Tim's home!

Since Thursday afternoon I've been a hunting widow. Tim went up north with one of his best pals Cam and a new friend Peter. They went hunt deer for the last 2 days of rifle season up on our bush lot near Huntsville. The weather was cold but pretty much ideal for hunting. On Saturday morning Peter shot a nice buck from his tree stand.

It sounds like the 3 guys had a good time together. I'm glad that Tim has good friends who share his love of the outdoors. Having said that, I'm also looking forward to the day when Ben is old enough and I can go deer hunting up there again too.

For now I'm still trying to fill my archery deer tag locally. No luck so far.

Tim harvested a doe just over a week ago on the Friday of the local shotgun hunt. It came along with another doe towards the decoy standing in the background in the photo.

I got the call at 7:45 a.m., dropped Ben off with Mom (Thanks Mom!) and went to help gut, drag and hang the deer. After we finished field dressing the deer, I went to slit the ear to put the tag through it and managed to cut into my finger and through the nail. I grabbed some TP from my pocket and wrapped it in trail marking tape. After we dragged the deer out of the fields and hung it up, Tim drove to my Mom's to pick up Ben, while I drove to emerg. to get 5 stitches. I won't post those photos - it was pretty gross. The stitches are out now and it's looking much better.

On Monday we butchered the deer - our first time doing it on our own. It was an educational experience - a good one! It gives us a whole new appreciation for how food gets to our table. We were also able to prepare the cuts the way we would prefer them before putting them in the freezer. We'll be doing it again with future deer, I'm sure!