Tag: love

Great White Hunters? (final excerpt)

Mitch waited until Todd left and said, “There are never any birds in these places.  My father would take us into the woods all the time and there were never any birds in the woods.  Oh well, let’s go and get this over with and then we can head over the hill and down into the back side of this field.” 

Against Todd’s advice, Mitch decided that we would both go down into the draw.  The draw had a mixture of snow and frozen mud.  There wasn’t really any easy way down the slopes into the draw.  The good news was that there was a wide open area with very few trees that I could use to slide down to get in the middle of the draw, because I could tell it was not going to be a question of if I was going to slip and fall, but when.

Once down in the draw, we both started off toward the other end with the dogs going back and forth, in and out and not having the trouble I was having keeping my balance.  What looked like snow up top was actually ice-crusted snow up close.  Carrying the gun, not falling on my butt and dropping the gun was immediately more important to me than “no birds.”  Not too safe, huh.  Mitch got up ahead of me about twenty feet and saw what Todd was talking about.  At the backside of the draw, there were birds everywhere.  There were chukars and pheasants just milling around the tree line and the junk farm pieces.  He couldn’t get close enough fast enough.  The dogs were on the birds making them scatter and fly.  Mitch started shooting his gun at the birds and nothing was dropping.  I was down in the bottom of the draw trying to get up the slick icy sides of the slope.  As I was crawling up the hillside, I could hear the gunfire and the birds cackling and the whump whump whump of their wings flapping and Mitch cussing and yelling for me to get up there and help out, and I couldn’t get up the hill.  Just as I had crawled almost up to the top, the shotgun sling slipped down my shoulder.  As I grabbed a tree root to pull up on, the shotgun slid off my arm and slid down the hill back to the bottom.  I looked at the gun at the bottom of the hill and then turned my head back up to where I had almost reached, just inches away from level ground, debating whether or not to slide back down to the bottom of the hill.  I was seriously considering just leaving the gun down there, but I couldn’t, it had been a Valentine’s Day gift.  Still holding the tree root, I turned and sat on my butt.  Then I let go of the root with one hand and pushed off with the other.  Sliding down the hill with only lycra running tights and canvas field pants as a buffer between my backside and crusty ice. 

Mitch was still shooting at birds and screaming, “Susan get up here!  Where are you?  I can’t do this by myself!”

Digging my heels in to stop my slide at the bottom, I just missed a close encounter with a large tree stump.  I yelled, “I’m trying, but I can’t get out of here!”

I picked up my gun and crawled upward again.  I realized that day, that not giving up is essential to hunting.  By the time I finally got out of the draw and topside, all of the birds were gone.  Mitch didn’t hit anything.  Oh yeah, we sure cleaned out the birds for Todd; they flew over the road to the neighbors land.

My Snow Dogs?

I’ve noticed that this year the dogs aren’t as excited about the cold and snow as in years past.  The trio would wrestle and play, eating so much snow that I would have to stop them for fear of an impending stomachache.   AJ was and still is content to stay fairly close to me and be ever watchful.  Charlie used to run as fast as he could through the snow with his head down scooping up as much snow as he could, dining and dashing, so to speak.  This year he has started lifting up a paw to shake off the cold and not showing the past interest in “snow to go”.  Orso is still young enough to want to run full steam at either AJ or Charlie and slam the closest victim to the ground, which usually provokes a sharp growl and a biting snap followed by a show of contriteness on Orso’s part.  Then it’s game on, but it doesn’t last for nearly as long as last year. 

Yesterday I was home working on getting ready for this year’s taxes, and thought that I should take the dogs for an outing, but when I looked for them, all three were snuggled down on the bed, sound asleep.  They have definitely embraced the indoor life.

Trying on Hunting for Size

I started hunting as a means to an end.  I had no longing or any real desire to carrying a gun and shooting at some wild animal or bird.  That would probably entail having to go to the bathroom at some point and I don’t do outhouses or au “naturalle” in the woods.  It’s flush toilets for me.  I was once called the “Queen of hold it”.  “Hunting” conjured up images of smelly men dressed in camouflage sitting in the woods waiting for a victim to come within scope range.  My ex-husband had once told me that deer hunters would spray deer urine on them to mask their own scent.  NOT ME!  So after the divorce and when I started dating my future husband, who is an avid upland game bird hunter, I began to rethink my earlier opinion of hunting. 

I showed an interest to learning to hunt for purely selfish reasons.  I wanted to spend more time with Mitch.  When we started dating, I was obsessed.  I was insecure about our relationship, and figured that the more time I spent with him, the more he would see what a “fine catch” I was.  Dumb, huh? 

I think Mitch was skeptical, but never really said anything, he just threw himself totally into the task of teaching me to wing shoot with a shotgun, to walk in the field carrying my gun and be completely outfitted. 

The high point after the first trip when I all carried was a camera was being there with Mitch from the first bird killed to the long drive home.  I wasn’t hooked yet, but I was getting there.  After ten years of going hunting with Mitch, I think that when we’re there together, we truly are a team.

