Guess Who Else Felt Blessed on Halloween?

As I said, John spent the weekend in Allegheny Co. (Pittsburgh). Before we left, John said, "Oh no, which one of us is going to take the camera?" To me, it was a no-brainer. My kids at Halloween trump his POTENTIAL hunting score.... so I said, "You can have it, Nat was a duck last year. We'll take that picture and add the pic of Nat as a lady bug 2 years ago and just photo-shop Julsie's head over Nat's face." I got the camera =)

So, on Friday morning, John's historically most successful hunting day of the year, he managed to kill his 3rd largest buck ever! Unfortunately, he did not have the camera to properly document it as I was busy taking blurry pics of the kids. He did get some shots of it on his cell phone, but we may never learn how to get them off of it. We did take some pics of it once he got it home. (PS That is a piece of wood in between the antlers to keep the spread from decreasing before he got it to the archery shop for measurement.)

He also got a doe on Friday evening. Although I know he felt blessed to get a deer, I felt equally as blessed to have the meat. And although I'm a bargain shopper, I probably felt more blessed that he paid to get it cut and wrapped! I still have bad memories of the hours and hours and hours we spent last year in the freezing cold cutting up those two. (I don't even know if I'm much of a help cutting. I get so obsessive compulsive over every last piece it takes me forever!)

He did this mount himself on Saturday. It's called a European mount and involves skinning the head, boiling it and picking it clean until all the "meat" is gone. Then you stick it in a plastic bag with professional hair bleach stuff to get the bones nice and white. This is about the 4th or 5th mount he's done this way (including his elk) so he's become more proficient. We boiled it on the side-burner of the grill at mom's. We had to buy a new propane tank, but we have a nice little set-up there now .... and besides, that thing never would have set foot in the house! Oh, and Nat is not at all phased. She watched him skin the head and said, ...... "I like his eye balls."

Anyway, YAY! .......... We have meat. This sounds crazy, (not MAY sound crazy... does sound crazy) but I'm truly grateful to God for this food and that I have a man who can provide for us no matter what.

Oh, two more doe tags in PA to go and a potential rifle-season trip to Ohio for a giant (hopefully) white-tail. Can anyone say "Buck Fever?"