Relax – no photos on this post.
I spent the last week deer hunting – the last time I hunted was 42 years ago. Why after all these years am I now hunting again?
Background: I grew up on a farm where hunting was a rite of passage for teenage boys. I went with the guys halfheartedly – but i was never really into it. I managed to never actually kill anything.
Now i’ve been living at Sandhill Farm for 28 years. Our ethic is to eat food that we raise ourselves. We often have vegetarians living here though most of us are omnivores. We have chickens & turkeys and used to have a milk cow and often eat her offspring; occasionally, someone would raise a couple of pigs. We do not buy meat. We gave up having a cow a few years ago and now depend on venison for most of our meat (we keep our chickens for eggs and slaughter old hens only every 3 years or so.) Since we did not have our own beef anymore, we turned to deer – a very plentiful resource around here.
A former member hunted deer while here and our son, Ceilee, who was born here, began hunting when in high school. After these two left, we had no hunters – but had grown fond of venison. For several years, we received deer as gifts from other hunters (friends & neighbors), who enjoyed hunting and shot more deer than they wanted to eat. Sometimes, we allowed them to hunt on our land – after all, deer are the main pests in our field crops.
While we appreciated the deer (we always did our own butchering), it was not quite as satisfying as having the venison “harvested” by folx living here. Sometimes the deer came from our farm, sometimes not. This year, a new member, Jacob, wants to hunt (and has a gun). He asks me for help field dress and butcher – to which i happily assented. The more i think about it, the more i realize that it would somehow feel more complete if i hunt myself – to live off the fat of the land (the deer always feed on our beans out in the fields; some years, they harvest all of our beans and/or popcorn – leaving us nothing.
I hunt for a week: the routine is to get up at 5am, build a fire in the kitchen stove, have coffee & toast, get dressed and out the door by 6 when it’s just beginning to get light. Then walk to my chosen spot of the morning & sit in a comfy hunting shack or under a tree by major deer paths and wait…. what a glorious feeling to wake up with the earth and watch shapes and shadows gradually take form in the growing light – reminds me of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac.
i hear rustling and all my senses are alerted – where? what? coming my way?? gradually, i realize that i’m hearing squirrels and/or turkeys. after an hour or so, as the sun is coming up, i’m cold (it’s in the 20s). i spend the next hour or two walking along deer paths thru woods or along the edges between fields & woods. Occasionally, i scare a deer and they merrily bound away as they show me their bright white tails… In the late afternoon (3-4pm), i repeat the sequence – except in reverse – i walk first and then sit in one spot for the last hour or so.
SO – WHAT HAPPENED? i shot at 4 or 5 deer: of course, i expected them to drop in their tracks; instead, they bounded off – unscathed. Jacob shot one deer and i found one that had recently been shot – no idea by who – i decided the meat was still good. they are both hanging in our cooler, waiting to be cut up.
Ruminations
The first few days i am very intent on getting a deer – but i have a lot of time for observations and quiet reflections. i find myself praying to the deer deva/pan/goddess that a deer would “offer” itself to me. gradually, those supplications appear trivial and ego gratifying; after all, we do not depend on venison to stay alive. do i really expect some robust & vivacious deer to go: “ah yes, sweet stanley, since you ask so politley, i will joyfully give up my life for your succulent lips and ego gratification…”?
Gradually, i come to appreciate my time in the woods – a time to be alone with critters i don’t usually hang out with – as well as my own uninterrupted ruminations. Some people pay a lot of money to “get away from it all”…. I tune into my “stream of consciousness”: whoa buddy, there appears to be a lot of negativity here – what’s that about? YIKES! there’s a deer! i walked right past it! SHIT! i’m supposed to be “hunting”, instead, i’m working out some internal crap… ok, back to nature: i’m appreciating the bright blue sky, fluffy clouds, the crunch of dead leaves under my boots, the squirrels & crows scolding me…
This blissed out phase evaporates as i return to the house – empty handed. The looks in the eyes and voices of my fellow communards are queries: “get any?” “Nope.” Sometimes, i relate details of how and when i startled deer, stalked them for awhile, but in the end, they got away. We all make the best of it, but the sense of failure lingers – in spite of reminding myself what a great time i’ve had communing with nature.
After a few days, i get over the idea that i need to get a deer to make this a worthwhile experience. Really! I am having a good time in the woods. And I remember the many times Ceilee would come back to the house – empty handed. In retrospect, i recognize the combination of emotions in his face: nope, i didn’t get any – but i’m still having a good time being out there. BUT – that hint of failure is still there (what exactly is that about anyway?).
Then – i feel a connection with other hunters (NOT with trophy hunters); however, i know plenty of local hunters, who i now have a shared experience with. I decide to call Roger, an old friend, who taught Ceilee to hunt. i invite him over to hunt. why? i wanna know more about how other folks do this trip. Also, i’ve been using Jacob’s gun and sometimes we both want to hunt at the same time. I ask Roger to borrow a rifle. He brings one of his old ones – with a telescope mounted on it. WOW! i can actually see exquisite details several hundred yards away. this ought to make hunting easy! center the deer’s heart in the cross hairs of the scope – bingo!
NOT! i went out with that rifle for 3 days and never fired it – the only deer i saw were running away from me. After a week of hunting season, the remaining deer are very wary and stay out of sight.
So here we are – 2 deer – we were hoping for 4-5 to supplement our diet for a year.
BUT – there’s another 8 day hunting season next month….
