The Great (or maybe not-so-great) Deer Hunt of 2020
Nick and I both had buck tags to fill. We hunt to feed ourselves throughout the winter and sometimes for Christmas gifts - because everyone we know appreciates homemade orange cream jelly and deer sausage gifts.
We spent the better part of the first-week driving, driving, more driving, walking, walking some more, and getting a bit lost four or five times with not much luck on seeing those antlered beauties.
Day 1 was pretty uneventful, to say the least. We saw a lot of the countryside, but no deer.
Day 2, however, was a bit more interesting.
It started off with me throwing my back out trying to put on my Superman shirt. Cruel irony right there. It was pretty painful and took a good 8 hours to stretch it out enough to be tolerable. After it started to feel somewhat better, my husband saw the first buck of the season. Let me tell you - the excitement was extraordinary. He leaped out of the driver seat, on a back road, without putting the truck in park, and there we went (kids and all) ghost riding the pickup down the road.
I jumped over the center console to put the truck in park before it found the ditch, and threw my back out for the second time in one day.
All was quiet for the rest of the first week. We drove, we walked, we walked some more, drove some more, and kept on walking. It was getting pretty ridiculous. No d@mn deer to be found. At least, not in areas where we could legally shoot them - so we didn't.
The second week is another story...
Nick went back to work that Monday so I was on my own. I spent the day - walking, walking, driving, and more walking to find absolutely nothing.
Tuesday rolled around and I decided I'd try a new area. My son stayed home for a personal day (It's well needed at 12) so I gave him a hug and told him to call if he needed anything and I'd try my hardest not to get lost.
About 2 hours in I was on my second mile-long walk into the woods following a big buck. I chased that d@mn thing around until I was a half-mile back to where I started and then found a very large hole with my LEFT foot hiding under the snow. Well, my foot went in the hole, my ankle went one way, the knee went the other way, and something popped in there like a gunshot. I let out the loudest ostrich cry I could and laid there for a good 10 minutes waiting for the burning pain to settle down enough to do something.
**Now, let's go back to the first week for a hot second. I capitalized "left" up there because my RIGHT foot already took a beating at a lumber yard the week before on day 5. I was hauling a lumber cart through the parking lot, hit a bump in the pavement, and launched that cart onto my right heal so hard that I almost burst into tears. It was an instant bruise, swelling, pain-filled experience while I was blocking traffic and trying not to cry my way back to the pickup with this stupid giant cart.
I still can't get a boot on my right foot without cringing, so I've been living in my mukluks for almost two weeks now.**
When I made it home, my son felt horrible for me and asked, "Why didn't you call me?"
So I said, "What were you going to do? You never would have found me where I was and you can't drive."
He says, "I could have taken the ranger and rescued you!"
I'm really glad I didn't call him. If he would have come out for my rescue, I'd have a sprained ankle and a lost 12-year-old freezing to death in the grasslands. But, it's the thought that counts. He took care of my crippled behind the rest of the day and it was greatly appreciated.
During my "injured mom pampering afternoon," I decided to put that Superman shirt back on because it's soft, comfortable, and warm. The perfect shirt for nursing an injury. While I'm curled up in the recliner, Mason sees that Orangy (our farm cat) is out back with her new babies. Mason decides to run out and see if he can catch the cute little fluffy black one (later to be named Demon) and ends up getting little angry cat teeth plunged into his fingers. This little turd latched on so tight that he had to "yeet" the cat off of him and he comes running back to the house with a handful of blood.
He notices that I'm wearing the Superman shirt - that everyone has declared as bad luck already - and he screams out, "YOU NEED TO BURN THAT SHIRT RIGHT NOW!" Needless to say, it has been rehomed to the burn pile, never to be spoken of again. His fingers have finally healed. I got the swelling down with a hot baking-soda soak and lots of antibiotic ointment, and Demon the cat is no longer welcome around here.
