For years the tradition every November at the Green Girl Estate is that Mr. D heads north for opening weekend of deer hunting and Green Girl enjoys quality time with Team Testoserone while he's away. Then Governor Doyl had to sign a bill permitting 10-year-olds to hunt with the supervision of an adult. Which means years of tradition will change this fall at the Green Girl Estate because there is no way, except over Green Girl's rotting corpse, that she'll allow Mr. T up north for hunting. Her reasons have nothing to do with hunting, and she'll leave it at that.
And this year, Mr. T wants to hunt. Mr. D is excited to escort Mr. T into the world of camo, blaze orange, deer stands, tracking, rut, shells, guns, ammo and a whole bunch of other stuff that Green Girl knows but cares little about. Mr. D keeps his guns and ammo locked up, he's a responsible gun owner and unlike many of his hunting friends, does NOT carry an NRA membership card because he feels concealed handguns and assault rifles have no place in civilized society. (Green Girl married a moderate conservative, so their pillow talk stays on an even keel.) He's teaching all three boys the Old School respect that he learned as a boy--respect for Nature, Life, Guns and The Hunt. He'll require Hunter Safety courses before any of his sons head into the woods solo. Green Girl and Mr. D agree on all of these points.
Mr. D loves to shoot birds. Deer, notsomuch. In fact, Green Girl knows he secretly fears having to kill a deer because then he'll be stuck with the whole messy task of dragging its carcass out of the woods and gutting it and stringing it up and taking it to a butcher and blah blah blah blood and yuck and ick. But deer hunting is upon us and there are more deer in the Back 40 than pheasants (which is a long and entertaining tale for another day), so Mr. D will take Mr. T out for The Great Deer Hunt.
Yesterday morning a buck and a doe stood in the field between house and school, luring Mr. T into the woods this fall--if the two deer offered the kid a DS and unlimited portions of crab rangoon they couldn't have gotten him any more excited about deer hunting. Green Girl wants the deer exterminated--by her own tribe or by the neighbors, it doesn't matter so long as the pestilence is kept out of her garden. She's totally cool with the deer being hunted and Mr. T participating and all of this taking place on their property--heck, it's one of the many reasons why Green Girl and Mr. D bought 60 acres in the first place.
This weekend Mr. D and Mr. T will track in the woods. They'll go shopping for a deer stand and hunting gear and make big plans for opening weekend. Green Girl will accept that the family's tradition of deer hunting will change forever as her men will hunt nearby, returning frequently for hot showers, hot meals and football scores. Instead of a free-wheeling solo weekend with Team Testosterone, deer hunting weekend will look like any other weekend in the fall, except she'll have more laundry, more food prep and more interruptions with requests from her Great White Hunters. It's a weird thing how this step into manhood requires Green Girl to let go while doing more at the same time. And she's willing to bet her freezer won't hold any more venison than it did in previous years when only ONE member of the household participated in The Hunt.
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