No Dead Deer Weekend...

...yep, my first weekend of hunting was a bust but I felt a little bit better because no one else got anything either. Saturday was a gorgeous day out which means not great hunting then Sunday morning as soon as I got into the stand, the rain turned on. Here is a picture of my attempt to keep my gun dry, you'll notice the muzzle sticking out at the right side of the picture.

So let's see, where to start with this weekend....well, Friday before we left town, I decided I just really wasn't into this Nick Sparks' book I was reading so I took Meredith's advice and stopped by the library to pick up "Sleep Toward Heaven" (I'll post about that later this week). I tried a different approach with packing and heading out this weekend, instead of asking Matt 500 questions and if he got this and got that, I took my bag to the truck, along with the sleep stuff and groceries I'd bought the other day and waited. When Matt told me he was ready, I put the pups in the back and we headed out.

So we get to Troy and decide to stop at Wal-Mart. We both took a potty break and as Matt came out, I asked, "Did you get the porksteaks?" His face dropped which I could tell was a no. (He'd planned this big grandious idea of a pork steak dinner for Saturday and he'd bought them the week before but then left town without them). So we grabbed some porksteaks, milk, cough drops, Chapstick and charcoal and were on the road again.

As soon as we get to the house and start to unpack, we realized that the pork steaks weren't the only thing we had forgotten-an extra blanket, long underwear and ice were also left back at home. So Matt started the grill and I took the doggies for a long walk because they would be spending the rest of the weekend in their cages (don't want people shooting at them thinking they are deer especially Emma). Did I mention that I'd started the book after the Wal-Mart trip at Troy?

After a debate of who was hunting where on Friday evening, we all called it a night and went to bed. Saturday morning came very early but since my MIL wasn't coming out until later in the morning, I didn't even get out of bed. I slept for about another hour then at 6:45am, I got up and fed the puppies and continued my book. By 9am, I had finished it (it was great!) and whereas I usually bring way too much stuff to do, I'd only brought that one book and now I was just twiddling my thumbs until Matthew came in to take me hunting. Surprisingly, his sister and brother came in very early but neither had gotten anything.

So after a quick lunch, Matthew and I get all suited up to head out to hunt. This would be a great picture except for the fact that Matthew's eyes are shut.
We went out about 1pm and after being told to be quiet about 10 times, Matthew fell asleep and I watched the field and wrote a novel in my head (it's going to be great!). When he woke up, I'd say look a deer and when he'd look, I'd say, "Monkeys always look!" He'd roll his eyes and tell me to quit moving. Finally about 4pm, I really did see a deer and I told him, he rolled his eyes and I whispered with big eyes, "No...seriously!" He saw it and told me to get my gun ready. The only problem was that it was BEHIND us which is the neighbor's property so I wasn't able to shoot it until it came onto ours and, of course, the silly deer went the opposite direction.

So we head back in and eat a delicious dinner of pork steaks. Matt grilled them on Friday night and then put them in the crockpot all day Saturday, they just fell off the bone and melted in your mouth-yum! Then we had a heated game of Mexican Dominoes where I didn't win but I did beat Matt!

I've had this nasty cough since Wednesday. It's like I can feel and hear it in my chest but it won't come out! So about 1am, I wake up in a coughing fit where I hit the bed against the nightstand and the tempermental lamp turns on (I'd been trying to turn this light on all weekend and it was not working!) then I couldn't get it turned off. I finally just unplugged it and headed back to sleep or tried to at least...

I never got back into a deep sleep but I was woken to the smell of sausage cooking. Yum! We headed out to hunt again about 5:30am. Matt put me in a stand by myself this time, giving me all kinds of rules and what to do if I shot a deer, I just nodded and got comfy. I only stayed out about 3 hours (headed in about 8:30am), but I was getting wet, wasn't seeing anything and was ready to call it a day. Matt would've stayed out in the rain hunting but no one else was hunting, I desperately wanted a shower and I'd already read the Reader's Digest on the coffee table 4 times!?! So he finally agreed and we headed home about 1pm, I'm now home and I'm warm and showered and I guess I'm ready to start the week. My deer season has ended for this year because I have to work next weekend but at least I've got one under my belt!