BULLETS AND BOWS

Less than two minutes later I was pulling into the driveway.
The sight I'd just witnessed followed an earlier episode with
the first ring-neck I'd seen in a year. It had been sitting alongside
the highway as if no hunters would ever find it there. I couldn't
take it any longer, as soon as I entered the cabin my contractor's
coat and carpenter's mindset were dropped. I'd only been out in the
woods twice since small game season opened and here it was already
the second week of turkey!

With my old 12 gauge pump laying on the couch, my hunting vest
on my back and knife sheath threaded onto my belt, I reached
under the couch to pull out the box of shells I've kept there for
years. There was a shoe box but something was wrong, maybe the color.
Opening the top and looking in I saw only Christmas ribbons and bows!?

As the search grew from the couch to the bedroom, even to the
bathroom and outdoors to the tool shed, the swearing I'd done earlier
was nothing compared to what I was now yelling. My wife was the
culprit, she'd cleaned the house the week before, telling me that
she'd left the ammo box where she'd found it. Neither of us remembered
the other box, put there last year.

I looked at the clock as I sat down, still over two hours
before she got home. Grumbling to myself about fate I did what
I'd planned the night before, cut firewood. I enjoy the yearly ritual
of filling the woodshed with our own trees from our soon-to-be-cleared
pasture. Daisy and Rosi nibbled on the tips of the branches after
I felled the maple and locust. I took a cigarette break on a stump,
thanking the Lord for calming my mind and keeping me to my duties.

Just as I finish carrying the six-foot lengths of logs to the
edge of the pasture my wife backed into the driveway. Trying to
remain calm, I quickly put the chainsaw in the toolshed and
asked where she hid the bullets. "Under the couch, right where
you left them,"was her answer. So, together we moved the couch to
the side and she was shown the problem. It seems she had picked up
the wrong box when she added the 'ribbons and bows' to the rest
of the Christmas trimmings in the loft after discovering that I
had neglected to do so when asked almost a whole year before, when
I was just a house spouse.

I didn't say another word, just grabbed some number sixes and
left for grouse country. I passed up three gray squirrels and a cottontail
to shoot at one grouse, only to miss the forth one this season.
It was dark when I arrived home, just in time for chores. Reliving
the short hunt with Gin while the milkers were running cleared the
air between us. By the time we finished at the barn and chicken
coop life at the homestead was again at it's best. This weekend
we'll toss some clays for each other and then try again for a stuffed
grouse dinner.

SONRISE