Pardon the interruption

October 5, 2013 - January 4, 2014

If you have a hunter in your life, you know what I'm talking about. Life as you know it ends as life for the hunter begins.

Here in the territory known as "West of the Blue Ridge", Ghon's hunting season lasts three whole months. Three months of camouflage, doe in heat, guns and ammo, bows and arrows, tree stands, target practice, early mornings and outdoor TV shows.

Welcome to my Hell.

For the next three months, almost everything becomes second to chasing tail. Whitetail that is. Does and bucks. 

Of course, I knew this 18 years ago when we started dating. Ghon would disappear for a week in November to hunt with friends. Maybe a day here and there.

A few years ago, Ghon starting hunting on the farm property again, just as he did many years ago as a kid. The pain was getting up early enough to drive 90 minutes down from our house in Frederick to get in the woods before sunrise.

But now, we live 6 minutes from the farm. Ghon can wake up, get dressed, grab a coffee, and be at the farm in less than 20 minutes. He has five tree stands hung across the top of the hill. It's much easier to hunt these days.

Like today, when Ghon was going to fix the broken sign, feed the chickens, move the old refrigerator out of the trash pile to attempt a repurposing project, and plant our fruit trees. I bought 18 bags of mulch and 10 bags of compost and dirt for them yesterday.  Take a guess what he accomplished.

He hunted, bought some hunting supplies and chicken food, then hunted some more.

Oh, he also made this video of a deer he shockingly, did not shoot.

From my perspective, there are many more negatives than positives to deer season.

• Positives
• Hunting relaxes Ghon.
• Dead deer in the fall are unable to eat my vegetables in spring and summer.

Yeah, that's all I got.

•  Negatives
• Hunting frustrates Ghon if he doesn't get a shot at a deer.
• I don't like deer meat.
• Hunting season distracts Ghon from other home/farm projects.
• Too much hunting TV.
• Somehow I end up helping Ghon hang the deer so he can skin it.
• That same dead deer hangs outside my bedroom window.
•  Yet another load of laundry - camo makes it's own load.

See, many more negatives than positives.  But I suppose a happy Ghon is better than a sad Ghon.

Perhaps I should start doing some more rain dances. Ghon doesn't hunt much in the rain, and the stone mason does work at our house!