As the April Blizzard of '18 raged around me this weekend my thoughts drifted towards summertime. That may seem logical, but I don't often daydream about summer. Summer activities will cross my mind, but just a general longing for summer isn't an ordinary occurrence for me. My drifting thoughts of the weekend included open lakes, gardening plans, bike rides, food plots, trail cameras...trail cameras! Hadn't checked my favorite foremost outfitter's website lately for trail camera deals. I'll be darned if there wasn't a really good camera on sale for an outstanding price, with free shipping to boot! An entered gift card and some credit card points later, one shiny new trail camera was on its way to my doorstep, free of charge.
It doesn't take much to get my mind hooked on hunting thoughts. A new trail cam (actually, a second new camera....I found an even better deal on one at Christmastime) means a new strategy on where to place all my cameras (7) and when and how early and what should we put in our food plots this year and I need to get that stand moved and that stand repaired. Pretty soon the blood pressure has risen enough that some relaxation breathing is in order.
Hunting used to be so much simpler; in early November dig out the orange clothes, wipe the dust off the rifle, sharpen the knife, go kill something. Oddly enough, it's that knife sharpening I remember the most about my early hunting days. When I was a kid my family had a "deer camp" consisting of my grandpa, my uncles, my dad, and eventually me. The night before opener we'd pile into my grandparents' house and share food and stories and plans......and someone was always sharpening a knife. Back then if you wanted a sharp knife you sat and put an edge on the blade using a round piece of novaculite (a hard, dense, fine-grained siliceous rock resembling chert, often used for whetstones.....duh). The stone was usually passed around the table, the holder of the stone excusing himself from the conversation so as to focus on honing a razor edge without lopping off a thumb in the process. I knew I'd become an official member of the hunting party when the stone, after years of passing me by, was finally passed to me. Calling on memory as my guide from the dozens of times I'd watched this very process I carefully swirled the blade of my knife across the smooth, gritty surface of the whetstone, first one side of the blade, then the other. The real men of the camp tested the edge of the blade on the hair of their arm, noting how smoothly they could shave a strand or two. My mostly hairless arms meant I ended up with a mostly dull knife that probably wouldn't have sliced through unset jello, but nobody needed to know that. With no blood shed I passed on the stone and sat a little higher as the tales of hunting days gone by drifted on into the night.
And those are the thoughts produced when a snowy day in April meets up with a terrific online deal.
And that's the abrupt ending you get when a tired writer sits on the wrong side of 10:00 after a long, long Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment