Thanksgiving preparations

In the same year that Shane, this land, and Alison's birthday present led me into bow hunting, my own lingering desire to fill our new freezer as opening day of gun season approached led me to embrace an offer from a friend of a friend to purchase a Remington 30-06. After hunting with the bow for six weeks, the gun feels like cheating since it's so easy to shoot accurately at 150 yards--and even beyond that people tell me.

So I was in the cedar tree Wednesday morning and had become simply bored when the turkeys came up out of the marsh behind me, and being bored and a boy with a new toy, I shot one. I was supposed to be waiting for a buck, but I had become particularly unhopeful in that moment when the turkeys tempted me.

But Friday morning I was not bored. I was supposed to be waiting for a buck, but when a fine doe appeared on the slope some fifty yards out, I rested the gun on the gun rest and aimed at the place where the doe would next appear when she passed behind a large autumn olive. When she arrived at that spot, she paused to lift her nose to smell the air and I fired. She bounded upslope in a frantic loop for four or five seconds before going down and thrashing a bit before falling silent and lifeless.

In the turkeyless photograph above, I have just climbed down from the cedar tree after shooting the doe. Since I saw her go down and did not hear any more sound from her, I assumed she was dead and that I would not "bump" her by going to her right away.

The first doe I shot with the bow brought us 35 pounds of venison; the one I shot Friday with the rifle brought us 43 pounds. Tomorrow at our large Thanksgiving gathering of Alison's family, we will serve a store-bought turkey, but there will also be wild turkey breast and venison roast. This is a good way to live in the woods.