We gained a new addition to our household with the start of the New Year. No, I did not fail to mention the arrival of a pregnancy and baby (and do not hold your breath on that one people) .... I am talking Samson. Who is Samson? Well, he would be the latest in the fine dead animals I have gracing my walls. Yes, when you live in the Upper Peninsula and are married to a hunter you learn to accept a few things into your life. One: Rifles will be stockpiled in your house and you will come to view them as no more then exactly what they are, guns to shoot deer with. Two: Bullets and shot gun shells will end up in your washer because they were left in jean pockets, and Three: Dead animals or perhaps, more kindly, mounts will be hanging on the walls of your home. I admit, for a downstate girl this took a little adjustment, but I love Clay, and he loves hunting, and its a package deal.
And, in truth, it has been okay. The mounts are actually beautiful, and despite a few minor protests from Clay, they were given names. (I gotta have some fun, right?) It started with his bear mount, which is a three quarter mount (picture the bear coming out of the wall from about it's midsection, paws slightly raised, head-turned, mouth closed). Anything that huge in your house is quite the presence and sort of demands acknowledgment and a name, so he was dubbed Brutus. Then the first deer Clay had mounted was christened Bucky, obvious and cliche, but there ya have it. Now we have Samson, a very impressive 10 pointer my husband took with his bow this fall. Like his name implies he resonates strength with his well-muscled neck and a few battle scars. The really good part of the story though is from the night Clay shot this particular buck that now resides on my living room wall.
You see, Clay wasn't hunting alone. He was hunting with Isabelle, who let me remind you is three. It was nearing the end of the hunt, so her portable DVD player had used up the last of its batteries and she had finished off the last of her snacks and drink, and the light was starting to fade along with the last of her attention span. Clay informs me that she will sit on the floor of his blind with her head phones on and quietly watch her videos, periodically looking at the does in his bait pile, and for the most part just do her thing, but at that moment in the hunt he had taken her onto his lap and they were watching one or two deer munch in the bait pile when Samson came strolling in from behind his blind. Now I cannot begin to imagine the adrenaline rush Clay must have had or the thoughts coursing through his head during the next several moments, but he told me that he set Isabelle on the floor on her butt, whispered to her to not make a sound (remember she is three!) and got his bow and prepared to aim while this buck came into view. I asked Clay how long he figured it took him to shoot from the time he set Isabelle down, and he estimates less than a minute. I do not doubt he was trying to hurry in order not to risk Isabelle giving them away! I have to believe God was actually watching over Isabelle because if she would have made a sound there is no telling what her Daddy would have done to her!
After Clay shot, it is not clear what the next several minutes were like other than a lot of maneuvering, in order to get both of them out of the blind and onto the ground. Clay said he brought Isabelle down the stairs of his blind first and left her tottering around its base with a flashlight while he went back up to retrieve his bow and some equipment. Afterwards they found the arrow he had shot the deer with and that is when Clay got really excited, for it was well-covered with blood, which while sounding gruesome for you squeamish types is a good thing as it means a good shot and a clean kill. Deciding he did not wish to track the deer through the darkening woods with a three year old, Clay planned to tromp back through the field and call me on his cell phone to come and get Isabelle.
Now picture my dear husband, if you will, who has just shot the largest buck of his hunting career, so needless to say he is a wee bit pumped up. He has his bow and a back-pack and is jabbering away on his cell phone to me, striding down one rut of the two-track road that leads from his blind, barely even conscious of his daughter, who when he does look, is happy as can be, two hands grasped around his large hunting flashlight, hat crammed down over her head and trucking for all she is worth in the other two track trying to keep up with Daddy, but not a whine or complaint coming from her mouth. After Clay got off the phone with me, they reached the Jeep and just had to wait for me to drive out. That is when Isabelle informed Clay that she had to go potty.
Oh, boy. The only problem, of course, was that her little potty was in his deer blind..... way too far away. And now they were in the middle of a hayfield. So, Clay did the only thing he could do. He had her drop her drawers and forming a little "seat" with his arms held her up while she did her stuff. Isabelle handled it all like a great adventure, and Clay thinking that wasn't so bad asked her if she was done to which she replied, "Yes, but now, I have to go poop." Of course. Later, when Clay told me of their "bathroom break" in the field all I could think to say was, "Aren't ya glad I packed wipes in your bag of goodies for her?" Ah, life with a child is never dull, is it? But, then again if she is going to be a hunter and live in the U.P. she needs to now how to pee in the woods, right?
So, that is the tale of the very first time Isabelle went hunting with Clay. He now believes she is sort of a good luck charm and one can kind of understand why. She refers to Sampson as both her and Daddy's buck and did go back out in the blind with Clay several more times during the course of both bow and rifle season. Although it did take us a while to make her understand that you do not shoot a big buck EVERY time you go hunting!
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