Good Morning from the Woods

 I’m currently sitting in a “shooting house” (a big box on a platform), eating my Quest bar and drinking my Espresso Mocha, trying to keep warm and watching the woods wake up. This is the first season I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hunting. 15 years ago, if you would’ve asked me if I would’ve started my day like this I would’ve laughed. I wasn’t opposed to hunting back then. In fact, I had been “hunting” once before with an ex-boyfriend. If you could call it that. A group of us drove around, looking for a deer to shoot from the car. Thankfully none were killed that day and in hindsight I realize that wasn’t hunting.

Hunting is sitting for hours, sometimes in the heat and sometimes in the bitter cold, listening and observing. It’s about deciferring between a squirrel and a deer making noise. It’s about talking to God while surrounded by His creation. It’s about bonding with your kids. This season P and I hunted a lot together. There was a little spike that came out almost every time we hunted together. So we named it Mike and made up stories about the little spike. Hands down, my most memorable hunt was with E early in the season. We were in a ground blind and deer were all around us. I watched two bucks fight. I watched a buck chase a couple does. It was such a fun hunt even though we didn’t kill a deer. Another magical hunt was around New Years when P and I sat in a “shooting house”, watching it snow. The woods were covered in white and it was beautiful.

A misconception about hunting is that it’s all about killing. One thing it is not about is shooting every deer that walks in front of you. If that was the case, we’d have a freezer full of meat every season. We have some pretty strict “rules” about what to shoot and what to let walk. That’s why it’s special when one of us does harvest a deer. Let’s take P for example. He hunted hard this season. Hunted almost every weekend. Sat in exposed tree stands in temps that dropped to the teens. He let several deer walk because he wanted his first real buck to be one he was proud of. That moment came last night when he shot a mature 8pt. I was so proud of him!’ His smile was from ear to ear the entire night.

I’m proud that we can harvest our own organic meat. It is 1000x healthier than anything you can buy in the store. I can go more into depth about my thoughts about deer vs store bought meat but I won’t.

So, today, I finish out the hunting season. There’s a high probability that I won’t see anything and that’s ok. It’s been over 2 years since I’ve shot a deer, despite seeing dozens of them. For me, right now, I’m just happy being in the woods, watching the world wake up and thanking God for another beautiful day!