Septemberfest Wild Game Cookoff Cartoons

Cranfills Gap Wild Game Cookoff cartoons for Septemberfest

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Deer Season Day

We hung a string of shotgun shell holiday lights in Zack’s shop last week on the first day of hunting season. We declared it Deer Season Day. I made this up. It’s sort of like Festivus, a holiday for the restofus (of Seinfeld fame).

 

Opening Day, 2011

Zack bagged his buck today. Our friend, we’ll call him Sam, comes from a hunting family up north. If his father didn’t shoot, the family didn’t eat.  His freezer’s stocked with venison, a staple of his and his wife’s diet all year. I’ve learned from Sam that there are hunters and there are killers. Sam and Zack are hunters. They enjoy the whole process, starting out before dawn, seeing the sun rise, walking around, watching the light change on the trees, noticing the leaves turn as days pass. (I’m not so keen on leaving my warm bed that early, but I went two or three times this past week with Zack). Sam can sit for hours watching all varieties of animals that are moving about. Zack doesn’t usually have that patience. They both get a big kick out of seeing the bucks chase the does, watching the fawns play. Some come almost close enough for Sam to touch. He’ll stand still against a tree as long as he’s able if deer are close by. They finally realize he’s there, startle, snort and bolt. If you’ve never heard a deer snort at the first whiff of human, it’s worth the wait. Took me until I was middle aged! Sam loves to tell stories about all this and laughs and laughs. Obviously neither Zack nor Sam shoots at everything he sees. It’s all about the journey. The kill is the end of it all, and sometimes comes after weeks of the “hunt”. One day Sam and Zack went out together with their guns, such manly men. (Usually they go alone and often at different times). They returned shortly for a camera, excited as two little kids. They’d discovered baby raccoons in a tree!

The funny thing is that Sam has this whole ritual for hunting, developed over a lifetime. It begins weeks before the season with the cleaning and sighting in of the gun, preparing all the accoutrement. And since bow-hunting season begins two weeks prior to regular deer season, Sam gets a jump on things with his bow. I’ve never known him to actually loose an arrow, maybe once. He just loves the whole process, the anticipation, possibilities, an excuse to be outside. Most true hunters are like this. It’s a huge tradition, so different from all the hunting jokes non-Texans hear.  Sam’s ritual involves the camo clothing and boots, spraying them with some sort of anti-smellum stuff to make him invisible to the wildlife. As he leaves his truck, he’ll step in cow poop for the same reason. Sometimes he’ll sit in his deer stand or in his camo “tent” for hours, waiting, watching, enjoying. He brings food and drink, even has a “relief bottle” so he won’t leave any scent around the area to scare off the deer (as if he and Zack haven’t marked this whole place now for years). On the first really cold morning of the last season, we left a bottle of whiskey (for warmth) tied to Sam’s stand, his hunting season home away from home. He has antlers to rub or hit together to attract bucks, noise-makers that sound like a doe (and he can imitate one himself if pressed). I think he even has some hideous liquid to convince one buck that another buck has invaded his territory. Sometimes all this seems to work for him and sometimes not so much.

Becca and Zack in the deer stand. Great view.

Zack on the other hand has his own very different, casual style. Mostly he walks. We own camo clothing and the requisite waterproof boots. I use mine more for inclement weather, what I remember of rain.  We have a deer stand and a pop-up, camo tent. But usually, Zack just goes out walking, today in shorts and sneakers, with no other special preparations. It’s happened two or three times that within ten to 30 minutes, he leans against a tree and fires. The first time I went with him (or ever went hunting at all), we left the back door of our little farm house, opened a gate, walked several yards toward a field. He saw, warned me, shot, and that was that. I asked him, “Is this all there is to it?”

It must drive poor Sam crazy.

All I killed was the mug of hot coffee.

It’s too expensive to do a full head mount of each buck. There are four communing in this room with me now. Three are Zack’s, taken during the last ten years or so (and two antler mounts). One of my uncle’s  is over 50 years old. As a child, I was always so distressed with my uncle’s “dead deer” and antlers, but I loved him very much, so I tried to mask how I felt. Please remember, this was the era of Bambi.  It’s much the same with Zack’s trophies. There are also from my uncle’s era three heads mounted together. From the time I started bringing my young children to the ranch for holidays and visits, and as soon as my daughter could speak intelligible sentences, she always called this group “the family”. She was as much upset by the mount as I had been as a child. We removed it/them from the guest house when I repainted over the summer. This was at my daughter’s request and with my blessing. They relocated to Zack’s shop where they can stare at HIM.

I always gave my cousin’s husband grief about the many and varied mounts in his living room. Now there are some on our walls too, so I can’t say a word. My cousin went on several safaris to Africa and other exotic locales. On the last big trip, I believe he shot only pictures. Either he ran out of room on the walls or had a change of heart. I’ve also been pretty generous to the world in general in my sarcastic comments about the hunting accoutrement such as strippy, camo outfits that turn hunters into tree-like/Bigfoot creatures to fool poor, unsuspecting deer. Years ago in Florida, I exchanged a couple of funny letters with Dave Barry, the humorist, about hunting gear in Florida. There we were going to the beach in December, and circulars would arrive with the Sunday paper advertising heated tree stand seat cushions for the season. Dave had written a humorous article about the subject once and still owned the Bigfoot outfit. Or so he claimed.

Zack didn't climb the ladder that year.

The winter after Zack was paralyzed with Guillaine-Barre Syndrome, he could barely walk (and certainly couldn’t have pulled a trigger), but insisted we rise at dawn to honor the ritual of Deer Day. So walk we did. We did the same the next year, came back and made chili in the outdoor fireplace. I think that was when I knew for sure that Zack was going to get well.

Lunch in "Coyote Zack's" Pavilion

Zack bagged this year’s buck , almost four years after being paralyzed. he’s been able to use his trigger finger for a long time now. As a favor, Sam prepared a European mount for him. Now a SKULL will be staring down at me with empty eyes and antlers. It will probably grace the library walls, watching as I type, greeting visitors to the house. The meat was processed, and we will eat it, so this is not just a “vanity buck” or a trophy. I’ve learned to prepare venison a couple of ways that even I can choke down. In all honesty, sometimes it’s delicious. I rationalize that it’s not an “empty kill”. (I think I made that term up. There may exist a correct term, but it escapes me).  It would be worse, in my opinion to kill for the sake of the killing, without the meat going somewhere to feed someone. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, as I do so love a good steak. I try not to dwell on the details of beef rib eye either, my favorite, and don’t enjoy eating any animal I KNEW well. Remember, I wasn’t raised on a farm. Nor do I particularly like seeing things killed. Maybe it’s the girly girl in me, buried deep.

I’m living again in the  Texas countryside, have been for quite some time. Hunting season is a time-honored tradition. When in Rome. . . . . .

 

 

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