I swear every year I'm not going to throw out the paper as the kids unwrap, to make this picture a little more extreme. But I just can't help myself. The one day of the year that I'm a neat freak...
This box stands no chance whatsoever.
There is, after all, a My Little Pony inside.
Receiving Bionicles = Excitement
Building Bionicles = Happiness
Y'know what doesn't = happiness? Not shooting a deer. That = frustration.
But of a very nice sort. I'm finding that hunting is like writing, or making art - I like "having hunted" a lot more than I like "hunting". When I'm out there, as I was today, trudging around, every so often I look up and am greeted with a sight like this:
That's a beaver pond, with Mount Greylock disappearing into the clouds above. What a gorgeous spot. Of course, I was in the midst of a chase of two deer, doubtless a doe and a fawn, that had left the feeding area and gone through the Greylock Glen (troubled history of that property readily available to all who search for it online - but here's a helpful link) to their beds this morning. I followed them and kicked them out of their beds - I didn't see or hear them jump, but when I got to where they'd spent the night, they were very recently up, and had run away. Which they don't do for the fun of it. I was right behind them. Up and up and up they went, to the crest of Ragged Mountain, waaaay the hell up. And I followed, and was rewarded with tremendous views. Not too photogenic, due to the screen of trees, but I should have taken some pictures. I did get one of this strange little item when I was chasing the deer: a derelict, never-completed ski lift, from when the Glen was slated to become a ski area:
That climb was long and hard, and I hated it. But I was very glad I had done it, even though the deer, once they got to the top, or near it, skittered along for another three hundred yards and then went downhill, straight back to where they'd first started. I never caught up with them, and when they got back to the thick stuff where all the deer are feeding these days, their tracks disappeared into the confusing mess of deer tracks that seem to disappear into each other and into nothing, with no deer appearing at their ends. The deer just go "poof" in clouds of purple, while the tiny bell-like giggling of pixies and sprites rings in the air around you. The damned animals hear you coming a mile away - you have to be able to drive a place like that in order to have any luck, and there's just one of me. So I got home around noon, having spent five vigorous hours walking in the woods, and I'm glad to have done it. But at the time, I was really hating it. Looks like no deer this year, but I'm still glad I went. I feel like a better woodsman than I was three weeks ago.
There's other news, I suppose, but I'm too tired to write it. Hasta pronto!
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