Deer hunting opens this weekend; in the words of Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny, “Imagine you’re a deer.  You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water…BAM!”  As you know, I’m the type of hypocrite who feels all sorts of sadness over the little deer but has no problem chomping into one a la King Henry into a Renaissance Faire turkey leg.  So, in the spirit of the season – to quote Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck: “Duck season!”  “Wabbit season!”  “Duck season!”  “Wabbit season!” – I’d like to tell you about our recent bird hunting trip to Canada.

For about two months, my little (but, really, very large thirteen-year-old) nephew sent Kyle and my own thirteen-year-old daily updates about the quantity and make-up of birds migrating over Saskatchewan.  Finally, the report was right enough for Kyle to pile us in the car and head on up to his hometown.

The hunting party was thus: Kyle, Thirteen, Thirteen’s cousin, my brothers-in-law, and my brother-in-law’s friend.

If you’ve never been hunting, you may be surprised to hear that animals don’t just walk up to hunters and wait patiently to be shot (“Duck season!”  “Wabbit season!”)…meaning a huge part of hunting is driving and sitting around in search of something to hunt.  The drive around/sit around is the reason I go along, because Saskatchewan in the fall is peaceful and crisp and golden and smells like cut wheat.  I like to ride with the windows down and sit in tall grass and think about how lucky we are to be on this Earth – and then, like the hypocrite I am, plug my ears and close my eyes when the actual hunting starts.  I’m a difficult person to love.

The non-hunting hunting party was thus: Amanda and Nine.

The first day was spent rolling around the Saskatchewan countryside, with a few stops along the way for coffee and Coffee Crisp.  We also had to stop twice for two different sets of moose to cross our tracks because we were in Canada and the law in Canada is that you are required to see at least one moose a day.  If you know a thing or two about moose, you know they are BIG and they do not care for humans.

“HI, MOOSEY-MOOSEY,” Nine called out the window to the second group.  The largest of the moose – roughly as tall as the truck – looked our way.

“Maybe don’t yell at them,” I said.

“Why not?”  Nine asked.

“Because they don’t speak English,” Thirteen said, saucily.

Nine considered that.

“Mrrrrrrroooooo,” he called out the window.  The moose turned back to his family.

“I told him to have a good day in Moose,” Nine told us.

As we drove away, Thirteen’s cousin pointed out that a nearby fence had been taken down, which was why the moose were traveling in the direction from whence they came.

“I guess you could say the pasture is now de-fence-less,” Kyle said, and dads everywhere applauded.

After a successful day of enjoying one another’s company but a less-than-stellar day of actual hunting, my brother-in-law determined that the next day’s plan of action would be to wake up at the crack of dawn and sit out on the family land behind his house.  They would be hunting sandhill cranes, known as “the ribeye of the sky” – a designation which felt a little insulting both to cattle and other less-delicious birds.  For our part, Nine and I would be hunting a sunrise.

The sun hadn’t even considered rising by the time we pulled into the field.  We got my brothers-in-law set up down the hill and dropped Kyle and Thirteen off on the edge of a copse of trees.  Then Nine and I tucked the truck into a tree row, rolled the windows down, and turned off the engine.  It was so still and quiet that we could hear my sister-in-law’s rooster crowing far off in the distance.

“I have to pee,” Nine said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Where do I go?”  Nine asked.

Around us was nothing but farmland as far as the eye could see. 

I swept my arm generally towards the universe.

“You can pull your pants down and run down that row for a mile peeing the entire way, if you want,” I said.

Nine considered it, but ultimately went behind the truck.

“In case the cranes see me,” he said.

“I appreciate the modesty,” I said.

Nine and I pulled a blanket out of the back seat and wrapped ourselves up in it like a burrito.  We sat down about ten feet from the truck and watched the sky turn from black to grey to yellow to blazing orange.

“Isn’t this beautiful?”  I asked.

“It’s SO beautiful,” Nine said.  “It’s so beautiful that it’s making me hungry for a muffin.”

“We can go to the bakery after this,” I said.

“It’s almost muffin season,” Nine said, as a flock of cranes flew overhead.

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The photo above is of yours truly.

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This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Shaylee Miller, my Nice Person of the Week, as well as a neighborly haunted maze in Hillsboro. Check it out. (Valley News Live)

Hey!  I just talked about this on TV!  Read more about it, and go and celebrate on Saturday. (Grand Forks Herald)

Bismarck’s Lori Girard won big on Wheel of Fortune. (KFYR TV)

Rugby will be “My Town” on December 1. (KX Net)

If you had asked me, “Where do you think the second-most haunted casino in the U.S. is located?”  I’m not sure I would have said Williston…but I’m also not sure where I’d say.  California?  Vegas? (KX Net)

Looking for a big way to make a difference?  Bismarck’s Steve Wetzel is looking for a kidney. (KFYR TV)

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