Hunting

Right now the focus is all about getting Otto his first deer.

But with the big man out of town last Friday, Ol’ Pa got out and found himself a beautiful mule deer buck.

I ate fresh heart and tenderloin for dinner that evening (it was delicious), and I butchered him for our freezer last night.

At the end of the day, we are all descendants of hunters.

And, for some of us, we think about hunting 365 days a year.

It’s an obsession — the wildness, the intimacy with nature, meat for the freezer, the beauty you encounter out there, and tapping into that hunting DNA that courses through all of our veins.

Last Friday, I saw two different ermines (short-tailed weasels) in their white winter coats, I caught a glimpse of a northern harrier hunting, I saw a beautiful golden eagle, I flushed some sharp-tailed grouse, I saw a northern shrike sitting on a fence post, I got snowed on, and I also killed a mule deer buck.

It was a great day.

Hunting is a huge deal in our house, and we have a couple of weeks left in our quest for Otto’s first deer.

I am grateful for the deer I got on Friday, grateful for the friend and neighbor that let me hunt his ranch, and grateful for another memorable day in nature by myself.

Here’s to hunting — and all of its intrinsic beauty.

— Matt