This is my daughter Kiana. She's incredibly virtuous. She's an outstanding student, smart as can be. She's a great cook. She knows how to sew and embroider (which i don't). She's great with the smaller kids. This year, her first hunting year, she single handedly shot this bear and buck dropping them with a single bullet each. She then gutted her own deer and helped cut meat off and process both. Incredible girl. Not so with my hunting endeavors.......
Perhaps it's because I grew up in an anti hunting family. Maybe I can blame the ranting and raving I witnessed as a child each hunting season. Rude hunters trespassing, threatening to shoot our dogs, terrorizing the deer and our family. I grew up with my mom, my grandmother, and my aunt all of whom abhorred guns and hunters in general. Every year I asked for a toy gun and every year the answer was an emphatic "NO!". Finally one year, some one took pity on me and got me a silver toy cap gun with a single toy silver Lone Ranger Bullet. "No Caps!" I was told. "Their Dangerous".
Perhaps it was the first year of our marriage when my husband brought in a hacked off deer leg and told me to cut it up when he was gone at work. That fight eventually ended in some valium, a lecture to him from his mother and him cutting up his own awful deer corpse, which I might add, I did not eat!
Whatever the reason, hunting never came natural to me. I finally started shooting does, not far from the road, in the later years of our marriage, just to try and share in something that Kevin enjoyed. Bucks however always eluded me and it didn't bother me all that much.
This year though, I actually got one. It was shortly after I got my doe, which, by the way, my oldest son helped me get. He spotted it, he gutted it, he drug it out and loaded it up. He then skinned it and he cut the meat off it. He's incredible too.
It all started when they (my kids) insisted I go rattling. Though I was quite skeptical, I went along with it. In years past, I hated rattling because I got too cold. This time I wore many layers though, kind of reminding me of the marshmallow look. There was no impressing my husband in this get up. To add insult to injury, he told me my coat was "too noisy" and insisted I wear an ugly coat of his. Later, I crept through the woods in "too noisy" of a fashion.
Finally, we sat. He told me to quit fidgeting. I can't help being a multi-tasker and sitting waiting around for a deer is just to single tasked. I tried mini crunches and ab exercises. "Stop that fidgeting!!!". Finally I begged to go home. "Wait till dark" he said. Waiting till dark is just too scary, but he was already getting annoyed with me so I figured I'd just better sit. "Can we go home now?" "NO!" He said. "Can I take a nap?" "OK" he said, thinking it was the only way to get me to stop fidgeting. Watching him crash two antlers together a scrape his foot on the ground trying to act like a rutting buck was only entertaining for the first 15 minutes.
Suddenly I woke up to a horrid smell. "Did you fart?!" I said in an accusing whisper. "NO!" he whispered "SHHH". I was just sure it was a bear, because my neighbors told me once if I ever smelled a bad smell in the woods, a bear was sure to follow. "PLEASE can we go?!" "NO". Just then I heard a crashing sound not far away. It was a terrifying sound and I felt goosebumps appearing on me. I just knew it was a killer bear coming to get me. I was froze in a curled up bundle (since I had been taking a nap). Out of the trees appeared a huge mule buck doing the funny mule looking dance. I knew that this was my big chance. Laying there on my side, I took aim. It took forever to get him in my scope. Kevin blew a grunt with his grunt call. It looked straight at me and I shot. He dropped. Then I had a very happy husband. After being married to him for 17 years, his wife had finally shot a buck.
The part we don't tell anybody when he brags is that when I helped him drag it out, I tripped on a rut and fell down with his gun wrecking his $200 scope on a rock. He didn't say anything about that, but his face showed the pain (and maybe just a little pride).
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