Twilight the Movie
Watching the deer running through the woods reminded me of a time I went deer hunting with my dad. I think I was around 10 or 12. He sent me with the dog (Blackey) down through a gully. He walked the ridge. I waited at the bottom for a good 15-20 minutes before I started walking to the other end of the gully. This gave him time to walk the ridge ahead of me and as my and the dog's noise would scare and therefore flush out any deer there, he'd be in position to shoot the deer and not risk hitting me.
Either that hunting trip or another he had given me the keys to the car and I had walked up a dirt road, which he had asked me to. I had stowed the keys 'safely' in the pouch-pocket of my sweat shirt. Needless to say when I got to the top of the road the keys were gone. Oh the frantic search. I don't recall finding them so I suppose he did because we certainly didn't have a spare set. I must have been older for this trip because I didn't have a sweat shirt with a pouch until I was a little older.
Again-don't recall which trip but one time we had been up early-trapsing the hills and before it was time to drive home he needed a nap. He told me to stay up in the tree and he laid down on the ground between the tree and the car, right near a hole in the ground. The hole was a good 6-9" across but he seemed to think it may have an occupant. He told me to keep an eye on the hole while he napped-just in case.
I got busy looking at some magazine that no one should be looking at but it was left by someone else who had camped there earlier and after a while he psst at me. Once he had my attention, his whispering-though hard to hear-was clear he wanted to know if there was something alive coming out of the hole? Yes-a snake.
Had I ever seen a snake in the wild before? No. Had I ever been to a zoo or a museum? Well, a zoo yes-but I don't recall going through an exhibit with snakes and lizards. He whispered to find out what color, what pattern. Well-it's black and has a creamy white diamond shaped pattern on its back. Oh nice.
He whispered to have me continue watching and let him know when it was safely back down the hole the opposite side of his position. I did. He rose as quickly as he could, found a long-at least 4'-stick and his .22. He confirmed which hole it went into and then poked the stick around in the hole-carefully, almost gently.
His fishing paid off and out slithered the diamond backed rattler. He shot at it 2-3 times trying to get the head. Once he was certain he had mortally wounded, perhaps killed it, he again used the stick to toss it up on top of the car where it continued to wriggle as it's nervous system slowly stopped functioning.
He must have shot it near enough the head that he was later able to dry & treat the skin, fold & stitch the skin to fit his hat (new hat band-didn't look like snake skin-it was-didn't look like it was from a diamond backed rattler-it was) save the rattler and have bragging rights.
The final deer hunt story lies in when he would get a deer and bring it home, I'd watch him force the meat hooks through the split in the rear legs so he could string it up in the garage, send me running to get newspaper to spread out on the floor to make clean up a little easier, slit the jugular so it would bleed out the rest of the way. I would stay there and watch him then skin it and cut it up into pieces. A huge job once he'd been out hunting since early morning. I'd take the meat into the kitchen in a bowl-one bowlful at a time, wash it off and wrap it in butcher's wrap and stick it in the freezer-one layer deep so it would freeze and not spoil.
Later in my life-just a couple years, either dad or Bob would come home with a brace of rabbits and Bob and I would go skin them in the back yard.
I've never been squeamish about skinning critters for food, touching raw meat, cleaning the meat or cleaning up the mess afterward-even picking the ticks off of the dogs after a hunt. Maybe part of the lack of squeamishness was because mom had taught me since I was about 11 how to cut up a whole chicken.
Funny or odd that when I buy meat in the store I hate touching it or smelling it. Maybe it's because I don't know where it came from.
Either that hunting trip or another he had given me the keys to the car and I had walked up a dirt road, which he had asked me to. I had stowed the keys 'safely' in the pouch-pocket of my sweat shirt. Needless to say when I got to the top of the road the keys were gone. Oh the frantic search. I don't recall finding them so I suppose he did because we certainly didn't have a spare set. I must have been older for this trip because I didn't have a sweat shirt with a pouch until I was a little older.
Again-don't recall which trip but one time we had been up early-trapsing the hills and before it was time to drive home he needed a nap. He told me to stay up in the tree and he laid down on the ground between the tree and the car, right near a hole in the ground. The hole was a good 6-9" across but he seemed to think it may have an occupant. He told me to keep an eye on the hole while he napped-just in case.
I got busy looking at some magazine that no one should be looking at but it was left by someone else who had camped there earlier and after a while he psst at me. Once he had my attention, his whispering-though hard to hear-was clear he wanted to know if there was something alive coming out of the hole? Yes-a snake.
Had I ever seen a snake in the wild before? No. Had I ever been to a zoo or a museum? Well, a zoo yes-but I don't recall going through an exhibit with snakes and lizards. He whispered to find out what color, what pattern. Well-it's black and has a creamy white diamond shaped pattern on its back. Oh nice.
He whispered to have me continue watching and let him know when it was safely back down the hole the opposite side of his position. I did. He rose as quickly as he could, found a long-at least 4'-stick and his .22. He confirmed which hole it went into and then poked the stick around in the hole-carefully, almost gently.
His fishing paid off and out slithered the diamond backed rattler. He shot at it 2-3 times trying to get the head. Once he was certain he had mortally wounded, perhaps killed it, he again used the stick to toss it up on top of the car where it continued to wriggle as it's nervous system slowly stopped functioning.
He must have shot it near enough the head that he was later able to dry & treat the skin, fold & stitch the skin to fit his hat (new hat band-didn't look like snake skin-it was-didn't look like it was from a diamond backed rattler-it was) save the rattler and have bragging rights.
The final deer hunt story lies in when he would get a deer and bring it home, I'd watch him force the meat hooks through the split in the rear legs so he could string it up in the garage, send me running to get newspaper to spread out on the floor to make clean up a little easier, slit the jugular so it would bleed out the rest of the way. I would stay there and watch him then skin it and cut it up into pieces. A huge job once he'd been out hunting since early morning. I'd take the meat into the kitchen in a bowl-one bowlful at a time, wash it off and wrap it in butcher's wrap and stick it in the freezer-one layer deep so it would freeze and not spoil.
Later in my life-just a couple years, either dad or Bob would come home with a brace of rabbits and Bob and I would go skin them in the back yard.
I've never been squeamish about skinning critters for food, touching raw meat, cleaning the meat or cleaning up the mess afterward-even picking the ticks off of the dogs after a hunt. Maybe part of the lack of squeamishness was because mom had taught me since I was about 11 how to cut up a whole chicken.
Funny or odd that when I buy meat in the store I hate touching it or smelling it. Maybe it's because I don't know where it came from.
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