Adding to a Family Tradition

This past weekend my dear Husband took the children and I on an adventure we had never embarked on before.

Two years ago, my husband, his dad, and brother began a new family tradition by going deer hunting at a friend's ranch a couple of hours away. They always had lots of fun and came back with full tummies, full ice chests, and full of stories. It was a nice male-bonding time for the guys.

This year (actually I should say this season) it all got changed up a bit as dear husband was out of the country. We were surprised with an opportunity for dh to get his annual hunting trip in, just a few months later and without his usual hunting buddies. The children and I were invited.

Little Miss Muffet and Little Boy Blue were so excited to have this opportunity to go deer hunting with dad. I, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. We loaded up and traveled Friday evening until we got there after sunset. We were welcomed by the bright moonlight, a few random cats and by the cutest farmhouse with all it's lights on that shone like beacon. The little farmhouse was surrounded by a fence with gates on three sides.

We walked in the door and the first thing you saw was a sign that read, "Welcome To The Ranch." With the space heaters and the lights on in each room, it was welcoming and inviting. It was a little like bed and breakfast meets deer camp. The living room was filled with two old rustic army style twin beds with metal frames. The first bedroom had two four-poster antique cherry wood twin beds, along with matching dresser and nightstand. The second bedroom was well equipped with a full size bed and two twin beds, an antique armiore and chest. The bathroom was very modern with fluffy slippers and robes and big white fluffy towels. There was also a kitchen equipped with just the right amount of pans. I checked out the kitchen quickly, aquainted myself with the contents, unloaded the refrigerated items into the fridge and everyone settled into bed, all before 9 pm.

We all tried to go right to sleep, knowing 5:30 was going to come early. As we waited to fall asleep, I heard an odd noise, dear husband heard it too. We listened carefully and he decided it was a turkey. I wanted to see this wild animal that was making this noise and tiptoed through the house, as not to wake the kiddos, and that is when I heard the noise coming from inside the house. The wild turkey ended up being the hot water heater. So much for the wild animals.

We all jumped up when the alarm rang at 5:30 with anticipation of the days events. I made scrambled eggs, sausage, chocolate covered donut-holes for dh and gluten-free, corn-free maple glazed donuts for the rest of us, and a plethora of fresh fruit to choose from. The three of them gobbled up their breakfast and raced out the door decked out in their new camo duds. One great thing about hunting so late in the season is camo is really cheap ($1 short sleeve t-shirts, $5 long-sleeve t-shirts and overalls). I went outside with them to meet their guide and our host. He let me know their plans, asked if I needed anything, and told me about when they would be back. I hugged and kissed the family and made my way back to the warm house.

I was looking forward to the quiet time alone, a luxury I don't have very often - but I don't wish for it very often either. I washed the dishes, vacuumed the floors and then got myself ready for the day. I crocheted a bit while sitting at the kitchen table. I looked out the kitchen window as I reached for the coffee pot to pour me the last cup of the decaf chocolate velvet coffee. It had such a wonderfully aromatic chocolatey perfume, I just knew it would entice the deer to the deer blinds in which my family each had a large cup of the dark, sweet smelling liquid with them.

As I looked out the window, I saw a buck ... oh, and a doe, and another, until I counted twelve deer in all. I hurriedly tiptoed to the camcorder and got it out of the case. I received a text message from dh, saying they hadn't seen any deer yet. I got the camcorder going and filmed them through the window. I replied to dh's text saying I just shot 12 deer... with my camera. In good humor he sent back one, telling me good, I should have them all cleaned by the time they got back. I decided to get a little braver and I stepped out onto a porch that I wish I had been able to spend more time there. I tiptoed closer, being careful not to bump into the wooden porch swing. In the quietness of the morning, I could hear two young bucks fighting. I heard the antlers crashing together and the crunch of the branches breaking around them. I tried to get a clear picture of them but they were in a thicket and it was too dense to get clear pictures of them. It was a moment of awe, standing outside without my coat on in freezing weather and not even noticing because I was watching nature. The deer were grazing, the big buck looked up at me and saw I meant no harm so he went back to eating the corn. Then I heard an odd sound behind me, kind of curious and kind of afraid, I contemplated just going around to the other side of the house to the other door so I wouldn't have to see what kind of animal was behind me. Instead, I let curiosity get the best of me, I turned around to find a big ole fluffly cat pawing at the screen door trying to get in. It's not that I'm a scaredy-cat, but I had been warned that illegals coming up from Mexico cross through there. In my defense, we were out in the middle of nowhere with no tv, radio or cell phone signal (although text messages usually went through).

