Opening Day

I was up pretty early this morning... about 4am... to make breakfast for my 3 hunters. Waffles and sausage at 5am. (too early to eat!) Then I packed some lunches and snacks, filled thermoses with coffee and hot chocolate, and sent them on their way out back.



It is a pretty mild morning out... not too cold, but brisk. Hopefully that will mean the deer are going to be moving and my hunters won't get too hot in all their hunting gear.

Joyce is sitting in a blind by herself, and Kev & Sammy are sitting together. This is Sam's first year rifle hunting, since Michigan now allows 12-year-olds to rifle hunt. But he'll sit with Kev for a few years, anyway.

During bow hunting recently, Kev has seen a 6-point buck running around... which is a large set of antlers for our area. We don't see 10-point or 12-point bucks around here, not enough farm land. I heard Sammy tell a friend on the phone last night that he plans to get that 6-point... we shall see. We've stressed that hunting is about so many more things than actually harvesting a deer, and the likelihood of shooting that 6-point is not so good. But a boy can dream.

Kev is just happy to have his kids out in the woods with him. He loves it out there, so he wants his children to love it, too... and they do. I enjoy going out and sitting in a blind with Kev now and then, but I take my camera. I love it that my husband is a hunter and that our kids are into hunting, as well. But... it's not that I'm too soft to shoot a deer, because I will cheerfully shoot an opposum & other nasty critters... It's just that I enjoy eating venison, and if I kill, gut & butcher it, I don't enjoy the eating so much. It's like a story I heard about my dad... he once had a job as a butcher, and that set him off meat for a while. I remember hearing that he got really skinny while he had that job, and he didn't have extra body fat to begin with. When I was a kid and we raised chickens for eating, I remember not enjoying the part before the chicken hit the fry pan... I can still picture it, and when someone uses the phrase, 'running around like a chicken with my head cut off'... well, I know exactly what that looks like. But my Mom would make The Best Fried Chicken In The World, with mashed potatoes and chicken gravy... heaven in a big ol' skillet, I tell ya what. One can't not eat Mom's fried chicken.

I'll be making venison chili for dinner tonight... maybe we'll have some fresh venison backstrap, too.