Harvesting a Life

There in the corn was the remains of a very small rabbit, its lower body cut clean away, vacant eyes still open to the world. The expression, that of a prehistoric beast caught in a tar pit, an exclamation of shock and surprise, carried into history only as a rough sketch on a cave wall viewed thousands of years later, fighting or stopped in the trying.

The killing wound was clean, likely from a fox. The rest of the tiny creature, long gone, nourishment for a scavenger of the night. All that remains, this one small piece, will soon decompose to its most natural element, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen. Blending into the earth, a land that is both dangerous and embracive.
Looking out onto the field, you don't see the animals, you don't notice the predators. But we are here. For it's only a week to opening day.

I love the Northern part of this state where I have whitetail hunted for the last 13 years, though the last 7 I was only able to go once in Indiana, with demands of work and the land I once hunted on being sold. The soil here is rich, dark and welcoming, unlike the clay laden soil that is around my home. The people, sturdy stock that have tended these miles for generation after generation. Families passing on stories of the land, as the land itself claims little bits of us, taking us back into the soil, tending us under our heavenly Father's eyes.
My grandparents on my Dad's side are from this area, and though the land should be foreign to one who was raised in the mountains of the West, I feel completely at home here. Walking among the stalks of corn, I look out on horizon flat scraped clean by glaciation, the mirage of a barn there in the distance beckoning. For although I've lived many, many places, their towns and shores offering me changes in scenery and sky, placed before my like gifts, I always came back here to hunt, and later to live, for in this land are my roots, thirsty roots sunk deep.
I arrive up Farmer Frank's, who has graciously offered up the use of some of his property for us to hunt. Around us are the dormant farm machines, stopped for only a short period, looming like prehistoric skeletons, frozen in time. Around us the smell of grain, the smoke from fires burning near, a shadow passing through the grass. Coyote, fox, or the ghosts who follow our lives? The land is teeming with life, seen and unseen, deer hiding like shy schoolgirls amidst the corn, a young six point buck, flirting in and out, a shimmering form that flashes briefly as the gleaner stops, melting into the russet tones of earth and grain, as day stars melt in blue.

It was a glorious day, riding in the farm van to another spot a few miles away, where late afternoon four legged traffic in that area may present an opportunity not found in the morning, The windows open to the unusually warm air, a semi truck following us closely, gaining on us. The phone rings. Frank answers it and we hear the caller say "lead, follow or get out of the way", and Frank starts laughing, the semi truck, full of popcorn, being driven by a friend of his. We wave and turn off towards the next area that will be scouted as the red truck speeds past us, against a diorama of grain and sky.
There are several spots that will be hunted, and I've planned out mine, against a ditch line, which deer love, in a small blind that sits year round so the deer get used to it. I can see the property line, and know their paths, surprising two large does even as I checked out the condition of the rough blind. I'm hunting with friends, more fun as a group, plus I won't have to wrestle my deer into the truck 'Weekend at Bernie's' fashion. MycroftHolmes will be in a corner deer crossing against a nice tree line. Rangebuddy, a former Army Ranger, gets to occupy the grassy knoll out in the open, where the deer make a long range drive past towards the woods about 4:30. Og will be north, in another corner against thick corn where the deer are overpopulated. But he may have to take one down with a bowie knife or a gun sighted at five feet if all the corn isn't down by then. The cold, cold summer has taken a toll on the harvesting plans.The wind was brisk, drying out my contact lenses, making me blink into the glare of a sun so bright I found it hard to see past the glare outside of the vehicle. We bustled out, like kids after a long trip, finally arriving at their destination, hurry, hurry, we're here! Tumbling from the vehicle we head out into another field where possibilities exist, Frank showing us the best spots for deer.
We walk the land sharing stories of our families, of grandparents from whom we inherited our strength, of losses keen, of laughter shared. Tales of strong settlers, who did not so much til the earth as rough it up and render it humbled. People stood on these very spots fifty years ago and smelled the land, and knew as we do, that no matter how much you love it, it is no sheltered world. Thunderstorms rear up and fight isolated battles of rain and hail, along with wind and erosion and fate. All curl up over the land, sometimes depositing richness, sometimes stealing our hearts. We give and we take and so does the land.
As we talk, we walk, pointing out a spot, a knoll, places where the deer stream through, into the veined complexity of trees. Those areas between open plains of corn where sky and woods interface, so close, the heaven of blue above, interwoven into the heaven of gold below. Pointing, watching the wandering rules of property lines, planning, taking measurement of the land, and what it contains. Not for I the boisterous hunt of ATV's and four wheels. I will walk in to my solitary spot, in silent darkness, far downwind. No GPS, no lanterns, just the light of the moon, a compass, and the unwavering row of corn that will take me from road to refuge, to set up before the sun rolls over with a yawn. Hunting as ours fathers and grandfathers hunted, just a shotgun, some jerky and an apple for lunch. Waiting as the land gives forth it's bounty.

Waiting there in the early morning darkness, as the farms around me stir. Sitting in the lengthening shadow of a small country cemetery across the road, humbled by the measure of the people that once walked these fields, where I visit as a guest at the table of their land.
I will sit with patience and thanks, to bring home meat to the table and stories someday for my own grandchild. Wait there in a rough-hewn ground blind, my feet among tangled roots that thread the rich soil beneath me. I rest above them, above the land that feeds me, the smell of gentle smoke on the wind, watching, and tending us all, until I am too, called home.