Yurt Buck!!!!!
The yurt is finally finished. The main work crew has headed south, but Bob and I stay up to take in Opening Day of deer season. We wake up unseasonably early. But with surprising vigor. Hot ‘taters frying, coffee brewing. Well, Bob, wanna head out? Sun’s about ready to pop up. The first snow of the year for me is a pleasant surprise, luminous in the dark. I crunch my way to my sittin’ spot down in the valley. Dang, I haven’t felt wooly and carrying iron like this since I was a teen. Never did get a deer back then. No matter. Neither of us has any luck this morning either. But the tone of the yurt changes-a serious, ‘provider’ air. Went and sat out that afternoon. Fresh tracks of deer and elk in the snow. No hunter tracks. I guess it’s too hilly. An hour later a nice 6-point buck trots down through the woods. Sights line up over heart. I guess this is what I’m supposed to do, no sense waiting around. The Time is Now. Gun booms. Deer staggers slightly. You’re dead, I think, as I watch him run up the short hill. I hear a thrash at the top. I hike over to the shooting spot. Blood like from a fluorescent geyser covers the snow. I follow it to the hill-top, and there he is. Velvet hair steaming perfect brown. Under pines. In snow. I gut him. Blood scalding. Drag him towards the yurt. I’m excited to show Bob. He’s inside. “Well, how’d it go?” he asks. I look at him. Pause. I’m spazzed, but quiet. “Got one. Pretty big.” His eyes bug out. Out we go in the night. “Holy Smokes!” he’s saying. A buck for the yurt! We pull him uphill with huge effort and hang him. Bob fries the liver for dinner. In onions and other nice things. With whiskey and wine. Here’s to you, Buck, we say, here’s to the yurt.
Shooting the buck was serious business. If you’re used to getting carefree thrills as payback from your sport, be prepared for something new if you shoot a buck. It’s an at-first-unnerving, sobering, but then rewarding feeling, being Provider.
That wonderful venison has lasted the whole year as our main source of meat. We’ve had many delightful dinner soirès with that meat. (The best: miracle morels found in the yard in May, sauteed with tenderloin and port, consumed by candlelight in the screen tent by the house.) -Jeff
