As many of you already know, I hunt. I grew up hunting on my parents’ ranch and I got my first deer when I was in 7th grade. It’s something I always feel weird talking about because I never know if I’m going to offend someone or if this fact about me will be off-putting, but it’s part of who I am and this is my blog so I’m going to go with it. My family eats the meat from the animals we kill and we donate the hides and sometimes my friend Sarah makes things out of the bones and honestly, it’s something I enjoy doing (mostly – sometimes it makes me sad #somanyfeelings #donttellmydad).
Anyway, last weekend was opening day/weekend of deer season in my neck of the woods, so I made the trek, for the millionth time this month, down to my parents’ house to head out hunting at daylight Saturday morning. Last year I shot my deer within minutes of leaving the house on opening morning, but this year I didn’t even so much as see a deer. At least the scenery was great though!
After hiking around outside with a gun for a few hours (I forgot how hard that is, btw – lots of hills, lots of brush, carrying a gun and wearing uncomfortable clothes) with zero deer sightings I headed home. It was a bad morning for everyone in my family. I napped for a few hours with sweet Fluffy before heading to Hood River to run a few errands (including the worst ever, Wal Mart – BOO Wal Mart!) and grab a breakfast sandwich with Gaby.
On my drive home from Hood River I saw SEVEN! deer on the side of the road (WTF?), so shortly after I got back from town (isn’t it funny to hear someone say that? you know you live in the country when…) I headed back out for an evening hunt with my dad. We hiked around for about 2.5 hours and only ended up seeing three deer (none of which had horns). Bummerville. I was exhausted but decided I should probably be a little social, so I went back to Hood River to meet Sarah and Josh for dinner at Solstice which was delicious and amazing, per usual, after which I headed home to go to bed.
Sunday morning I woke up early again and hunted by myself and saw one deer, with only one horn (what happened to your other horn, little deer?!). Deer have to be three-point or better to shoot in the area where I was hunting, so he was a no-go.
It was a pretty unsuccessful weekend hunting wise, but I did really enjoy hiking around on my parents’ property, even if it did end with really blistered feet and some blood drawn from both my boots and some berry bushes.
I got a text from my mom Tuesday night letting me know that there were a lot of deer out that evening, and then a little while later, while I was at happy hour with some friends my mom text me to tell me my brother got a deer. I responded with “pic or it didn’t happen” because I’m the best daughter. She sent one back – it happened. Whatever, brother.
Tonight I need to decide if I want to make the trek back down for the MILLIONTH (7th) weekend. Part of me really wants to get outside and get the most out of my tag but the other part of me is realllllyyyy craving a weekend in Seattle. We shall see.
Anyway, I hope I didn’t offend any of you with all my hunting talk and things. I also hope you’re having an excellent week! Talk soon, friends!
3 comments:
You know, I've always wanted to learn how to hunt. My dad's not a big fan of it - he used to hunt and said it's a lot of work and well, with his knee issue he can't do a lot of kneeling anymore. I might look into seeing if I can get a temp license for maybe a day. My uncle hunts and maybe I can go with him some time just to say I've tried it. :)
No offense taken. Although I know hunting isn't for me (all those feelings you talked about), it's interesting to hear about it. Gorgeous scenery, of course. My goodness.
I despise hunters who don't use any of the animal and just kill for the sake of killing. It's fine if you eat the animal and use what you can from it; that's not wasteful.
Post a Comment