For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the news … and who would blame you with all the nasty political stuff going on … I just wanted to announce that North Texas is not at war with Oklahoma or Isis. You would think that we were on full alert. Men, women, and little children are all over town dressed in camouflage from head to toe. Pickups are loaded to the limit with backpacks, pop-up tents and boxes of beer. Guns, polished to a shine, fill the gun racks, hide in the floorboards, and hang out the windows of most pickups driving through town.
You see, when the sun comes up on November 5th, more than half of the healthy men in this area will be shivering in the bushes or crammed into a deer blind with their best friends or nearest relatives. They’ve probably worked for several months getting ready for the season. They contracted with some rancher to hunt on his land, spending way more than they tell their spouses for the lease. They’ve put out deer feeders, set up automatic cameras to snap pictures, and set the deer stand so the native fauna will not be aware of their presence.
Of course, some of these hunters aren’t quite so industrious. One of my friends owns a nice piece of land out east of town. The place is filled with natural stone formations, oak and pecan trees lining the little creek that wanders across the fields, and several open places where he plants a little corn every fall, but hardly ever brings in a crop. I think the “crop” has four feet and a rack of horns.
It’s been several years since anyone hunted on “the place,” so this year when a couple of city folk asked about it, he agreed. He went down to check on it last week and found a family of owls had roosted in the old deer stand. Two cute little owlets greeted him when he climbed the ladder to the stand. He really hated to disturb them, but he had promised the city fellas that they could use it. Two days later he returned with a broom and a scoop and a nice cardboard box in which to re-locate the little family, only mama had returned in his absence with “takeout.” She’d brought home a lovely skunk. The deer stand won’t be used this year. Maybe by next year it will have aired out.
The visiting hunters took it all in stride and brought along their own deer stand, cleared off a nice flat piece of land and set it up overlooking the meadow below. They moved in their camper trailer up on top of the hill and trucked in a load of food to sustain them over the weekend: ten pounds of bacon, four dozen eggs, ten cans of “pop” biscuits, and numerous liquid refreshments.
With four rifles, each and enough ammo to sustain the Alamo another thirteen days, they felt like they were ready … until they realized that some other hunters had set up another deer stand just on the other side of the fence from their perfectly placed haven.
I feel kind of sorry for the animals in the area. I’m not sure how hard it was for those deer to sling that skunk up in that deer stand or how many times they had to pose out by that fence to encourage both sets of hunters to crowd into the same locale.
Whatever, those deer should have it nice and peaceful over on the other side of the property.
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