Ah yes, deer hunting season is upon us. As I type, there is a poor, probably frozen deer laying in the back of Jer's truck. It's been there since Saturday and to be honest this concerns me a little. How long can it be like that before it spoils or something? But anyway, Since I did not grow up in a hunting family, the whole hunting culture was a bit new to me. My true indoctrination happened one year when Jer took the girls to the farm for a hunting weekend without me. They were maybe 5 and 2 or so. They had a fun weekend with their grandparents and it sounded like everything went just great. Then, I got the photo. Someone had taken a picture of my sweet little babies posing with a dead, gutted deer hanging up to drain or whatever. There was that mangled deer with a little blondie smiling on each side. I was horrified. I just knew my babies had been traumatized and would certainly have permanent emotional damage. I carefully questioned them to gauge the extent of the damage, and was quite surprised that they seemed to have thought the whole thing was pretty cool. Apparently it's not unusual for hunters to pose their children with dead animals.
I delved a little deeper into the hunting culture when we moved from the suburbs to the "rural suburbs". I remember the first fall we lived here, I was laying in bed very early one morning and heard what I thought was a gunshot. My immediate response was a freaked out "Jer! I think I just heard a gunshot!!". He sort of woke up, listened a minute & said "yep, duck hunting starts this weekend". WHAT?? I can hear hunters from my bedroom?! Guess what? Now, four years later, the gunshots don't even phase me. I'm a true country girl.
My next-door-neighbor has this fake deer that looks very real. Every fall he puts the deer in his backyard and shoots arrows at it. Sometimes I'll look outside and see the poor thing standing there with 6 arrows in it's chest. It's a practice deer. Amazing.
Huh, I thought this was going to be a little filler post until I thought of something interesting to say, but I guess it's possible to ramble on about almost anything. :)
3 comments:
I love this post, Deb! It's amazing how kids are affected so much differently than we imagine they will be...I would have thought they'd be traumatized by the draining deer as well. I love hearing your life stories...do tell more!!
Deb...The Lee boys like to hunt as well and they've commandeered Dave into doing it with them. It's more of a camaraderie thing with them...you know..boys going out in the woods and all...and I'm okay with it. I don't LOVE hunting and I could never shoot ANYTHING...but they usually never get anything so it's never an issue.
This year...Dave got one. Blah! I don't even like venison. And it was a girl...which makes me think of Bambi's mom, even Dave said the deer was old and didn't have milk. Still...it's a mommy dear. And Big A sort of gets it and isn't traumatized. Then again..we have no pictures of her next to it.
I distinctly remember being about 17 and getting home one Friday night after my parents had went to bed. I opened up the garage door and my headlights shone on a dead, gutted deer hanging from my garage ceiling.
I almost drove the car through the garage while peeing my pants at the same time. THAT was traumatizing.
Gosh...my comment ended up somewhat bloglike. On hunting.
Who'da thunk?
I remember that picture of the young girlie with their cute, fixed up hair and the dead deer.
Jackson has an interest in hunting, and I try to tell him it would be more fun to hunt with a camera and see if he can "take their picture" but he just looks at me kinda confused.
Maybe one day Jer's hunting skills will save your family from starvation? With the fat content in those sausages, we really only need to eat a nibble or two a day and we all could live maybe 4-6 months off one of those giant logs.
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