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Thursday, December 3, 2015



TBT - Throw Back Thursday

Recently several people have mentioned that I haven't blogged much anymore!  Believe me, I've had plenty moments that are blog worthy lately - I just haven't had the time.  So, today I'm going to blog something that I wrote many years ago - like....maybe 9-10 years ago!  I know - ancient right?  

I'm working the Shop today and a gentleman was in telling me a "hunting" story.  He didn't buy anything but he kept me entertained with his stories!  Once he was gone and the visions of dead deer in the woods was stuck in my head I started to reminisce about the days when Nic, my son, first started hunting.  And then I thought about this piece that I wrote many moon ago after one such hunting trip. 

Don't know why I wrote it - it was in the Pre-Facebook, Pre-blog, Neanderthal error - but I was inspired and I did and so here it is for your TBT pleasure! It's called NO BIG DEAL!  Enjoy!

No Big Deal

My son is a hunter.  We don’t know why he likes to hunt or how he even caught this fever.  My husband wasn’t a hunter and did not grow up in a hunting family.  In fact, his family was much opposed to the idea since his uncle was killed in a hunting accident.  Then, enter, Nic who likes to hunt.  So, my husband decides that there is no way that he is sending his son (who inherited the clutz gene from me) into the woods alone with a weapon. So, now, my husband also is a hunter!

They bragged last night as they were getting ready for the hunt about how they were the men folk going out to get the meat for the family.  I asked them if they’d shoot a cow this time instead of a deer as I don’t much have a taste for Venison.  They laughed - I was serious.

The hours passed and it soon became dark.  The phone rings.  It is Nic.  He speaks with half excitement, half disappointment.  “Mom, I got a deer, but she ran away and we can’t find her – we’re looking and have called friends to come help so we won’t be home for a while.”  A few moments later Nic’s uncle Jerold called to talk to him.  When I told him of the situation he and his wife decided to join the forest search party and headed out for the woods with flashlights in tow. 

They had just gotten home when I arrived from church.  Half frozen and nearly starved to death, my Hunter Husband says to me – you’ll have to take him out in the morning to look for the deer!  What!!!???  You’ve got to be kidding me!.  How did I suddenly become involved in this?  There was no asking, no pleading just the command of what needed to be done.  I kept asking questions of who, how, what and why and the biggest question of all was – “How do you expect me to get our 4 year old daughter up at 6:45, drive him out there, possibly bring back a dead deer (which by the way, I have a real thing about dead animals) and be at work by 9:00 and Nic to school at a decent time?  No one really took much time answering my questions because they could see the darts flying form my eyes and the steady stream of steam fuming from my ears. They just looked at me and said, “It’s really not a big deal”.  

Once in bed, I again began to spout off about my dissatisfaction with being involved in this endeavor.  Then, I was informed, once again, that it really wasn’t a big deal and I was making more out of it than it was.  “So, how in the world do you expect me and Nic and Hannah, to hang up a dead deer if we do in fact find it?”, I asked my confident husband.  “You’ll figure it out, he said”!  Yeah, right and why don’t I just bring it home and butcher it too all before 9 a.m.!!  My husband didn’t bother saying good bye to me that morning before he left for work, but he did yell downstairs to inform me that the dog had puked in the floor!  Now, wait a minute, if it really isn’t such a big deal to go out into the woods and handle a dead animal then it really shouldn’t be such a big deal to clean up a small puddle of doggie phlegm should it?  I’m really kicking myself for not shouting back upstairs, “Clean it up – it’s not a big deal”!

I was only expected to take Nic out and then go back and get him after the deer was found, dragged to the jeep and gutted.  But, Hannah, our 4 year old, was so excited and I felt bad about not being a more supportive mom that I bundled her and I up and at the first crack of daylight we headed out with Nic to the woods behind a friends home (or the crime scene as I like to refer to it).  I was hoping we’d easily come upon the chalked outline of the animal in question, load her into the jeep and head back home for a quick cup of hot cocoa before it was time to go to work.  But no such luck.  Nic gets Hannah on the look out for the “blood trail”.  Just the words – “blood trail” is enough to make my stomach churn but my 4 year old daughter suddenly became part hound.  If she had a tail it would have been wagging with excitement.  She was on that like a fly to garbage.  And good at it she was.  After about ½ hour searching and searching she and Nic find a “blood trail” in the cornfield.  I’m thinking, how in the heck are we supposed to drag a dead deer out of a very dense cornfield?  My son assures me that he’ll just drag her out!  Yeah, right, oh yeah, of course, No big deal!   I didn’t go into the cornfield because I was determined to find this poor dead deer lying in plain sight in front of the jeep!  Pretty soon I cannot hear or see my oldest and youngest offspring (the middle child had morning practice or he would have been there too).  I call Nic on the cell phone.  Hannah was sniffing her way through an unbelievable blood trail they had found deep in the corn field and they just knew they’d find this dead deer (the victim) soon.  Finally at 8:26 I inform my son via cell phone that I have to be to work in ½ hour and will need to leave soon.  He is nice and asks for about 5 more minutes.  I am feeling bad that I didn’t go into the cornfield now so that I can rescue my most likely frozen and starved preschooler and not have to take Nic away from his “blood trail”.  Pretty soon they come out, he with a very discouraged look, she with snot streaming all the way down her face but still a look of exuberance I will never forget.  As I watched them emerge from the corn field I couldn’t help but say out loud – here they come – The children of the corn!  Wasn’t that a movie once? 

He drove us back to our van and he headed back to the cornfield for another look.  This is when the adorable little snot nosed girl who was her brothers right hand search assistant turned into the child from h – e double hockey sticks.  She whined and cried the whole way home complaining how cold she was and how she wanted to stay with Nicky!  I let her know we had only 5 minutes to change our clothes and get to day care/work and that I would need her full cooperation. I might as well have been speaking directly to the dead deer. I’m going full speed ahead at home pulling her icy cold toes from her wet socks and shoes.  She is screaming that she hates the jeans I picked out, she doesn’t want to wear those shoes and I hurt her foot when I put her shoe on.  I think her head even spun around – I’m not sure because I was screaming myself and dealing with a “blood trail” of my own in the bathroom!

We throw on coats that Hannah of course, does not want to wear and race to the church – you know the place of peace, the home of the Lord, where I work and Hannah goes to school.  My mother in law is waiting on me to help count the church offering.  I tell her my tale of woe.  None of which she finds humorous - just a look of concern that she might see her sons name in headlines soon. 

I get a call from a very disappointed Nic around 9:45.  He still can’t find the deer and realizes he needs to get to school.  My mother in law, bless her heart, offers to drive him to school.  I drive out to the friend’s farm and follow my son back because he is not suppose to be legally driving yet.  Grandma is there to meet us at home.  Nic seems to think he has time for coffee and some t.v. – No big deal!.  I started screaming again for him to get in the shower.  I throw some food items in a bag for my lunch and headed back to the church – the place of peace,  after I called the school to say that Nic is running late and praying they don’t ask me why.  They didn’t.  My husband will rush home from work to comb the corn field for the “victim” after work since Nic has basketball practice.  I hope he finds her this time - if not maybe he’ll take my advice and shoot a cow next time – they don’t run fast or far.  In any event, it’s really no big deal!