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| For those that know me, this is not behind my house. I caught it while out walking. Why? Because my truck always breaks down and I have my camera with me. I am good friends with Pat and Turner. |
Remember this: For every story with photos of some great hunting experience there is a sad Tale of Woe.
Hunting season with guns did not start until Sep. 15. On the 14th, I stood by a white plastic chemical silo with a .308 scoping some deer that popped out the woods. I knew the law so I couldn't shoot them. I just wanted to get a better look at them. The gun was empty. The next day the herd was back but the neighbor going to church ran them back into the woods. Enter today.....
I used a shower curtain and two bottles of spray paint to make a hunting stand blind. I crawled up and put it in the tree. I later went to work on this effigy mask you see which is only the frame because I have yet to finish it. I worked on it most of the evening because I really wasn't doing it out of a plan I just started playing with materials constructing it. I sat under the car port weaving away on this thing, unconsciously. The light was just lovely outside because it had rained earlier and a blue butterfly landed by me and moved its wings. I was just so peaceful and thought positively. I know what the mask is for. My dad came and went. I worked on a green house we were constructing. My dad left again. I went out into the field and made this makeshift blind out of tobacco burlap, a metal grate and two aluminum tobacco barn rods. I put a chair there too. I figured they wouldn't be walking that way but I was up wind. There had been shooting all day in the woods, forestry work of some kind, nosy and noisy neighbors. The fact I would later be sitting in a combined corn field breathing God knows what didn't help either. I sat down behind the blind with a book and waited.
I heard my dad come up. I always realize that when I am hunting the general direction of where I project the deer will walk out goes contrary to the place I am actually watching. I had told my father earlier that the deer were using my horses as a cover or shield to get across the field without taking a bullet. My dad said, "You have to give them credit for being smart." I thought I saw a shadow moving slowly through the grass. I looked again because it was some ways from me. I figured it to be a smaller deer. I took the scope and followed along the grass around it because I had seen some dark shadows at the edge of the woods. I scoped it out some more. I then finally landed on a grey shadow slowly moving. Once it stood up straight with the long neck. The only thing I could see was the front half of it. It looked like a person standing there with a tight crown on its head. This buck filled up the scope cross hairs. If I shot immediately that would be the only time I would see the buck alive. The buck was just so beautiful and stupidly reminded me of Thrainduil, the Elven King. For a brief moment I wanted to see him alive. Blame it on the Spyglass. I wasn't sure if he was the one I had been stalking since 2009 but he always shoves his horns up in the bushes so you can't tell if he is a buck or a doe. I then thought let me consider the location of my horses. They were to the left of him which he was walking up on them slowly. Right when I thought he would come out for me to get a shot in the right place (because I abhor gut shots) he stops in the grass. My finger is on the trigger and then I hear a shot ring out. I am surprised that I didn't flinch and tap the trigger firing my own gun. I worry my horses will bolt into the line of travel of my bullet. I am thinking to my self....no...no...no...don't shoot again. (Okay maybe I was cursing like a sailor inwardly at the stupidity that my ears were hearing.) Then a second shot rings out. I watched the buck in the scope which is really a small circle of area as it stood in the grass looking in the direction of the gun play. I thought, "Saint Hooks Magoric, am I going to have to rush a shot?" I didn't see the deer hit as if by projectile force but then turned its rabbit tail towards me and I had to watch it walk off into the woods. I was enjoying a full on anxiety attack which is brought on by feeling cornered for time, rushed, or pressured. Pitifully repeating no..no...no...no. I am a strong woman that is not afraid to say....hell yes...I was about to cry. (Okay I admit I am crying now as I write this.)
Situations like this remind me of a dam with one little pivotal pebble that plugs all that raw energy at bay. Some douche comes along and knocks that rock loose and yonder she blows. Every poisonous issue you have will come to the surface and having a therapist there dressed in camo besides you probably will not help you through your emotional ordeal. I argue a couch to lay on as you spill your guts or soul in a corn field.
I also thought I have healed more than I have killed. I thought at one point that if I kill this deer I kill myself. I have a conscience. Given that I have to do something distasteful because last year I didn't have deer meat and I felt it. People do not care if you are without food. If I have to go contrary to my nature and kill something to eat as supplemental food you can imagine what I have to battle with when I hunt. I also pondered the idea that if I had longer moments of seeing them alive I would not want to kill the animals but then I would be upset with the fact or resentful that I have to do something in order to survive. Sometimes you really have to look at the reasons people are doing things. The options in your mind may not be an option to them.
In retrospect for two shots fired.....no deer at all.
I felt one of two ways. Someone had died and I couldn't get the moments back. I was holding someone's hand and they were slipping to their death as I watched their exit. This was a horrible feeling. Probably not as bad as a deer laying on the ground dying bleeding out though so why am I complaining....self centeredness I would presume.
After I got up I seriously wanted to take the gun and my hunting license and put them on the truck; vowing never to pick up a gun or hunt a deer. Maybe stomp them in the dust? I was just disgusted that my experiences that should have been good were ruined by men. On the other hand I know the golden rule of deer hunting:
if you disrespect the deer family your hunting will be cursed for unnumbered days.
After this episode I vaguely remember profanity and the speaking in tongues of gypsy curses.
At one point I couldn't talk I just used hand signals.
Now I have relapsed and do not want the company of men right now. Should I blame all men for the actions of one? Like Joan Wilder I am all out of Kleenexes.
My mother says to me, "Just go hunting tomorrow."
~Written by W Harley Bloodworth~
Courtesy of the AOFH
ps....if I really put down all the particulars you might have to get some movie popcorn and a chair.
