Ellen and I checked out our opening
morning deer stands last week on Wednesday morning. We begin our gun
deer hunt on a parcel of Ellen's brother Bill's farm in Grant County.
The area was dubbed “the Bench” long ago by her Uncle Mose I
guess, so called because it sets like a bench up above the Grant
River bottom land fields and is surrounded by steep hardwood
hillsides sort of like the back of a bench. Anyway, it was a gloomy
morning but not raining while she went to work with her Fiskars
geared brushing tool, cutting prickly ash, berry canes, small junk
trees, and eye stabbing overhead branches to make an easier path in
to her spot. We left a fold up chair leaning against the tree, and I
punched some reflective tacks into the trees along the way as we
left. She wrapped a small tree with bright orange marker ribbon too.
We cleaned up some of the brush around my stand too. There was a
large wasp nest hanging nearby. It seems like there are more paper
wasp nests around this season.
After we finished, we drove up to Barb
and Chuck's farm and got put to work. Barb had a pot of potato soup
warming up on the stove, but she and Chuck were in the process of
making dried apples slices. They have several prolific trees that
were loaded with beautiful fruit this season. (Johnny Appleseed,
a.k.a. Chuck, said he planted so many trees to keep Barb from driving
up to Gays Mills and spending so much on bags of apples.) Anyway,
the sink was full of peeled and cored red delicious from one of their
trees. The apples were soaking in a lemon water solution to keep
them from turning brown. Barb had four or five dehydrators rounded
up, and we all started layering apple slices in them; Barb sprinkled
the slices with cinnamon. The kitchen smelled of apple pie and
cinnamon. When we had the kitchen back in apple-order, Barb ladled
up steaming bowls of soup while Chuck sliced some cheese and put out
crackers. It don't get no better.
We dropped in on my mom too. My number
one fan, she doesn't get the paper or use the internet, so Ellen cuts
out the Journal and saves them for her every week. At nearly 83, she
is loving her retirement. Going out to brunch, gambling, and
spending time with her grandkids.
We had some excitement around the ranch
this week what with the rut in full swing. Our nephew Chet showed up
at the door - right at lunch time, Monday morning. (Did you ever
notice how relatives seem to time things for meal time?) Anyway, he
appeared shaken. Then he told us his story. He had arrowed a deer
in the early morning. He waited awhile, and then contacted Eli who
was hunting nearby by text message. Chet told us the two of them
tracked the deer across the hollow into the woods and down the hill
back the way it came and then lost the track in the spot we call the
Mushroom Hole. He wanted to call his friend, Monica who has a
licensed blood tracking dog.
Ellen fixed us toasted cheese
sandwiches and then we headed out. Chet showed us the last blood and
then went to call his friend with the dog. Ellen circled around a
bit and found the blood trail again. She almost always does.
Anyway, we were hard on it, when Monica showed up with Louis, a Czech
wire-hair. Louis is licensed to blood track. Monica had a harness
on Louis rather than a collar. She had a 20-foot nylon web leash.
She also had a tracking and shock collar just in case. It was a good
thing Monica is in shape because Louis was all over that blood trail,
kicking up the wounded deer in just minutes. Ellen saw it get up and
run. It turned out that instead of running into the woods like one
might figure it would do, it crossed an open field, the road, and hid
in the tall weeds of a ditch. Monica said that Louis actually walked
up and touched the downed deer with his nose. We had it. Anyway,
Chet was finally able to tag it and I gutted it for him.
On Sunday morning, Chet called. He
stuck another deer. A nice 8-pointer he said. He feared it wasn't a
good hit, so we decided to wait for a few hours to begin tracking it.
His daughter, Taryn, a sophomore in high school, was in one of my
blinds and had some excitement of her own. She said a forked buck
jumped the fence from the field into our food plot nearby. She got
pretty excited, shaking and all. The buck started walking toward
her, and she began pulling her bow back, but her release caught on
her coat and she doinked the arrow a few feet out of the blind. The
deer walked away.
That afternoon, Chet and Eli and Taryn
were on the blood trail up the hill when Ellen and I decided to bring
the four wheeler up to help. We were on a logging road just below
the Oak Stand when we came upon Chet's buck stretched out right on
the road. El walked up the hill to look for the trackers, while I
tried calling Chet and finally got Eli. The buck proved to be a nice
one and Chet was pretty pumped. After pictures, I let him use my
Cutco serrated blade knife to gut it himself this time. Two deer in
one week for him; he should buy lottery tickets I think. Anyway, his
freezer is full, and that's a good thing as he has to work all of gun
season. Congratulations Chet.
Until next time, get out - Eli, Pat,
and Brad brought us a cooler full of meat sticks, brat and cheese
patties, marinated chicken breasts, and venison bacon this week in
appreciation for letting them hunt. Thanks boys. Let's see, apples
and cinnamon, potato soup, cheese and crackers, grilled cheese
sandwiches, meat sticks, brat patties, chicken breasts, and venison
bacon; do I write about food too much in the journal? Nope. I
gotta wrap this up and send it off. It's time for breakfast. Life
is good. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment