Four Point Buck

In the five years that Burke and I have been married, he has never gotten a deer during the hunt.  The first year he shot one, but it just wounded it and they spent hours trying to find it with no success.  He felt terrible about that (and so did I!) because the hunt for him is more about time with his Dad and brothers than actually killing an animal and he certainly didn't want it to suffer.  Two of the other years we weren't able to attend the hunt and the other two, they never even spotted a deer.  Now that we are back in Utah and our baby came a few weeks earlier than we had thought she would, Burke so obviously wanted to go on the hunt again, but didn't want to ask with our little lady so fresh and new.  However, since I had been feeling so good, we decided to pack up the whole family and hit the mountain for the last open day of the deer hunt on Saturday, October 25.  

Daphne got dirty in less than five minutes, found herself a homemade rootbeer in the cooler and struck a total ragamuffin pose.  Love this kid!

Although Burke had wanted to leave early (like 6 AM), he let me sleep in and we didn't end up getting up the mountain until about 8:30.  I hadn't realized until then that the ideal time to make a "run" to scout out the deer is in the early morning before the sun comes up and at dusk before it gets dark because the deer are usually out eating in the meadows at that time rather than hiding away in the trees.  Burke was being so nice about it, but I could tell he was a little bummed that we had left so late as it was very unlikely that they would see anything now.  Once we hit Co-Op Burke dropped Daphne, Darcie and I off at the trailers with Grandma Marie (Nellie and the kids joined us a little later) and he, Alan and Kevin jumped in a truck and headed to a shady part of the property to see if they could find anything, even though the sun was almost completely up by that point.

On the drive over, Burke said he had the most uplifting conversation with Alan and Kevin - exactly the kind of conversation that makes the hunt so meaningful to him.  He said that when they got to Ken's Cabin (the shaded area) they said a prayer in which Kevin thanked Heavenly Father for the beautiful mountain, the time together and at the end he said it would be nice if they could see a buck, but that regardless they were thankful for the bonding experience.  They fanned out and started walking through a wooded patch when suddenly, not even 5 minutes later, Burke saw a beautiful four point buck grazing about 50 yards away.  Burke later described that he whistled to his Dad and Kevin, but was so nervous he barely could get a sound out!  He took aim and hit the buck right below the heart, but the bullet didn't down him.  The buck took off running and Burke raced after him, not wanting to lose him like he did with the deer from 5 years ago.  Kevin laughingly said Burke look like a gazelle leaping over trunks and galloping after the buck through the woods!  Suffice it to say, in the end, they got him.  Now, this next picture is super gross to me, but I had to post it for Burke and also to show you how excited my father-in-law was during this process.  His overjoyed smile shows how neat this experience was for these boys.  

Meanwhile, back at camp, Daphne and I went for a little walk to the bum rock and waited to hear if the boys got anything.  At one point Marie got a text that said, "We got him!" but we didn't know any details.  Finally, Nellie showed up at camp to say that she had talked to Kevin and he said Burke had snagged a buck.  I didn't know whether to be mortified or excited for him.

About an hour later the boys drove into camp with Burke in the truck bed, holding the buck's antlers.  I tried really hard to be happy for him, but when I stood up on the truck bumper to get a look at the whole deer, I was so bothered that I nearly started crying.  I just felt sick that this majestic animal had been killed.  I thought that maybe it was just because I hadn't grown up with a hunting family, but Marie validated my feelings and said that in all their years of marriage, she had never gotten used to it.  Burke tried to explain that because most people buy their meat from the grocery store that as a society we are far removed from death in general and so it seems cruel and morbid to hunt your own food.  Having grown up on a farm and seeing animals die frequently, this is just something that doesn't upset Burke, but I was very disturbed.  I've just decided that this is an issue Burke and I can agree to disagree upon.

Although the guys had gutted the buck in the woods, they still had to skin it, cut it up and get it on ice, so they took it down to the farm and hung it up by the hoofs in the quonset hut to drain the blood out and get to work.  I will spare you those pictures.  Ugh.  That night when we got home to Cedar, Burke still had to cut up the meat further, label it and put it in our freezer and he did all this nasty work on my kitchen table while I tried not to freak out.  Ew.  We still plan to make jerky out of the meat from the legs, so there are currently 4 deer legs in garbage bags in our deep freeze in the basement and every time I have to get into the freezer I am grossed out all over again.  However, as averse as I am to the whole process of killing the deer, I must admit that the meat has been delicious and a blessing to our family to help save on our grocery bill.  I am grateful that Burke knows how to hunt as it's comforting to think he could take care of our family in an emergency.