Lots has been going on around the farm. I’ve been spending some time working on the stuff for my “life transition” but have also taken some time out with friends to do the things I love to do. On the 1st, it was opening morning of turkey season, and one of the people I enjoy spending time with on a regular basis came up to go hunting. I don’t hunt with a gun anymore…but I take my camera instead.
Chris got himself all set up in a blind in an area the two of us have been seeing three big tom turkeys every morning between 7 and 7:30 am. I worked on farm chores and did a little reading for a bit. He was texting messages back and forth. He was impatiently waiting for the turkeys to come in. Encouraging him to just sit tight was almost comical.
I decided to go for a little walk. Suddenly I heard a boom shortly followed by another boom. Not a minute later a text comes through. Where are you? Get up here with your camera! He’s beautiful.
I managed to make it to the top of the hill to where he was, finding a bunch of feathers on the ground about 50 yards from his blind and an empty blind. No bird. No Chris. He had carried the thing across 20 acres to his truck. Must be he didn’t want it to get away.
When he pulls up with his truck, he has the biggest smile on his face and is bouncing around like Tigger in the Winnie the Pooh cartoon. His smile and excitement was contagious. I couldn’t stop grinning as I listened to him recall the tail of a bird coming in from the wrong direction. Aiming and knocking the bird down and upon retrieval, it jumping up and trying to run away. I am sitting here with a dopy grin recalling how excited he was.
By the way, this was his first tom turkey and it was a beautiful bird. I remember how awesome that feels and what kind of adrenaline rush it is to get something like that. It’s a major sense of a job well done. I love that feeling but I think being able to just share it meant more to me than it would have if I had shot the bird myself.
My friend Chris with his first tom turkey
I am so thankful that I got to be here and share the experience. It means more to me than words can describe. Being around Chris has shown me that there are so many things in life that I really enjoy doing and have let go of them to try to be something I’m not. I am a country girl who likes hunting with the “boys”, fishing, shooting, bow hunting, spending time in the woods, and I am an all around Outdoors Woman. I can’t change that. It’s stitched into the fiber of my being.
A word of advise to everyone: Don’t ever try to fit into a box someone else has built for you. It rarely fits and is suffocating. Break free, be yourself and someday the right one will come along and fully understand who YOU are, not what they want you to be. I am so fortunate to have awesome friends who are there for me and have supported me 110%, no matter what I have chosen to do or be. And friends like Chris, who know without saying, all the things that really make me the person I am and kick me in the butt when I try to be something different.
Sounds kind of strange doesn’t it? My 31 year old male friend kicking a 38 year old female’s ass into shape to be who she really is. Damn kids anyhow! All joking aside, he is special and it means so much that he has been my friend through one of the most difficult things in my life. For that, I will be forever grateful.
Now….time for me to do some fishing! Something I have done in three years! But time to get back to it…cause it’s just who I am!
You got it…that’s me from about 3 years ago! Bass fishing with a flyrod, earbuds in, rocking out the fishing experience!
Farm Girl Doreen 