Tim recently decided he wanted to start hunting- partly for fun and partly for the free meat we'd hopefully get. He's long awaited shotgun season and Friday was his very first day of hunting. He got up at 4am and hit the deer stand early, with his brother-in-law Doug in a blind a hundred yards away. Late in the afternoon this big antlered beauty strolled right up to Tim's deer stand and one slug to the spine took him down.
I was hanging out in Tim's dad's house with Papa Joe and the kiddos and heard the shot; I hoped it was Tim. A couple of minutes later Doug came in the house and asked for the 4-wheeler keys, reporting that Tim had gotten something! I jumped off the couch and slipped on my shoes. Let me pause here for a second to adequately set this disaster-of-a-day up. I had gotten my hair cut earlier in the day and, ladies, you know that your hair always looks best when your stylist uses all of her whiz-bang spritzers and straightener. I treasure having a decent hair do for the 12 hours that follow any hair appointment. And, I was wearing my white Merrell shoes my mom got me for my birthday as well as my favorite purple puffy vest. Okay, so I dash out of the house wanting to get to Tim quickly. I had no idea where his stand was, and his dad's property is vast and heavily wooded. After 10 minutes of Marco-Polo style husband finding, I caught a glimpse of his orange vest and started running toward him. I also heard Doug on the four-wheeler, but then the engine quit and I saw Doug on foot, too. We both finally reached Tim and saw that he didn't get just any deer, he got a magnificent 10-point buck with a beautiful symmetrical rack!
Tim and Doug dragged the deer into the close-by field and I asked Tim if he was going to field dress it. He said, "Umm, I don't know how to do that!" Thankfully, Doug is an Anatomy & Physiology professor at the local JuCo and knew exactly what to do. As Doug skillfully navigated the process, he asked me to go get the 4-wheeler. So I started running (knowing it was pretty far away from us) and here is where the disaster began. I had to run through a recently disced field that was terribly wet and the mud began building up on my shoes, eventually to the point that I had several pounds of mud caked on my feet. It was like my feet morphed into cinder blocks in seconds!
Upon reaching the stupid dad-gum four-wheeler, I realized it wouldn't start. I called Tim and he suggested using the pull cord. After nearly tearing my rotator cuff it became clear that the pull cord wasn't up for being pulled. I called Joe and, like a genius, he suggested I get it out of gear. Turns out, when you take a four-wheeler out of gear, it suddenly becomes very easy to start. I pulled up to the deer and Doug had gone back to the house to clean up. That left Tim and me to hoist the deer onto the back rack. Yeah. That wasn't happening. We waited for Doug to come back and the two of them worked together to get it lifted up.
Ergo, problem #2: the deer was much longer than the rack was wide, so Tim had to hold the head up as I drove, running along side the four-wheeler. The field was so rough that I had to keep the four-wheeler going fairly fast or it would stop in the deep ruts. Poor Tim was struggling to keep up with me while holding to really heavy deer head, and I couldn't help but giggle as he continuously got tripped up in the mud, his cover-alls, his boots, etc. We were at the bottom of a steep hill and I knew we'd never make it. So, I convinced him to sit backwards behind me and hold the deer, but that meant I had to stand and drive at the same time. I was doing the best I could, but dern it, I got us stuck in the mud. I got off and told Tim I'd hold the head if he would get us un-stuck. He was rocking the four-wheeler back and forth and I was holding up as much weight as I could to alleviate the pressure on the back axle and VOILE! it shot out of there like a jack rabbit out of a fox hole. But remember, I was holding the deer head and we were in mud. My shoes were long ruined, but I was still hoping to make it out of this whole ordeal alive. I yelled to Tim not to stop and to keep going as fast as he needed to so we didn't get stuck again, but I just couldn't keep up. Mud was flinging everywhere, I had blood on my vest, jeans, shoes, hair, everything!
And then something really unfortunate happened. The buck's legs got caught in one of the tires and the deer flopped right off the back of the rack and into the mud. Tim hopped off and the look on his face said I wasn't the only one wondering how on earth we were going to get the deer back up on the rack. I mentally told myself that my 4 months of CrossFitting had prepared me for this very moment. I closed my eyes, imagined my coaches were there reminding me to squat deep and explode the hips, engage the core, and take a huge breath right before lifting. Tim yelled "ONE-TWO-THREE!" and we lifted. Nothing. We didn't life anything because that heavy carcass just stayed right there. I wanted to collapse in the mud and call for a CIA-helicopter extraction. Tim said that wasn't an option and to put my big girl panties on and get 'er done. The second try was successful, but I knew I couldn't keep running and holding the stupid deer head that I was sure had doubled in weight in the last 5 seconds. Tim reached around and held an antler and I carried both sets of legs and he dragged me through the muddy field and we eventually reached his Dad's driveway.
Papa Joe was out there with his camera and the cousins were jumping up and down cheering as they heard the roar of the four-wheeler. The sight of the house was like a tall glass of cool water in the middle of a scorching desert sun for me. I have no idea where it was coming from, but I'm sure I heard the Chariots of Fire theme song. When we reached the shed, I collapsed. Coughing, gagging, wheezing, I peed a little bit on my pants, and gasped for air praying Jesus wouldn't let me die like this in front of my kids.
Look at him. He's all like, "Oh yea! Everyone look at me here with my clean clothes and my happy face! I feel great because I didn't just get dragged through 14 miles of rough wet soggy terrain or have an asthma attack and ruin my new hair do with deer blood!"
It turned out to be a great weekend. Jesus answered my prayer and didn't let me die while the kids watched on in horror. We took the deer out to my parents' farm and my dad and little brother, Flip, joined in the fun. My dad showed me how to skin it and we all worked together to cut the meat off. Saturday my grandparents came over and we set up a processing pack-line and ground up/packaged/froze 50 pounds of venison for the winter!
It brought back a lot of memories of my childhood when my parents, brothers, and myself would work together to process deer every winter. God is always good to provide us with all that we need and much of what we want!
To all the hunters out there, I hope your weekend was as fruitful as ours, but I hope your venture was not nearly as difficult! Remember to always praise our God for his goodness!
In Christ,
Gwenny<><
PS- I'll be getting Tim the book "Field Dressing Deer for Dummies" for Christmas and he'll be getting me some good boots.
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