Dancing Leaves

I love when we walk this time of year especially in the morning. This morning was a windy blustery Fallish day. I love to watch dancing leaves, they flip and twist like trapeze artists. Iggy chases them and picks them up in his mouth only to realize they must not be too tasty. I would love to see someone set music to dancing leaves, actually I bet if i went on you tube somebody has. The other fun thing to watch is plastic grocery bags, they can really put on a performance, twisting and puffing up and soaring high and then gracefully falling down only to be swooped up again by the wind. Simple pleasure I know.
Dear Hunters:
I know you have been making notes and plotting your trip for months now. I know you have your duffle bag packed your rifles sited in and pocket snacks carefully thought out. I know you are waiting for Friday after work to hit the road. I also know you are praying that the boss lets you go early because in Wisconsin, companies actually close for deer hunting season, due to lack of attendance.
I also know how much I yearned for Deer Hunting season so I could enjoy ME time, when my husband and his brothers would pack up and leave. So Dear Hunters it is a two fold excitement, You are excited to go and do some male bonding and woman are happy to see you go to lay on the couch and read a book, dine on mac and cheese and listen to some great music, shop and just be alone. So this next statement would void out any of the above, hence ruining the whole mystical event of deer hunting.
The deer are right here!!!
In the last month my encounter with deer has been more than I have ever seen while trapsing through the woods with my stiff coveralls on, picking up boots that weighed 10# each and trying to bend my knees with stiff fabric that was like cardboard, looking like an orange pumpkin and breathing like a dragon in heet. Not to mention holding my pee till my eyes turned yellow and freezing my fingers that if a deer did by chance meandor in site of me, I would not be able to pull the trigger anyway, they could wave at me and flip me off for all I could do. Then the intense fear that when you do see a deer, you have to look behind it and around it to be sure you have a sure firing path, so not to have to mount your neighbor on the roof of your car instead of that running deer. All while this poor deer is running for it's life. I used to hunt and I have shot a deer, well a unicorn, my first deer and it only had one antler???? I was teased endlessly for that one, but there again, the rules are....shoot only bucks......(check for horns).....know where your people are ....(check for a clear shot and overshot).....take the safety off.....(frozen fingers, manipulate that little button)......shoot before someone else does .....(I am in a line of 50 men?) and this deer is at full bore. So after, they told me to do the ritual cutting off of his male genitalia and swinging them around my head and whooping and hollaring, comes the gutting, which being fully prepared brought sugical gloves....LOL, right next to my wad of toilet paper.
So I have had the experience, or how about the one where I am hunting and decide to eat my lunch, put my gun next to me and open my little baggie with the salami and cheese sandwich and homemade cookies, turn to see the worlds largest buck getting up from his nap, about 10 feet "behind" me with a rack that would have made most men cry. Problem is I had food in my hand, deer, food, deer , food, well after that internal conversation all I could do is watch his butt run off into the woods, he wasn't going to wait to see the outcome of this thought process. I finished my sandwich...
I don't hunt anymore, I do but I use my camera and these were in Cousin Center on the lake, looking at me and caring less, they were safe. I quit hunting after I was driving on I-94 early one morning going to a show opening weekend. This deer was running for it's life across a corn field and it had this look of fear that I will never forget. That was an end to the era of my hunting. I am not hungry so I don't need the meat, I am content to catch them in my lens and enjoy their beauty.