I always wondered why my Father never seemed to mind if he did not get a deer. I used to think that he would soon give up, year after year. For the past few years, I seemed to get a big buck, yet he never shot. His old bones did not like the cold as much as they used to. In Michigan, there are times when the bones like the cold, they have no choice. But he would shiver, and want to get the buck to the house to clean it. Every year he would go out, and every year, the last few anyway, I would get a buck.
The wind rustled a corn stalk some distance away again. I have looked at it many times this morning, my heart reached, thinking it was the ear of a white tail. I must have looked at the damn thing a hundred times, and each time thought it was a deer. Same thing with that branch in the hedge row about 250 yards away. Even so, with a shotgun, 250 yards was way to far to shoot.
Out in the hedgerow, out in this beautiful Michigan nature your senses heighten to that of a dog, or more. Things that never used to make a sound now make tremendous noise. The rustle of a toothpick sized branch, becomes a huge tall pine banging against the wind. The steps of a sparrow way at the top of the tree become giant’s steps. The small pitter and scratch of a chipmunk becomes the bounding of a 200 LB buck. I am not a bird watcher, but it is interesting when they all come around you like you are just a part of the forest. That is your goal as a deer hunter I guess, to become one with the surroundings so that it appears as though you were always there. Of course if you were good at it, which I must not be, you would see a lot more deer than I have. But we do see them, and they appear as ghosts. I am reminded of that Val Kilmer/Micheal Douglas film, Ghost and the darkness. One minute you are thinking about your life, and sexing yourself up in this world, asking yourself over an over again if you are actually doing all right, and then next, they appear. Like ghosts. Sometimes you are ready, and sometimes, you just sit and watch.
My favorite time in deer hunting was not sitting in the freezing cold for ten hours, but yet it was walking out to the fields. To dark to see but you are still on the look out for a deer even though you could never hit it. Picking up your feet and setting them down lightly. I finally saw the spot where I would sit. It was an opening up in the great woods. A great place for a wedding maybe, a funeral even. I had always imagined that I had someone close to me die, that this would be a great place to come and visit them. I would place their grave stone up atop one of the great hills so it was dwarfed by the greatness and beauty of the Michigan White Pines. It was my place, my small burm of dirt grown up over with grass hide me from the north, small trees to the south, and open corn all over. All cut down 3 days before. Perfect.
I begin to Hum “Fred Bear” by Ted Nugent. It is dumb but for the last 3 years, I have sung that it my head, and I have gotten a deer. “O Fred Bear, walk with me, down these trails again, take me back, back where I belong, before to long...” The woods do allow you to think more than you ever would, sometimes too much. Aspirations, hopes dreams, worry. I sometimes would find myself talking out loud, “Yes inspire them,” Thinking of good words to say to my students. Ahh nature. We are truly one.
My Father has owned this potion of woods, about 76 acres worth, for sometime now. The “seventy-six,” we called it. My Grandfather owned it before him, and his before that. I remember my father telling me a story of how these woods were built. Or should I say formed. I don’t know. My great, great Grandfather was given pine tree seeds to plant in the parts of his crop field that were too sandy to plant crops. Much like the ground I am standing on now. This particular field was too sandy to plant, and in an effort to “save” the farmer of that day, the government thought it would be a great idea for them to plant pine trees. Then the save the farmer bit was over, they all went under, and what we are at least blessed to have from those grand farms, is this amazing land. Let me take you on a tour.
