Quiet nights

After spending the afternoon at a skills camp with my 12U team I rushed home to load the truck. Volleyball is one of my greatest passions and the girls on my team this year are very fun to teach, but having games on Saturdays in September is torturous! I spent half the time split between coaching and day dreaming about my tree stand.  So when the final whistle blew I made a beeline for home and my bow. 

At the beginning of the summer a black bear started making appearances on our trail cameras, often just a few minutes behind the deer. Over time the bear was dubbed "fluffy" and my father-in-law put a bounty on fluffy's head just to get him off the camera and away from the monster buck (take note...stay out of his cameras).  All kidding aside though fluffy is a beautiful bear and we all would like a chance at him. This evening my father-in-law asked I he could take my son with him to hunt for fluffy on the north end of the property while I hunted for the bachelor herd on the south end. My son was excited, but he went over the moon when my hubby told him that he could take the BB gun and shoot during the down time.  

All of our tree stands came with harnesses but none of them come close to fitting a six-year-old. So after several Macgyver ideas (one including a camouflage dog leash and belaying clips) we came to the simple realization that my "lady pro" safety harness fit him well enough to keep him safe. It was very hard to give up my harness. I'm only 5'3 and I swear the "one size fits all" harnesses were made for giants and NBA stars.  None the less, I handed over my precious harness, donned my twenty yards of camouflage harness and swam my way to the south end of the property in a pool of nylon straps and metal clips. 

I wish I had an amazing story to tell about finally having the monster buck under my tree and filling my tag. However, despite the wind, weather and all other conditions a being completely in my favor the only living creatures to bless me with their presence were bees and chipmunks. Even still I would take a quiet night in my tree stand over just about anything else, it's home for me.  Plus the sunsets are way better from halfway up a mountain pine than anywhere else in the world. 

Sadly, I was not the only one who struck out... My son and father-in-law did not find fluffy so he will continue to haunt our cameras.  They did, however, have a great time shooting bb's at a tree near their stand.