I’m not from a family of hunters, and I don’t really care for the taste of venison, but hunting is rather enjoyable. Odd as it is, it is very good for calming oneself down, and relaxing. Well, that is until you see 3 doe and 4 decent sized bucks walk over an embankment!

My brother Travis, and my brother-in-law James both worked with a fellow in Gallia who lives on a lot of acreage in Gallia county in south-eastern Ohio. They have all been friends for years, and in that friendship, I was introduced and learned he had a great place to hunt deer. His mom owns the land, but he lives on it with his wife and kids. The land is very hilly, very wooded, and LOADED with deer. There aren’t a lot of large bucks frequently on the property, but a 9 and 11 point were shot this year. I saw two 4 pointers, two 6 pointers, an 8 pointer (that I wanted to get, but he was wily) and some 14-20 doe.

While the hunt for deer is the main goal, appreciating nature and the lack of computers and phones was rather precious. The squirrels were cracking me up. There must have been 10 fox and gray squirrels in the area I hunted, and they played and teased one another the whole time. Once, when I was not sure if a deer was approaching me from behind, or it was a squirrel, I slowly turned only to see a squirrel about 20 feet away. He chirped and ran up a tree. Later he was chewing on a walnut over my head, and seemed to do it on purpose. Another was hanging off a tree with two feet to grab a small grapevine to chew on, until he ate the end off of it, and would fall down. Nutty!

It was cold every morning, so I thank God for allowing man to create hand and foot warmers! I don’t thank the greedy hunters who bought them all out from Walmart in one day.

I got to hang with my brothers and see my sister-in-laws, as well as my niece and nephew. It was enjoyable, and I even got to hunt with Levi for 2 days, and Travis for one. Nice.