Big Hat, No Cattle

It's 100 posts!! I was so excited, I almost forgot to add that this funny post is actually written by my sister, Jess. Some of you will sympathize with her situation...
 

My bad-ass sista

I am ill.  I have totally come down with the hunting bug. I don’t know where it came from.  I eat organic, take extra Vitamin C and get enough sleep.  Bam!  It just came out of nowhere.

Growing up in a pro-hunting area with venison lovin’ parents, and a seriously camo crazed husband, one would think I would have been vaccinated long ago.  I grew up shooting my Bear youth recurve, but never took it any farther than the hay bale.  I have tracked, hauled and processed my share of deer, all without ever wanting to fire a shot or arrow.  Ever.  Not even a little bit.

One can never be too sure how one gets infected.  It may have been designing my huge hunting room with floor to ceiling storage and camo hanging facilities with custom bow and gun case storage bins; yup, we have a lot of camo.  It may have been being around my teenage son as he and camo hubby watched The Hunting Channel 24/7.   It could have been watching my sister with Christmas morning type glee as she revealed her custom lucky cricket paint job on her new (now old) Hoyt.   

Whatever it is, I have battled my illness with my greatest resource  - - my Special Forces caliber shopping abilities.  I started out not being able to shoot a release, but ALAS!  They come in pink camo!  Ring one up and move over so I can try on those amazing hunting boots (Camo on the tred?!  Get Out!!)  Supportive camo hubby sits patiently by, listening to my reasoning on upgrading our optics (Swarovski sounds so sparkly!) to leasing hunting land in the most prolific areas.  All of the things he would never dream of spending money on, but hey, if he can share it with the wife, why not!  Camo hubby firmly believes combining my hockey mom status with my new found love for camo, the only thing now differentiating me from Sara Palin is that I believe dinosaurs actually existed.   So I shop for backpacks, warm weather gear, cold weather gear, scent sprays, ground blinds, special swivel seats for ground blinds, tree stands, car racks to carry the tree stands, uber cool bow cases, gloves made of NASA quality material so you can read braille in the tree stand….you get the point.  I am lookin’ super fly.  I am the Pam Greer of hunting.  Shaazam!

But let’s be clear.  I am actually a pretty good shot, even with my starter bow and especially considering I took 20 years or so off.  Probably because I learned to shoot with a finger release like the archer youth of purists are apparently supposed to.  The problem is that I have yet to see any actual, live deer to shoot my amazingly chic carbon arrow at.  It seems the thing I forgot to buy is a nanny, so that I can sit in the woods instead of in my car, chauffeuring endlessly back and forth to hockey practice, games, car pool, ballet practice and vet appointments.

So, we are heading to Michigan next week for some super rut, unadulterated stand time, complete with built in Grandma.  Yea!  Since I will be skipping the Illinois hockey scheduling meeting, I think I have figured out how to stealthily schedule an entire hockey season from a tree (God Bless Steve Jobs) and hope to find a cure for my illness.  Bring on the cattle, OK, deer….. my big camo hat is ready.