Deer Hunting

*Day 188*

I used to watch my dad and older brother and sister go deer hunting every year. I always wanted to go. (Probably because they always got good snacks and candy when they went.) When I was old enough I took hunters safety so I could get a license and go. It used to be cold during the deer hunt. I've been noticing that it's not that cold at that time of year anymore. It was fun to go. I never killed a deer. I don't know if I could have. I don't if I could have hit it, or if I would have dared pull the trigger. I never got the opportunity. I just never saw one that I could shoot at. If I had the opportunity, I would go again. I miss eating venison like we did when we were kids. Here are some of my random deer hunting memories.


* We were all crammed in the very back of my uncles bronco going up the mountain. My dad started telling jokes, "Under The Grandstand by C. Moore Butts, Revenge of the Tiger by Claude Balls, Yellow River by I.P. Freely" stuff like that. I remember laughing. But, I remember my cousins crying they were laughing so hard.

* It was raining really hard one year. We were trying to get up on the mountain. We were starting up a dirt road and some other guys were already on it. My uncle stopped to ask them how the road was. The guy told him, "It's slicker than buttered snot on a mirror." We were riding out the storm in our tent playing games. And we started wondering how you got buttered snot on a mirror. The term I had always heard was slicker than snot on a doorknob.

* Also while we were playing games in the tent waiting for it to stop raining. I made the ultimate Oreo cookie. We had double stuf Oreos. (See, good treats.) Lynn doesn't like the filling much, but she loves the cookies. But, I don't care what's inside them, I like it and will eat it. So, we traded. I would give Lynn my cookies, and she would give me her filling. So I collected all the filling and piled it into one very tall Oreo. I remember it being, like, a foot tall, but it might not have been quite big. But, it was delicious. (OK, actually it was a bit too much filling. I should have kept a few cookies and alternated. 3 inches of filling, one cookie, 3 inches of filling, one cookie, etc. You live and learn.)

* My dad explaining how it was so cold at night. He stretched his legs out and they hit the metal zipper at the end of his sleeping bag. So he pulls them up, and they hit the zipper on the side of his sleeping bag. So, they immediately straighten again, and the whole thing starts all over. (OK, so, this might not sound that funny. But, you didn't see my dad acting it out by the fire. Everyone was laughing very hard.)

* When Eric got a deer. We had to find where it fell in the field. Eric was carrying my dad's pistol. When we got to the deer, my dad asked Eric for his pistol. he opened it to check the bullets. My dad commented that there were bullets missing. Eric said that he had to shoot the deer when he found it because it wasn't dead. My dad said, "Yeah, but there's two bullets gone." Eric said, (sheepishly) "I missed it the first time."
Then Eric gutted the deer, and popped the stomach. That was the worst smell I have ever smelled. But, at least if you stood upwind, you couldn't smell it.

* After Eric got his deer, me and my dad when out the next weekend. My dad had a plan to stop on the side of the road and hike up along a ravine. We would be there when the deer ran through in the morning. It was an awesome plan. I remember standing there and hearing the deer run by. They sounded big. They sounded close enough to reach out and touch. But, it was so early in the morning that it was too dark to see them. I was bummed that we were that close and couldn't do anything about it.

* It was also fun the year we went to Blanding and got to see where Grandpa Breinholt got his trophy buck and hear the story. I wish I would have been able to hunt with Grandpa.