One little, two little, three little does

I've realized that I'm an afternoon hunter, it's takes everything in me to get out of bed at 5:45 in the morning to go sit in a tree stand. What makes the mornings I do get up even better is when I sit in a tree stand for two and a-half hours and watch a herd of cattle have breakfast...not seeing a deer or other animal (except the hawk that had a squirrel for a mid-morning snack).

In reference to my entry below about the sick horse, I received a gift from a nameless person (though I think I know who did it...Darla), with the quote of 'The Year of the Horse' and a picture of a horse on it. If anything this year will be known as the 'year of the horse'...I'll have that story to tell around the camp fires one day.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I rushed home from work to meet my dad (who was at my house) and we jumped in the truck and headed out to the woods. He set a stand up for me out on my uncles in-laws land...because there's deer everywhere and they think that will make it easier for me to actually shoot something. We get out there about ten to six, jump out gather up our gear and head to the tree stand...if you can call it that. Maybe we should call it a tree seat, it resembled that a little more than a true 'stand'...didn't do much standing. The maker of this 'stand' (term used loosely) couldn't have weighed more than 80 pounds. I make it up the ladder and sit down, with barely an inch on either side of my hips (diet time!!) and my size ten shoes barely fit on the foot rest...but we survived. My dad barely did...he let me climb up then brought my bow up to me (he forgot the bow elevator...known as a string). On his way down the ladder I accidentally knocked my backpack off the foot stand part and it hit him in the head...actually landed on his head since he was going 'down' the ladder. He calmly brought it back up to me...luckily I had already taken some of the stuff out of it and it wasn't as heavy as it could have been. After getting situated and sitting for awhile, I ended up seeing three does. They came up on my left hand side out in the woods behind me...two big and one little. Dad and I actually jumped them on our way to the stand, and they apparently circled around and was trying to make it to the field a different way. They caught my scent and ran away. So still no meat on the table...but memories galore. At dark thirty, I climbed down and walked back to the truck, meeting dad out in the field. I have to get a flashlight in my bag!

Until later,
ERM