Hunting

Why yes, I hunt.  Why do I hunt?  Well, to be honest getting up 3 hours before sunrise kinda sucks, but when your in the duck blind or the tree stand and the world wakes up around you its really amazing.  I am out by the river or in the timber there are no trucks going by, no alarm clocks, none of the noises of the city.  What you do hear are coyotes singing as the sun comes up, you hear turkeys calling each other, you hear the ducks waking up.  You feel the temp drop as the sun clears the horizon.  You get to watch the colors change in the sky as it goes from moonlight to dawn.  This last week I took Sam duck hunting down on the river.  Sunrise was 7:54 and we were down on the river bottoms at 6 am.  It was 26 degrees out nice and cool.  No snow yet but frost everywhere.  So here we are hauling out deocys and gear to the duck blind which in this case is a bunch of cedar trunks stuck between steel  T posts next to a pine tree about 20 foot off a channel.  Breath is fogging its dark as sin out and everything is quiet.  I throw the decoys into the water and set up my spread.  Back into the blind we go.  Sam sits next to the edge to watch and we wait.  The sky begins to change becomes a deep purple blue the clouds begin to glow a dark red.  As you sit there the critters begin to wake up and announce to the world that they live another day.  As dawn approaches you watch the colors change in the sky and begin to see the birds flying.  As we sit there a flight of ducks buzz us out of the darkness.  You just hear the whistle of their wings as they fly bye.  Sam sits there with her ears perked up and shivers.  Not from cold but from pent up excitement.  This is only her second hunting season, and when the ducks start talking she gets more and more excited.   We watch the ducks flying by the rivers main channel several hundred yards away when finally a young mallard bombs into our decoys and becomes dinner.  Sam makes a great retrieve and the day is done by 9 am.  Its now sunny and clear and warm.  The ducks have no reason to move and well they don't.  Yes I spent more time waiting for sunrise then I did hunting but the sounds the sights hell even the smells are so intense so sharp so clean its worth it.  Even if the hunt is unsuccessful, like the next day where I missed several easy shots, its well worth the time to be out there.  When things go right, those are moments you will talk about with friends for years, the hunting brag stories are few and far between in reality its more about being outdoors then it is about hunting.

the journal and back to work

So I have been trying to journal and have been keeping up with writing things down.  I figured it would be a way to get me to be more consistant on writing a blog.  Well what it has done is made me a like writing on paper.  I am enjoying using a fountain pen and feeling the way it moves on paper.  Now my brother stated that one the perfect pen is the 10 cent bike disposable pen, and for my job he is right.  You do not want to give a fountain pen to a drunk or to a drug addict to sign a release form.  You really do not want to handle a nice pen with bloody gloves and lastly fountain pens really do not write on the gloves we wear.
     The last few weeks we have been laid up with a bruised spine.  I feel coming out of the back of the squad during a code.  I did a Charley Brown my feet went above my head and my back struck the steel edge of the squad bed.  Talk about pain.  It was pretty much instant and persistent over the next couple of months.  I know I am getting older because I just could not shake this one off.  Physical therapy and a epidural shot and well I am back to work on shift after two months of light duty which is all office work.  Its good to be back on shift, it gives Nej time on her own without me so that she can decompress.  I get to drive firetrucks and go into fires.  Life is getting better.