It was a bit warmer this morning, in the upper 30s, and a steady drizzle was heavy in the air. God's morning light of dawn had time to awaken this day before any deer were taken. I was out opening up the chicken coop around 7:10 am. The rooster had been crowing for some time now, and the chickens are always anxious to get out into their lot as soon as they see light.
As I was feeding the greedy hens a shot pierced through the still, wet morning. I quickly turned to get back to the house because I had left the radio there and I wanted to find out what had happened. Before I reached the house, another gun shot rang out through the air from up in our hollow. When I got back into the house the clock read 7:20am and I had news over the radio that Matthew had shot two doe!
Matthew had gotten to the same oak tree where he was yesterday when he shot the buck. This morning he had time to sit down beneath a maple about 20 feet further on. With his back to the large tree, this silver maple offered him some protection from the cold rain.
As he sat and waited he saw a herd of 8 or 10 deer going by. He watched as the first two passed by. They were not very big and he was hoping for a bigger one. He decided to shoot the third one, which was bigger than the first two, and he was afraid that they may pick up his scent at any time. It fell immediately, and the rest of the herd bolted. But then Matt saw one of the large ones stop about 150 feet away. He decided to take it, and it fell in the spot where it was standing also!
Matthew and Aaron had taken his two 4-wheelers up to the turn around spot this morning before daylight, so all that was left to do was to load the two carcasses and bring them down to the house. It turned out that the smaller one was actually a button buck, but the other one was a large doe. It was more difficult to hoist that big doe up onto the swing set than it was the buck from yesterday. I'm guessing it weighed maybe 150 pounds? The button buck was smaller than the buck yesterday and Matt didn't have much trouble getting that one up.
Matthew proceeded with the job of gutting the animals and then Christina came out to help us skin them. Between the three of us, along with Aaron, we had the hides off and wrapped up in the freezer in no time! (We would love to try to tan them someday) We decided to let the carcasses hang as the temperature continued to be cool enough and we wanted to have enough time to get ready for church.
I was proud of Matthew that he was not going to allow the morning activities of the hunt, and the success of bagging two more deer, to interfere with going to God's House. (Too many people use deer hunting as an excuse for missing church.) We decided that we had much to thank Him for this morning, and what better place than church!
I'm glad we made it, also, because I was called upon to preach and the Lord blessed me with a good message! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Now for some pictures:
Here they are on Matthew's Suzuki 4-wheeler: (Matt had just bought this 4-wheeler 2 weeks ago and it has come in pretty handy!)
Here the two deer are, hanging up to be worked on:
Matthew wanted to hang them up by their hind legs today and see if the gutting would go easier. Yesterday he hung the buck up by the front legs. It worked fine both ways, but he decided that he like them hung up by the hind legs the best.
Here is that mountain girl, Christina, helping with the skinning:
Matthew with the two gutted and skinned carcasses:
Well, now we need to get outside and cut up this meat that the Lord has blessed us with! It has continued to drizzle throughout the morning and afternoon and has not really stopped yet. I guess we will just have to get wet. (By the way, Aaron is back up in the hollow hoping to get a deer for himself. He was not successful this morning, and so far he has not reported anything this afternoon.)
Again, we will thank God for the blessings of this bountiful harvest of venison! It will make the grocery budget stretch quite a bit farther! I also want to thank my son Matthew. I am very proud of him and his success deer hunting this season. Only the second day, and he has already bagged 3!
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