blisteringly hot and humid you actually want the wind back.

Despite the wind, I dutifully climb up into my tree stand and settle in for the morning hunt.  I have remembered to bring the camera.  Which is good, because again, there are no deer.

Leaves that are now dry and very crunchy.  Nice for alerting us when deer are approaching.  But also nice for alerting deer when hunters are walking through the woods.  A mixed blessing.

I almost turned into a human Popsicle that morning.  Barely made it three hours, even with all my gear on the wind had me chilled to the bone. 

Throughout the day, temperatures dropped as the wind picked up speed.  So, for the evening hunt I opted to abandon my post in the tree, and instead man the 'apple blind', which is made out of plywood and luan and is nestled into some wild apple trees about 50 yards north of where my tree stand is.  The apple blind has views of the woods and the field, and, more importantly this day, walls and a roof to help shield me from the wind.

I have traded in my aerial view of the woods for one that looks more like a movie viewed on a wide screen television:

A light snow is in the air, small white flakes hang suspended in the wind like dust motes in a summer sunbeam.  Hard to see, but still there (the camera didn't pick them up).

The field, viewed through the top of the door (it's a 1/2 door):

And, the distinguishing feature of the apple blind, the "mouse chair":

The mouse chair came to this little place here after completing a life of service as the driver's seat in my brother-in-law's old van.  When the van was scrapped, the seat was salvaged because of it's promise to be a comfortable spot to sit while hunting. 

At the time the apple blind became the apple blind (it spent two seasons in the far NE corner of our woods before DH decided it didn't have enough elbow room for him, and graciously gave it to me, who at that point had been sitting on an upturned pickle bucket in the weeds near the apple trees), the mouse chair was added to it, perched on a couple of cinder blocks to bring it to the right height.

But it wasn't yet the mouse chair.  The first season I sat in the apple blind, I often had children in tow.  Even before they were old enough to hunt on their own, they often sat with DH or I to experience what it is like to deer hunt.  And their first season when they are old enough to man the gun themselves, we still sit with them until they (and we) are comfortable with them sitting alone.

Well, one of the first days of using the apple blind, DS2 came hunting with me.  He was just 14, and this was when the minimum age for hunting with a gun during deer season in Michigan was still 14.  So, I graciously let him have the chair while I sat much lower (barely able to see out the windows) on a folding camp chair next to him.

The next day, DH went out and used the apple blind. I believe the kids were in school that day and I was at work in the morning.  DH saves his vacation time for deer season, and usually hunts 2-3 weeks straight (he also bow hunts).  Anyway, on this day DH went to pick up the chair to adjust it slightly (if you don't pick it up before trying to turn it, it makes horrible loud noises on the cinder blocks), and when he picked it up he found a squashed, dead mouse.  Apparently the poor mouse had been under the rigid bottom of the chair when DS2 sat on it the previous day, and DS2's weight was enough to crush the mouse to death.

But that's not when it became the mouse chair.  It wasn't until the following year during deer season when I sat in it and could hear squeaking near my ear (the chair has a high back on it) and then felt movement down my back--inside the back of the chair--that it became the mouse chair.

Since then, the hole in the seat has appeared, where mice have chewed into it to make an access from the top of the cushion to their nest inside.

Hunting.  Not for those afraid of mice.