Homesteader Life

Lately, after evening milking, I’ve been heading out with my bow for the last couple of daylight hours. Yesterday I decided to stand in the “ole tower stand” at the bottom of the 50 acre lot just outside the feild in a natural runway for deer. Its fairly open with thorn apples, a clump of hickories and a few scatered maples. The stand is old, I had to give it the once over before I commited to the climb. Once I was up and comfy, the area came alive with critters. The gray squirrels were harvesting hickory nuts, what fun to watch. They would climb out on limb and nuts would begin to fall down to leaves below. Thump, thump, thump….the others would go to town gatherin’ them up and hiding them away. The red squirrels showed up and launched an attack on the their gray brothers. Man, them red ones are mean! They would run down a gray and jump on his back, biting and clawing. While this show was going on, a saw a pair of wood peckers doing their thing a few feet away. Then a black cap chickitee came by for a visit. He perched a few inches from my face and “talked a little” to me. They remind my of my old freinds the “whiskey jacks” on the alaska traplines. Them birds were the freindliest critters you ever saw. They would always be waiting for the left over pancakes in the morning after breakfast. Then a shadow appeared, and the war cry of the red tailed hawk peirced through the woods. All my freinds were gone, just as suddenly as they appeared. Now it was starting to get dark enough that I was going to climb down and head for home. Just then a doe started into the opening, she came out of a thorn apple stand and was headed for the hickory clump. It was just dark enough that I couldn’t see the thin little branches hanging down between me and her, don’t ask me why I didn’t make a note of them earlier. She went behind a tree and I drew my bow. She step out and stood broadside at about 25 yards so I let er rip. The arrow hit a branch and spun end over end, landing in the leaves right next to her with pointy end pointing at me. I was fit to be tied, how could I be so stupid! How could I mess up what looked like such an easy shot. Hindsight says that if I had waited and let her go a few more yards from that hickory, it would have been a clear shot. Oh well, no use crying over missed deer, it happens. Today I’m taking a saw down there and cut off them offending branches.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 4:43 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.