Come Hunt With Me

Up before dawn.  The alarm clock goes off at o'dark-thirty.  Grumble slightly as I roll out of bed; I hate alarm clocks.  The fact that it's going off so very early annoys me; especially as we won't be leaving the house for an hour yet!  All I need is about 10 minutes to get ready.  I'd prefer 50 more minutes of sleep.

Bind unruly hair into a braid, to defy any wind that might arise, and make sure no perfect shots are ruined by hair flying in the eyes at the most inopportune moment.  Potty, put on first layer of clothes, and head downstairs.  Eat light breakfast (today, cottage cheese and a toasted slice of cinnamon bread).  Wait for DH to finish his coffee and wake up.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting. 

This part is hard on my patience, as I am awake as soon as my feet hit the floor.  Years of being off and running as a mom, and no coffee addiction slowing me down.  DH, on the other hand, needs about a good 30 minutes and a couple mugs of coffee before he's awake.  Waiting.

DH's buddy who hunts our property too arrives.  If I hadn't known him for years, I'd feel a bit funny about him seeing me in only my first layer of clothes: cotton socks, long john bottoms, and a turtle neck.  Still waiting on DH.  Waiting.  Waiting.

Okay, he's ready!

Put on second layer of clothes, and head to 'hunting camp', which is located in the basement.  Wait five to ten minutes for DH to get himself suited up, then put on my third layer of clothes, including boots and coat (if I didn't wait, I'd be roasted two minutes after arriving in the basement.  More of the I'm on warp speed and DH is slowly accelerating into his day thing. . .)

Load three shells in gun, put a spare into my coat pocket.  Step outside, rack one in the chamber for the walk to the woods, just to be prepared (going through 300 yards of open field in the predawn, occasionally you find you aren't alone out there!  I've run into coyotes more than once.). 

Walk silently through the field and into the woods.  At the stake placed about 10 yards inside the woods, turn left and pick my way north 27 paces through the trees, then turn east and go 9 more paces.  Find the ladder to the tree stand in the dark.  Climb up, up, up into the tree, ducking under the skirt of the tree stand.  Sit down, then empty pockets of coat into pockets I conveniently sewed into the tree stand skirt.  Chapstick, tissues, snacks, pad of paper and pen.  Settle gun across my lap, and I'm ready for hunting.  Now it's just a matter of waiting for the sun to come up and the deer to mosey by.

All I can see in the dark is the moon.

The view after I've been sitting for half an hour.  Heard a deer snort somewhere over my left shoulder, but it's still too dark to see anything.

The same moon, from the same angle.  Now I can see the trees between us.

An hour passes.  No deer.  Not sight, not a sound.  I have only heard about six gun shots, at varying distances and directions, but none closer than about a mile away.  Very quiet for opening morning.

The view after I have been sitting an hour.  As the sun rises, a ground fog develops in the field and slowly invades the woods.

The view after I have been sitting for two hours.  There have been a few more shots, some as close as about half-mile, but nothing on our property. I have seen no deer, DH texts that he has seen no deer, and neither has his buddy.  The fog has advanced deeper into the woods.

The view behind me.  Any deer out there are silent, on the leaves still wet from yesterday's rain, and invisible in the brush and the fog.

The view after three hours.  The fog is dissipating.  I can, through the trees, see my house and barn in the distance.  Still have not seen any deer.  I am B-O-R-E-D. Did get a kinda blurry picture of a blue jay, though.

Three and a half hours.  Now I'm really bored.  Very few shots to be heard around the neighborhood--neighborhood being about 2 miles in any direction.  To be so quiet on opening morning is very unusual.  Where are all the deer?

I gave up, went into the house, and had breakfast/brunch.  A three and a half hour respite indoors, then back out to the tree stand for more hunting.  The view when I arrived:

And the view an hour later:

Not much has changed.  Same trees, slightly different lighting, shadows getting longer, still no deer!

Now the sun is setting.  It's prime time: the deer should be showing themselves now.  That last hour of the hunt is usually the most active.

Noises off over my left shoulder.  Slowly, I turn and peer behind me.

A deer!  A deer!  So I slowly, not to spook it, pick up my. . . camera.  Camera?  Yes.  It's opening day, and it's a young deer.  Definitely not full grown, perhaps just a button buck.  I'm looking for adult deer.  Better use of a life; more meat.  Hate killing the little ones and try not to have to.  So, I let it go.

Five minutes later, off over my right shoulder, but in some moderately thick brush, I see a large deer approaching.  I watch, telepathically willing it to come out of the brush and into one of my shooting lanes.

