Tonight I am a hunter

Hi there, this is Rebecca, and I'm going to attempt to write about an event that I was not present for. I do this because that is the only way that it will appear on our blog. After I make the first draft, Max will revise and correct as needed and then this will be posted. Max did explain in quite a bit of detail all about his hunting trip so here we go. 

Max had been planning on going hunting with his uncle for nearly a year. The date and times still sprung up on us.It ended up being conference weekend plus a couple more days. Luckily as the time got closer it got shortened a couple days which I was pretty excited about. Hehe, I don't like being apart from him. He's just that desirable to me! Anyway...I mentioned in a previous post though that I was really excited he got to take a break from all the busy-ness that he has on his plate and spend some quiet time out in nature. We were also very excited for all the potential lean meat we could get. 

Anyway, On Saturday night he met at his uncle's house and they drove out to central Oregon to his 800 acre property.  I wasn't expecting to hear from Max at all as he would be in the middle of nowhere most likely with no cell phone service. He told me to expect him home Wednesday night but not to start worrying until Thursday night if I don't see him. Comforting right?   

Anyway...I was thrilled Monday evening to receive this picture text...It really made me feel like the hunting trip was worth it. I knew there was a chance he would be gone all that time and not catch anything so I was pretty excited. Seeing that Max would be able to feed his family if grocery stores were obsolete made me swoon a bit!

I don't think I could ever be a hunter. I definitely love my meat but killing an animal and then doing all the gruesome prep work really makes me pretty sick...I don't really like to know how my food is prepared. Gutting a fish as a twelve year old left me nauseated and I had to quit before I got too deep into the fish...Anyway, that being said, You are being warned that some of the following pictures are somewhat graphic...I mean, none of them are worse than what you see on people's property for New Years in Armenia but just be forewarned...

 Max got to stay in this luxurious cabin...not really roughing it!

So, as you already know, Max caught a buck! Not just any buck, a big one! I guess you can tell the age by how many prongs they have on their antlers and this one had 4 and 3. That's pretty good. Now, let me brag for a minute...because we all know Max is totally brag worthy...He shot it from 276 yards which apparently is a big deal. That's nearly 3 football fields folks! He missed the first shot but luckily the buck didn't run. Max froze while the buck looked around and then he prepared for a second shot while the deer was turned away. In Max's training he was told that sometimes an injured dear will run for miles before dying and you have to hunt them down. Max said he didn't feel like running after him so he aimed well the second time and made a kill shot right through the lung. The deer didn't run and shortly after fell to its knees. (I feel a little weird writing these gory details but it is what it is.) 

Most of the gross details come next which I will probably make Max write because...I'm having a hard time here. 

 At this point both Jay and I had successful hunts, and we were hoping that Brent would also be successful before the end of the season.

 We decided to save the pelt and have it tanned so we could have a neat throw blanket. This picture is of the "not so pretty" side of course.

 We had to cut out the meat that was damaged by the bullet.

 Getting up before the sun to get in position for the hunt had its advantages including spectacular sunrises.

 Brent finally had a successful hunt on the very last day of the season, and since I watched Jay gut and dress my buck, I felt ready to give it a try, thankfully Brent was happy to oblige. It was a neat experience really and it was interesting to see how a little anatomy knowledge helped with the process.

 This is Brent's buck, I named him Bullwinkle, but Brent preferred Marvin... or Melvin... or some other name. This time prepping the meat we were much more involved since we had seen it done on my buck.

 What a great trip! It felt really neat that we all were successful, and had a great time strengthening our familial relations in the process!

  

 Below is just a random picture of the largest tires I have ever seen! It just seemed appropriate to take a picture of them! I can only imagine the machine that would use such tires... Holy Cow!!

And It's me, Rebecca, again. Let's thank Max for his very first debut on our family blog. Woohoo!

The deer was named Rocko. Charlie loves Rocko. 

Like...Really loves Rocko