I can’t believe Deer Hunting (gun season) is only one week away now.
I grew up in an honest to goodness hunting family.
Dad taught me gun safety before there were classes for such things and I have very fond memories of following him through the woods, at first with my trusty, rusty bb gun and later on when I had grown up a bit, with the real thing.
But I never could really shoot anything.
Guess I take after my Mom, who absolutely loved going hunting, but when faced with actually shooting at a deer, said “Shoo!” instead, according to the famous family legend.
Dad, on the other hand was a great hunter. We ate a lot of game – venison, partridge and rabbit. He was, in his younger years, even a guide for hunters from downstate and was a great storyteller about the early 20th century living and hunting in the wild north country around Roscommon and Grayling. We kids always loved listening to his stories.
I remember I loved going partridge hunting with Dad. The woods up home are beautiful and even today, still pretty wild. It was a real treat if he let me go along when he was going bird hunting. But on one hunt, when I finally sighted in on a real live partridge sitting just 20 feet away on a tree limb, I just couldn’t pull that trigger – much to Dad’s disgust.
So he did the shooting that time.
Unfortunately, I am a dismal hunter and I guess a hypocrite to, since I have no problem at all with cooking or eating wild game when someone else shoots it. In fact, growing up in a “poor” part of the county, we depended on game for a lot of our meals.
So I can clean ‘em, I can cook ‘em, I just can’t be the executioner.
And, despite the fact that we seem to be overrun with “critters’ most places around Clare County and especially when we were living on the Tobacco River — raccoons, squirrels and lawn eating moles, I never could bring myself to eliminate any.
Around the Maurer place in years past, I have rescued one terrified baby bunny from Callie the cat, given another not-so-lucky one a somber burial, herded a confused mole across the driveway to safety in the grass where he could continue to tear up our yard, and even freed a very lively field mouse caught by his head and shoulders in a trap under the kitchen sink.
When I say lively, I mean that mouse was definitely that! I carefully picked up the trap with tongs, complete with kicking, squirming occupant, and carried it out by our little woods, where I released the spring.
The mouse, who probably couldn’t believe his luck, leaped into the air about three times, ran around me in a circle and scooted for the woods, where I had hopes that he would build a new home and stay permanently.
The mole, once he found his way off the asphalt of our driveway, dived into the lawn in the front yard like it was water and promptly disappeared from view, leaving behind only some wildly waving blades of grass.
When I told him about the mole, Jack said, “Why didn’t you hit him with a shovel?” I just looked at him.
This is the same macho guy who threatened to, but never shot the muskrats destroying our riverbanks, the raccoons that regularly tore down the bird feeders or the red squirrels living under the deck.
He is also the guy who, once rescued his only little mouse, caught by just his tail in another trap under the sink, and carefully carried him in gloved hands across the driveway where he released him in those same woods.
No critters around here at our “big camper” on Whiteville to speak of, other than a few bunnies, but if there were, they would certainly be safe living at the Maurers.
