The Eight Point Buck

Since I last wrote, Phil bagged an 8-point buck. Single shot, perfect, right to the heart. We found the bullet in the skin on the far side of the buck, a mangled mass of metal and flesh.



Although Phil field dressed a deer once in Colorado, and once on his own here, this was a much larger animal. And he was really not sure what he was doing. I tried to give moral support through my physical presence, but watching the gradual disemboweling of a large mammal is not high on my list of favorite things to do.

But, for those who know that I have fainted—twice!—when losing a tooth, and once when having blood drawn, you can be duly impressed that I picked up the entrails with my hands and put them in a bucket and dumped them in the compost heap. I did this to help my husband, who has been a bit under the weather since his return from Colorado, and finally reached the point where a nap became necessary. Entrails are smelly and mushy, and I did cover my hands with leaves before handling the small intestine, which had a greenish-hue. But having processed chickens last year, I found myself a bit fascinated by the innards of the deer. I like that many of the parts are as readily identifiable as you would expect from a textbook: esophagus, small intestines, lungs, liver. The heart, as I mentioned before, was blown to smithereens, but I could see where it should have been.



Phil spent the afternoon finishing the chicken house. When he finally got the house constructed, and surrounded by electrified netting, we moved the chickens in, four at a time. They are, sadly, small enough to fit right through the netting, and stupid (or stubborn) enough to go right through it. Thankfully, they go right back in to their pen.



When dusk fell, the 50 chicks and 5 keets set up a loud racket. We think they were confused about where they were supposed to go. So Phil ran an extension cord down to their house, and put a feeder inside. Then they went in happily and quieted down, presumably all snuggled together for warmth and companionship, as they did in the barn.

They are happy to be outside, “expressing their innate chicken-ness” as hippie farmer Bob Cannard might say (if that’s not a direct quote, it’s pretty close!). They ran and flapped and pecked and scratched.

In other news, we finally got our delivery of 305 10’ fiberglass stakes for our apple trees. Even unloading that many stakes from the truck takes time; I could carry about ten at a time; Phil could carry 20. Ten trips each.

I saw my second snake on the property. While moving hay for mulch, I uncovered a pencil-thin, foot long black snake. Despite its small size, I agree with Emily Dickinson's assessment of snakes: I, too, "never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone."

Abigail was outside with me while I was making potatoes for dinner. I asked her if there was a song she would like to sing, and she belted out some lines to a song from church that we’ve sung a few times here. I realized suddenly that she is an aural learner. I have noticed that she has a great memory for songs and nursery rhymes, but, being the antithesis of an aural learner myself, didn’t recognize what I was noticing until this evening.

(For those not “in the know,” current educational theory believes that people learn primarily through the eyes (visual), through the ears (aural), or through movement (kinesthetic). I am strongly a visual learner—I take notes during sermons so I can read back what I was supposed to be hearing. My brother Luke is an aural learner—he can quote movies almost verbatim after a single viewing, and he would rather listen to an audio book than read a paper book. And I think my brother Justin is kinesthetic, but I’m guessing that mostly based on the fact that he had a lot of energy when we were young.)

And, thanks be to God, our house in Colorado closed today. The buyers moved in within hours, from what we understand. I am thankful that that chapter in our life is closed. Just a few weeks less two years of paying a double mortgage—may we never have to again. That was a burden grievous to be borne, and I am thankful to be out from under it.