Back Home by Chris Hardie
I sat with my back against a tree and slowly surveyed the landscape before me.
Early November is when the beauty of fall loses her luster. The kaleidoscope of color has faded into drab browns. Many oak leaves still stubbornly cling to their branches but they will eventually become part of the forest floor. It’s nature’s recycling, as layers of old leaves from years past are part of the soil that feeds the forest. Some leaves will hang tightly over the winter, but eventually they too will have to let go when the promise of next spring starts to bud.
My visit to the woods was to find a location and build a new deer hunting stand. I needed to find a spot overlooking the natural crossings of deer that also provided a wide vista. I also had to factor into my view the knowledge that more of the vegetation will die out before the opening day of hunting Nov. 22.
Last year I had built a new stand in another part of the farm, but didn’t see as many deer. This location – in the same valley as my former deer stand where I had hunted for nearly 20 years – seemed like a better choice.
Many hunters choose to hunt from tree stands, portable blinds or even permanent structures in the woods. I prefer old-fashioned ground blinds or stands constructed from logs and branches that I gather from the woods. It’s the way my grandfather hunted and what I have always done. The logs provide a little camouflage.
Yet I understand the comfort purpose of an enclosed shelter when the temperatures drop and the winds blow. That’s why I always have a fire pit – sometimes built from the remnants of an old grill. This year I repurposed a metal cylinder that perhaps came from an old piece of farm equipment. This I half-buried in a hole, surrounded it with rocks and topped it with a grate from an old grill. The grate will support my foil-wrapped sandwiches that will be toasted over the fire.
With the help of a shovel and chainsaw, the stand began to take shape. I cut some firewood, covered it with a tarp and even repurposed a small piece of tin to act as a heat shield to redirect some of the heat from the fire back in my direction.
This will be my 50th year of the gun deer hunt. If I had walked up this valley in 1976 the landscape would be pretty much the same. But nature is proof of the relentless march of time which slowly crawls with imperceptible seconds until you realize that decades have passed with frightening speed.
Trees understand time, with their deep roots and slowly spreading branches. Yet the tree that I chose to build my ground blind under was either a sapling or hadn’t taken root the year our country celebrated the Bicentennial.
This will be my sixth hunting season without my father, who died in 2020. Dad never missed a hunting season. It was always a time when we spent some time together, forging and strengthening father and son bonds. I can still see him wearing his plaid woolen hunting pants that were threadbare from decades of use and the floppy blaze orange hat with straps missing the snaps.
The thrill of the kill is secondary to those memories. Last year I was able to hunt with my son and three of my grandsons. I hope they will create new memories and one day can tell their own grandpa and father stories.
I leaned back into the tree and closed my eyes. A tonic for the harried soul is listening to the silence of the forest – which is quiet only as far as nature allows. Blue jays screech, crows caw, squirrels scamper and scold.
I wanted to stay longer, but the stand was complete and I had appointments to attend.
“See you soon,” I whispered to the woods.
Chris Hardie spent more than 30 years as a reporter, editor
