Today will end the great MN holiday of Deer Season. As is common, I won't be hunting on this day. For several reasons. Truthfully, at this stage in my life, I don't have the ambition to hunt 9 days! When I was much younger, if I had not harvested a deer, I would stick to the 'job' to the bitter end of daylight on the last day, but that mindset left somewhere in my mid-40's. Secondly, our deer season does not take a break for Sunday, like it did in my "old country", here many people, even church going folks will show up to Sunday services in blaze orange, just having come from the deer woods, I may have done this myself on a few occasions, but time, that great enemy of life, has caught up with me & I would rather have a slow Sunday.
Sunday routine is different in many parts of the country. Many of us make it a habit of attending a gathering of the church on Sunday, a tradition that goes back at least two thousand years. There was a time, not very long ago, when a majority of Americans would be found at a church service on Sunday morning. It would appear that we are no longer in the majority, though there are great numbers still attending church services throughout this land.
As nightfall comes this evening, the woods and forests will fall relatively quiet again. My poor confined Beagle will be able to make his morning rounds tomorrow without the danger of being shot as a 'deer chasing crimminal'. He will not know what to think since he has been tethered to his run rope for 9 days straight, only being released for a couple daily walks. It is the reality of rural MN life. Hunters take a dim veiw of hunting dogs being on the loose, especially during deer season, besides, in my understanding, our state law is on the hunters side, so Trigger, the Beagle, has be confined for his own protection, I don't think he understands that. But first thing tomorrow morning he will be taking to 'his woods' to see what all has been taking place and with his nose find out who has been in the neighborhood.
Even though our bow season extends until the end of the year, I always hang it up at the end of the rifle season, especially in this neighborhood. There are a lot of Amish folks here, they hunt. They also have big families and have a lot of deer tags to fill, so by the time this season is over our local deer herd is thinned out and I have no wish to thin it anymore.
Another reason to hang up the weapons for another year; as all common working people, I too must get back to work!
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