SOUR GRAPES

SUNSET IN THE DEER WOODS

BIG COUNTRY

GOOD COVER

ALL DOES

Sunday, 8:30 AM.  26 degrees F at the ferry dock, 23 on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm, sky overcast,  with 70% humidity.  The barometer is slowly falling, predicting cold and snowy weather the next ten days.  And a lot of folks were worried that the fall was too long and nice!

   No deer hunting for me this year, and perhaps never again. I  had pretty well forgotten about it being the opening of the Wisconsin gun deer season yesterday, until we drove past my deer hunting woods in the orchard country yesterday morning on the way back from the Recycle Center.  I stopped the truck at the entrance road and looked for deer hoof prints and saw none, but of course then a doe ran between two nearby orchards as we drove away.  No buck followed, but he was probably just waiting for us to leave. Well, that's the way it usually is.

   The weather was miserable yesterday morning, and the gale force winds rendered the woods dangerous from falling trees and limbs.  I did not mind being out of the hunt.  I do mind that I have medical conditions that will probably preclude any future gun hunting of any kind, as it is still a slow recovery from bypass surgery a year ago, and the fact that they relocated my pacemaker to my right side makes it risky for me to shoot a high powered rifle or shotgun.  Oh, well, I'm still here, and a camera has no kick.

   The fun has gone out of the deer hunt for me the last years anyway, as old buddies died or became incapacitated, or lost their desire.  It was really good fun many years ago, when a group of us would set up camp in tents out in the big woods, or all stay in the same cottage and hunt together.  In those days when we got bored with being on our deer stands we would set up drives, and scour the swamps for deer and push them to the standers on the trails.  There was always action then, and I have to admit that freezing in the wind alone in a tree stand is not a lot of fun.  

   Sounds like sour grapes though, doesn't it?