So...back is feeling better, but now my left ankle, knee, and hip (for some reason), along with my right heal are just completely screwed. Yet, I'm a mom and I sucked it up and kept limping my way through deer season.
Fast forward a few boring hunting days to the last Friday of the season. We're scrambling to fill our tags and beginning to think that we've wasted both of them when we stumble upon old grampa buck (that for some reason I named Howard) and Nick got a shot off.
Here we are out in the grasslands again and trying to get this guy down completely before he runs too far away from our vehicle. Well, it was heartbreaking to see how hard Howard tried to get away from us and I felt absolutely terrible when we caught up to him. I won't go any further into that, it's kinda sad. I like to eat them, but I hate to watch them die.
Now, I am the deer gutter in the family. After 6 years of hospital work, I'm the only one with a strong enough stomach to do the dirty job it is. My husband paid me $20 to gut his deer so I got to work. We were almost a mile from the truck and freezing cold with the relentless ND winds. I got old Howard (may he rest in peace) cleaned out and we were ready to start the long haul back to the pickup. Holy hell that was difficult. We must have taken about 9 breaks just to get halfway back.
However, when we got halfway back, I realized something horrifying. The pickup keys were missing. I had put them in my pocket (I thought) but now they were gone. I freaked the hell out. I froze there, in absolute horror, and turned around to look back at how far we'd come and kind of half-whispered/half-cried, "Oh my god...I don't have the keys!"
You should have seen the look on my husband's face.
We set Howard down and tried to follow the trail back through the tall grass, looking at every square inch of grassland we covered until we got back to the innard pile. No keys. I'm crumbling inside at this point. I'm frozen, starving, both feet are killing me, back is hurting, shoulders are locking up from dragging the deer, and just completely terrified that we'd be stuck out there with no pickup keys - and it is all my fault.
On the way back to Howard again, we've come to terms with the fact that we're totally screwed at this point. Like some kind of freaking miracle - there were the keys! Just one key and one key fob thingy laying in the grass waiting for us to come back for them. The excitement and relief that exploded out of my husband scared the ever-living crap out of me, but mine followed shortly after and I no longer felt like I was going to lose my mind. I did, however, feel really, really, really stupid.
We bypass Howard and go to the pickup and immediately unlock all the doors and leave the keys inside with a window cracked in case we lost them again. We grabbed the sled I'd loaded up, got our deer, and got the hell out of there.
One tag down, one to go.
Saturday rolls around and here we go again. This is the last weekend, so we're hitting it as hard as we can looking for one more. I wasn't allowed to handle the pickup keys anymore. Yet, Nick dropped them 3 times because "they're slippery" - which they are. They're like holding butter when your hands are frozen. At least he dropped them within 10 feet of the vehicle though...
All day long, we hunted. No bucks. We get back home, cook supper, relax a bit, then step out on the porch (two hours after hunting time ended for the day) and see Mr. Smart-a$$ buck underneath our yard light prancing around like he's trying his hardest to rub it in. We swore at him (I flipped him off) and went back inside to pout, hoping that we'd find him again tomorrow.
No luck Sunday. This is the last day of hunting and we scoured the countryside until the very last minute. I'm not going to lie - I am relieved up to my eyeballs that this season is over. Nick feels bad that I didn't get to fill my tag, but I was more relieved than sad that I didn't have to endure any more injuries or mishaps again until next year. Granted - it feels like a waste not to be able to fill it. The hours, money, and effort we put into finding those deer was ridiculous. We could have had steak and lobster every night for a week instead...honestly, I could really go for some lobster right now.
We also have a lot of new hunting stories to gradually embellish over the years while we're drunk around the bonfire.
I hope next year's season doesn't result in a blog post and we just get our deer down quickly and go on with our lives. But...with us...I wouldn't be surprised if I'm back here reporting new and ridiculous mishaps and shenanigans to you guys.
***If you'd like to more of the photos from our grasslands adventures pop on over to my Instagram page: Bohemian Firefly
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