But it doesn't.  It disappears into thicker stuff, and the deepening dusk.

I sat about another forty-five minutes after taking this picture, until full dark.  Consensus at the house: three hunters in woods for a total of 8.5 hours (DH and his friend sat an hour longer than I did in the morning) and only 5 deer spotted between us.  A dismal opening day.







Twas the Night Before Deer Season

(My apologies in advance for the bad poetry.)    :0)  

Twas the night before deer season and all through the house,
Every creature was stirring, except the field mouse
(that the cat killed and ate earlier that day.)

The guns were sighted in,
and lined up with care,
in hopes that in the morning,
an enormous buck would fill the crosshairs.

The tree stands were hung,
and shooting lanes cut,
cammies, hats, gloves,
and warm socks tallied up.

Licenses purchased,
snacks loaded in pockets,
alarm clocks set,
fingers itching to pick up a gun and cock it.

DH in his sleep shorts,
and I in my nightie,
tried to go to bed early
so we could be in our stands well before first lightie.

We closed our eyes,
and said our prayers,
for safe hunting
and lots of big deers.

Meal Ideas

As a follow up to Frugal Food #8, where I suggest making a list of everything your family likes to eat as an aid for creating a weekly menu, I thought I'd post our list from this little place here. 

So, without further ado, here's a brainstormed list of dinners (mostly main dish, add your own veggies for sides) that are favorites at this little place here.

Beef	Hamburger	Pork
round steak/brown gravy	spaghetti	pork chops
pot roast	goulash	pork steak
stroganoff	lasagna	stir fry
grilled steak	stroganoff	ham
stir fry	meatloaf	scalloped potatoes
beef stew	meatballs	enchiladas
fajitas	burritos	pork pie
	tacos	bbq pork
	husband's delight
	chili
	hamburgers

Venison	Chicken	Other
stew	oven fried chicken	tuna casserole
venison steak	chicken broccoli rice	tuna salad
venison gravy	grilled chicken ceasar	pizza
steak w/brown gravy	chicken fettucine	calzones
stroganoff	roast chicken	pasties
	chicken noodle soup	bean soup
	chicken pot pie	turkey noodle soup
	chicken enchilada	mostaccoli
	chicken fajitas	manicotti
		kielbasa
		roast turkey
		turkey pot pie
		bratwurst/sausage/dogs

There's almost two months of dinners listed above, should I want to make them all once before having any repeats.  By using a large variety of veggies, the meal possibilities are almost endless with just that short list.

(You do eat more than just three or four different veggies, don't you?  You should!  There are dozens of them, and most can be cooked/served in several ways.  There's no reason to eat corn-green beans-peas-potatoes as your only veggies, as I did when I was growing up.)

The Garden: A Cycle

This is what my garden looks like right now.

There are still some things I need to put away, like the rolled up fencing that the peas grew on this year, and the buckets of stakes.  But all in all, the garden is finished for 2011. This year's cycle is complete.

The vegetables are in the freezer, the cellar, the basement, canning jars, or long ago memories of delicious meals.  The heirloom field corn I grew as an experiment--an experiment that turned out very abundant results--is dried and in barrels in the barn for feeding to the chickens this winter.

Now is a time of rest from weeding and watering and harvesting. 

Now the cycle begins again:  now is the time for planning next year's garden!  Now is the time for research.

Like any gardener, I'm always looking for ways to get better soil, healthier plants, and bigger yields.  Just because I've grown cukes, tomatoes, corn, etc for fourteen years doesn't mean there's not room for improvement.

Soon, the seed catalogs will start arriving in abundance. They are all ready trickling in this month, but the ones I really want, the organic, open-pollinated and heirloom ones, won't arrive until around Christmas time. 

I have a short list all ready of what I want to grow for next year:

Federle, Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes

Red Zeppelin  and Candy onions

Black Beauty Zucchini

Bodacious sweet corn

Bloody Butcher field corn

Cayenne, Jalapeno and California Wonder peppers

Red Pontiac and Kennebec potatoes

That is just a sampling off the top of my head.

Gardening never truly ends; it is a cycle that goes round and round.  Plan, Plant, Tend, Harvest, Plan, Plant, Tend, Harvest. . . It is a lifestyle.



First Snow of the Year

Yesterday afternoon, the air turned cold enough to finally get us some white stuff. 

The deck, 23 hours ago.

Unfortunately, today the sun came out and melted it.  Wah.  I want a good couple of inches on the ground right about now.

Why, when so many people dread the coming of winter, am I wanting to see snow?  Because Tuesday I will be in the woods looking for these:

and they are much easier to track in the snow.  Rain makes them about impossible to find unless they drop in the spot you shoot them, and that doesn't happen very often. (Although I've done it once, and so has DS1 and DH.  Very convenient.)

We have seen at least a dozen different bucks on the property in the last month, more than half of which are sporting 6 points or more.  If DH or I take a buck, it will be 8 points minimum, letting the smaller ones go another year to grow bigger.  The kids can take the 6's, but the 4's and the spikes are off limits.  And until the first deer gets in the freezer, I'm not above taking a nice large doe.  The doe population in our area is huge.

So stay tuned, I'm hoping to remember to take the camera to the woods with me next week and share some nice photos of what it's like to be in the deer blind and the tree stand.  Even if no deer meander my way, it's always a peaceful and enjoyable time out communing with nature.



Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Waiting can be so difficult.  We want things our way, and we want our way NOW! 

Currently, I am waiting for a head cold to go away.  It came on suddenly yesterday afternoon. I don't want to have it, I'd prefer it to have been gone when I woke up this morning, and I'm not thrilled to be waiting for my body's immune system to kick germ butts and get rid of it.  Which is really kind of petty of me, since I rarely get sick.  I should be thankful for my normally very strong immune system.

But this post is not really about having a cold.  It's about all the things getting fixed around this little place here this week and next.  Things that have been put off for months, and, in a few cases, years.   Things we didn't have the money to fix because we were so strapped by the rotten economy since about 2007.  Things DH wasn't about to hire someone else to fix because he's perfectly capable of doing them himself, had he the time (which his job hadn't afforded him because of increased travel demands).  Things we kind of got used to being broken, and just worked around.

I cannot tell you how excited I am about what the UPS man is bringing me in the next few days:

--a new handle/latch for the dishwasher (that broke this summer),

--a new motherboard for my wall ovens (the display on which died in 2006 or so, but the ovens still heat and cook fine without it, you just can't tell what the temperature in the oven is, if it's on bake, broil, convection or clean, or what time it is. . .),

--a new igniter for the gas cooktop that we've been manually lighting with kitchen matches for about two years now (and boy, has the quality of kitchen matches declined in that short amount of time.)

Not to mention that at this very moment, DH is at the home improvement store purchasing parts to fix my drippy kitchen faucet and boards to replace the deck of our utility trailer with.  Woo hoo!  No more annoying drips, and I can load hay on the trailer without falling through the multitude of rotten spots. 

I am a happy camper.  :0)  Would I have been so geeked about a silly little dishwasher latch if we'd been able to run out and replace it the day it broke?  No.  Or the oven motherboard?  The parts to stop the drip from the faucet?  No, and no.  They are just dumb things.  But because we had to wait, we now appreciate them more.

I can even look at this head cold a little more positively: I'm being given a free pass to sit around and rest rather than work at the warp speed most people expect of me because that's the pace they know me to be capable of.

Things I've Learned. . .

Today is DS1's 22nd birthday.  I cannot believe it was that long ago that I became a mother.  Then again, I can barely remember life before motherhood.

In honor of his birthday, I thought I would share some of the wisdom I have gained through the journey of raising him.

1. The methods I learned for training horses work on children too (despite what horrified people will tell you when you share this info with them!):  Patience, repetition, and be quick to discipline obvious willful disobedience.

2. Charming smiles mask devilish deeds.

3. Mommies who nap longer than toddlers better be prepared to clean up huge messes!

4. Six year old boys are beyond comprehension. They are not mentally or emotionally stunted, they are not abnormally hyperactive, they are not deaf combined with extreme vocal volume, they are just six year old boys.

5.   Before the age of about eight, a long period of quiet from your child is something to be feared--they are up to something most likely not good.

6. Any twelve year old boy acting up in public will immediately stop if you insist on holding his hand for the remainder of the shopping trip.  This is his penance for being disrespectful to you.  Most likely you will only have to do this with him once. He will remember.

7. Teenage boys, while trying to make a show of being manly and wanting to protect their mothers, still like hugs and kisses from said mothers.  Just not in front of other people. Except at their high school graduation.  Then it's okay. But only one hug and skip the kiss.  A handshake from Dad is appropriate, save the hug.

8. Grown up sons carry their mothers in their hearts, just like mothers carry their grown up sons.  No matter how far away their lives take them (and especially on military deployment), Mom is always with them.

Happy Birthday, my son.  It has been an amazing journey being your Mom for the past twenty-two years.  I am who I am, partly because of you.