I went back in the warm house and decided I didn't want to crochet anymore. (I just taught myself how to crochet last Tuesday.) I looked through the lastest Organic Gardening magazine. I was amazed that I was able to read it from cover to cover in one sitting. Every so often I would want to turn on something for noise, but there were no noise makers there. Solitude. It was soothing, healing and peaceful. I decided I would lie down for a bit and maybe get in a quick nap before everyone got back and the excitement began. Before I fell asleep, I thought I should take my blood sugar reading (pre-diabetes). My family came in wondering where I was, then when Little Miss Muffet saw what I was doing, she asked if I was feeling okay. When I told her it was just a routine check, she sighed with relief and said, "Okay, good! Guess what I just did?! I got to drive!" This is a post for a later time.

Little Boy Blue shot a buck, 7 points! We walked over, cameras in tow and the learning process began. Our host was wonderful and was a great teacher. He showed and explained everything they needed to know about cleaning and skinning the deer. The 110 lb. buck was cleaned, skinned and quartered in about 20 minutes. The kiddos really enjoyed hearing the story of the first time their dad and uncle had to do that. It took them three hours, it would of taken longer if the host hadn't of taken pity on them and told them how to do everything.

I took the learning process a little further and turned it into a Biology lesson. Caution: Queasy stomachs may want to jump to the next paragraph. We looked at the brain in wonderment -- that those little squiggles and pockets of fat with interwoven blood vessels are what holds the deer's thought processes, tells it to run, jump, eat, etc. We cut a cross section and studied it. Dh and the host both took a step back during this. We looked at it's teeth, saw the bristles type growths inside the gum and then looked at the eyes. I've always heard how cow's eyes were easy to disect. We saved the deer's eye to disect a little later.

We were taken on a tour of the ranch, saw breath-taking views and had lots of fun. Our host made a hearty venison stew for lunch. I actually went on the next outing to hunt. I loved the deer blind, it was the pickup. We dropped Little Boy Blue and Dear husband off at their deer blind and then we went and checked on a waterer for some of the livestock on the ranch. The host got out of the pickup and told Little Miss Muffet that it was her turn to drive. She was careful and really concentrated hard on her task at hand, so hard that she didn't hear her instructions to turn. It was funny, anyway she got to go in reverse and did finally make her turn. Don't you just love those private country back roads, that's where so many have learned to drive. Anyway, she parked on top of the mountain and we waited. We waited first for the feeder to go off then we waited for the deer to come. Out of nowhere it seemed, a doe appeared. She stared at us for quite a while. Little Miss Muffet waited. The host asked if she knew where to aim, she indicated that she did. She waited and was patient. The doe walked behind the feeder and disappered from view, but LMM was patient. Then the doe turned and gave her the view she needed. She acted like a pro through the whole thing. Our host thought she had hunted before, but no this was her first deer hunt. We waited a few minutes. The doe hadn't even taken a step, which was good. Our host gutted it for us and the Biology lesson continued. I had Little Miss Muffet name all the organs. The deer's stomach was full and LMM was curious to the contents (thanks, CSI). She cut it open and it was full of grasses. This was impressive to her. We picked up Dh and Little Boy Blue, who had just gotten a spike. Wow, looks like the freezer's going to be full.

We returned back to the farmhouse and had a few minutes before we joined our host for supper. I had brought some baby leaf lettuces, I peeled some mandarin oranges and put in to make the salad. I had also brought some honey mustard salad dressing. It made a nice accompaniment to the steaks, mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas our host fixed for us. We enjoyed sitting out by the fire while the steaks cooked on the grill, laughing about events of the day, laughed at stories from past trips that the host shared with us. No one had a problem going to sleep that night. We all had full tummies and were tired from all of the events of the day.

To be continued....