Mitch

Mitch hated me the first time I met him.  I was positive of that.  I returned a scuba diving video the owner of the dive shop had loaned me back to the dive shop that Mitch managed.   When I handed it to him, Mitch went into a tirade about videos going out without any documentation.  I thought all of the anger was targeted at me, but no it was at the owner of the shop.  Mitch intrigued me.  He came off as aloof and solicitous at the same time.  He acted like he really cared what the customer wanted or needed and at the same time held himself detached from the situation.  I made it my mission in life to make him like me and in the process I fell in love with him.

As our relationship developed, I listened and watched and memorized everything about him.  One of his passions was pheasant hunting.  Once a year he would go to western Kansas and spend a week hunting upland game birds (pheasants).  I was jealous of the time that he spent with family and friends that week while I stayed home waiting for him to come back and hear all of the stories of the past week.  In an effort to spend more time with him I decided that I wanted to learn to pheasant hunt, even though I’d never been hunting for anything in my life and had no idea what that entailed.  The very thought of sitting in a deer stand or a duck blind for hours waiting on a passing victim bored the hell out of me.  I’d rather clean the bathroom and I hate cleaning the bathroom.

Mitch was amused when I asked that he teach me to hunt.  But he dove head long into teaching me.  put together the gear I would need.  Mitch gave me hand-me-down shirts, ammo belt and bought an army surplus field coat for the cold.  He showed me how the hunters carry the gun in the field and how to wing shoot. 

My first trip I carried a camera and  watched and learned how the hunters would line up in a vee shape and work a field hunting for the very elusive pheasant.  When I came back, I was hooked.  He even bought me a shotgun and modified to fit me.

Frozen Pumpkin Yogurt Pops

The dogs love these and best of all no wheat gluten.

I mix plain nonfat yogurt and canned pumpkin together.  Then I spray a cupcake pan with non stick spray and spoon in the mixture.  I put the pan in the freezer until frozen.  They pop out of the cupcake pan easily.  I just put into a container and store in the freezer. 

The dogs love them.

AJ (final excerpt)

We decided that AJ would have to be kenneled when neither of us was home.  We didn’t like it, but outside of stripping the house bare of all objects, we didn’t know what else to do.  We read that AJ was probably suffering from separation anxiety and that he probably did all of the damage in the first 10 minutes that we were gone, small consolation, but we were at a loss at how to stop the destruction.  So we brought in the large kennel from the garage.  We put in a blanket to make AJ comfortable and gave him toys and rawhide chews to chew on.  Guess what, he didn’t touch the rawhide chews or the toys; no he chewed the blanket to shreds.  We found out that the whole time we were gone, he barked almost nonstop.  The neighbors told us.

We thought we had the immediate problem solved, but once again we were wrong.  You’d think we start getting used to always being wrong.  I came home from work one afternoon and there was AJ sitting at the door waiting for me.  I slowly walked into the front room thinking maybe this was a clone or something; surely AJ was still in the kennel, because I put him in there myself and was sure that I had secured the door.  The kennel door was standing open wide and after close inspection I could see that spring loaded pin was bent.  Somehow he got the door opened, maybe he put all of his weight on the door, I don’t know, maybe it was just a fluke.  Surprisingly he hadn’t done any damage, probably didn’t have enough time.  Same thing the next time we left and put him in the kennel, I come home and there AJ is waiting for me at the door.  So far no damage, maybe he was cured.  After a couple of weeks of no devastation, I dragged the kennel back to the garage.

AJ is just too smart for his own good.  He knew the kennel was gone and there were new trials for us.  He switched tactics on us.  He started going through the kitchen trash.  He would drag the bag out of the can and bring it to the front room and leave us all kinds of things to clean up.  Wet coffee grinds in the carpet, along with wrappers and such.  Mitch actually put an eyebolt in the wall and used bungee cords to secure the trashcan to the wall. Me, I would have just changed trashcans and put a smaller one under the sink, but knowing AJ, he probably would just open the cabinet door.  When dumpster diving didn’t work, AJ decided the countertops held great appeal.  I had set a frozen loaf of bread in the sink drainer to thaw; he found it and ate the whole loaf, wrapper and all.  He knocked the dog biscuit decanter off the counter and onto the floor pushing it around the kitchen until he ate all of the dog biscuits.  This dog was really trying my patience.

We came up with a solution that so far has worked.  When we have to leave the dogs home alone, we close and secure the bi-fold doors separating the two sides of the house, the front room and our bedroom from the dining room and kitchen.  We would also turn on the radio in the bedroom and give both dogs a rawhide chew.  So far this has worked, I think the only reason it has worked so far, is that AJ hasn’t figured out how to remove the rubber bands that keep the doors closed.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about AJ.  He just turned 10 years old and I don’t know who’s more devoted to whom, him to me or me to him.  I love him more each day.  Of course, he still has all of his faults, but when I look into those soft adoring eyes, I feel such peace and calm wash over me.  And I know without a doubt that I would walk through fire for him as he would for me.