It was a “work” day

Saturday was a good day. Hunting was in the air, even though it was also the opening day of college football season.

Hundreds of folks spent their time popping off shotgun shells at darting feather balls called doves on opening day.  I went after bigger game, or at least prepared to do so. I had a great time heading to the woods to work on deer stands with my son, Adam, and his two oldest boys, William and Stewart.

The “to do” list was long. So was the corresponding box of the proper supplies I had spent all week putting together. When you go to the woods, you better take it all with you! Chain saw, hammer, nails, new latch for the deer stand, wasp spray, WD-40 for the squeaky swivel chairs, spray paint, camo cloth to redo the window curtains, rice bran, corn, .22 pistol for snakes and target practice, more wasp spray, pistachio nuts, bottled water, etc. That’s just the start of the list.

The day started at Tiger Bend Outdoors in Marion where Peyton McKinnie and his dad Marvin had fixed me up a new base and floor for one of my stands. And, a good set of steps to keep an old man safe in the up and downs of getting in and out! And, of course, a couple of bags of Delta Magic!

We headed to the Struttin’ Buck hunting club where we unloaded the four-wheeler, then hooked the trailer to the four-wheeler and began loading all the supplies and deer stand base. When we all piled in, it was quite a load for the old boy, but we were ready to go. About that time when Nathan Pilgreen came by bushhogging  a piece of property he has for sale in the area. After a brief visit, he followed us in on his tractor to help with the stand repairs. Thank you Lord…and Nathan. I don’t think we could have done it without him. He also helped clear out a shooting lane of brush and one-inch scrub hardwood bushes that would have taken us a week with the chain saw!

An added bonus was that he also gave the boys a quick pistol shooting lesson, working over a piece of scrap 2X6 pretty good! The boys were sporting their new camo backpacks, binoculars and other hunting gear and had to put the season’s new green, brown and black facepaint to the test, even though we were just playing in the woods.

We got the wasps killed, the lanes trimmed, the pistachio nuts eaten, the chairs oiled and the woods rat nests cleaned out of the stands. We added a little early season nutritional enticement down the shooting lanes for the deer and wore the boys slap dab out. When they quit running around the woods, climbed into the trailer, laid their heads on a sack of deer corn and drank the last two bottles of water, we knew it was time to go.

I have to add the whole trip was made a lot easier because the pastor of the First Church of Bushogging (and officially, First Baptist of Marion) Bubba Hoggatt had made it to the roads and shooting lanes a few days before and made them passable for our expedition.

Deer hunting is fun. As as you can tell, it takes a whole lot of folks to help an old man get everything done to enjoy it. Like  “work days” in the woods. It’s hard to put into words. Saturday was one of those.

But as each of the signs on the club state (Genesis 27:3 * ), it is a Biblical calling, you know. And nope, I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to look it up for yourself. You’ll be more likely to remember it and share it with someone else. Like Saturday.