The 2014 Hunting Season

(This is for Anita, my friend who is always encouraging.)

My husband, Mark, is a provider. As in too-many-to-remember successive years now, he brought home the gutted carcass of another soft-eyed, graceful member of God’s creation, slain by a shell in a rifle carefully aimed at its gentle heart by him.

Tasty and nutritious though venison is, the image of a sobbing, scared Bambi and his dead mother always cross my mind when this holocaustic season arrives. So instead of the morbid, I focus on the trip’s positive aspects for Mark.

Weeks before the season opens, Mark starts talking about it. He cleans and prepares the camper. It is unusual for Mark to throw himself into scrubbing and sweeping, but the camper is the exception when hunting season closes in.

He fills all tanks, checks batteries, tries all the switches, buttons, and levers that will bring him creature comforts and keep him safe while he’s camped in the wilderness.

He also cleans and prepares his firearms, sharpens his hunting knives, and assembles piles of the equipment and clothing he will take. It’s chaotic to the onlooker but organized perfection to him.

He meets up with his friend, Doc, and the other hunters who show up every year to camp (with permission) on private property. Each hunter arrives with his own RV or tent. The fields surrounding favored hunting areas are well populated on Opening Day weekend.

The first morning of the hunt, Mark and Doc set out before daylight to walk up and down mountainsides and valleys. They labor hard to find the deer whose lives will be sacrificed this year to fill our larders and freezers and nourish us through the winter. After many hours, they return to camp where they cook breakfast over an open fire, drink robust camp coffee, and prepare for the taxing afternoon hunt.

After hunting for hours more, and as daylight wanes and temperatures fall, they exhaustedly return to the campsite where they join the other hunters and enjoy a glass of merlot, bottled spring water, or the occasional beer. The livers of deer already shot, gutted, hung and bled are fried with onions, carrots, bacon and tofu as the hunters sit round the fire and speak lovingly of their wives, brag about their cooking and how well they are aging, and how they are worth every dime it takes to maintain their good looks.

They lay out clean underwear and shirts for the next day before they brush their teeth, say their prayers, and turn in for the night.

The last two paragraphs are such fiction.

Mark rarely finds any foods in our pantry that appeal to him. They all contain fiber and nutrition, and those elements are anathema to him when hunting season arrives. As a result, he dares not leave home without a substantial supply of Metamucil, magnesium capsules, Gas-X and Zantac. Those are about all he takes from our kitchen.

The morning of his noon-ish departure, he drives the truck and camper to the golf course clubhouse since he hates to miss the morning coffee gathering of Ritzville’s most astute male citizenry, and then to the grocery store where he loads up on every sort of chemical-laced junk and comfort food available there.

From that moment on, little passes his lips that won’t cause abundant gross bodily emissions and noises that could wake a comatose person in the next county. Chili and beer are dietary staples when he camps. I am so glad I’m hundreds of miles away.

In reality, there is limited cooking at the camp site. Mostly he and Doc go into the nearest town for breakfasts that are designed to clog arteries tighter than gorilla glue and dinners that cause roiling gurgles and thunderous belches as their tortured digestive systems attempt to process the copious amount of food (mostly carbs) that they have just ingested. The clamor is similar to a really bad rock concert.

Mornings, he and Doc sit in lawn chairs around the campfire sipping stovebrewed coffee and chewing on packaged sweet rolls, and wait for deer to pass before them. The amazing aspect of this is that the deer actually do so. Once. They trustingly and fearlessly walk the paths they have safely followed all year. Then boom!

Mark shot his doe ten minutes into hunting season, probably before there was much daylight. Doc’s deer was shot later in the day. No doubt they hadn’t moved from their lawn chairs any more than necessary. It is assured that they did not track a deer up and down a mountain or valley. In fact, I believe that the most exercise either of them got was climbing the stairs to their respective RVs to fill a coffee cup, grab a beer, or use the bathroom.

Mark wore a big, satisfied smile as he drove into our driveway. He’d bagged his deer, bonded with friends, and had a great few days away. He hung the deer carcass in the garage where I don’t go until the deer is sliced, diced and processed for freezing and canning sometime in the next two to three days.

We feasted on cubed venison steak last night for dinner. It was yummy and contained no fat. Venison is a win/win that we wouldn’t benefit from or enjoy were it left to me. Mark even ate the veggies I served. Thus, and for a multitude of other reasons, Mark deserves my loving thanks.