It's been over two years since I last held a shotgun in my hands and walked the fields of Kansas in search for pheasant. Two years doesn't seem that long, but coming from a family that goes hutning and fishing like it's a job, two years is an extremely long time.
I didn't go out hunting at all last year, even though my parents were so kind and bought me a fishing and hunting liscense combo, because at the time of opening weekend for pheasant rolled around, I was using a wheelchair to get around. There was no way in hell my mom would even think about letting me take a two hour drive out to the farm to walk in misery for a weekend. Although I was upset I couldn't go, I know deep down inside that it was the best choice we made. I woudn't have been able to last half a day out in the field if I had gone.
I went out to the farm with my dad and my uncle to give it one last chance since it was the closing weekend for pheasant and squirrel. I hadn't been able to go out in November for the opening because of the show and other things going on, it just made it impossible to take off of life for three days. Unfortunately, we didn't evens see a single pheasant while we were out there. It was pretty disheartening since it was the first time I had been out int he field since I had my hip replaced. We did see a few deer though, and a couple of squirrels that we managed to lose sight of before we could get out of the truck and get to a place where we could have a clear shot at them.
When we realized that we weren't going to get any squirrels from the property down by the creek, we set up a small target on one of the dead trees that had fallen down during a storm a couple of years ago. Dad let me shoot his .22 revolver, the one that I've been working with a lot over the last month; my uncle I think was a bit surprised at how well I could shoot, since I managed to get a bullseye on my second shot. Then, my uncle was ever so nice to let me shoot his semi-automatic 9 milimeter. I didn't do too terribly bad since that was the first time I shot a 9 mil at a target, and only the second time shooting a 8 mil in general.
Although we didn't get any game on our trip out there, or to even shoot my shotgun, I still had a lot of fun. I enjoyed being around my dad and uncle, listening to them banter back in forth retelling stories of when they were kids. I also really enjoyed the simple act of walking down the road, blocking for my uncle who was in the field. Riding in the backseat of the truck as we drove nearly every road in Pratt county, I was in awe of how simple it was out there compared to the area around Mulvane. My favorite part of the entire trip was when we went to the old creek bed that had dried up for the winter and made our own shooting range. My dad asked me to go to the truck and load his revolver. He's never asked me to do that before, it made me so incredibly happy to know that he trusts me with his beloved .22 revolver.
Link of the Day: Adventures of 2012 I haven't been on the interwebs too terribly much over the last week, so I don't have any new gems for you to go visit, so I'm sharing my adventure blog. My goal is to document 2012 in a way that is special since this year has a lot of special things in store for me.
days until MDT: 6
days until Valentine's Day: 16
days until graduation: 110
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