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Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I’m your host, Brent Reeves from coon hunting to trotlining and just in general country living. I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences in life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the store More Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcast that airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I’ve got some stores to share, Beat shoes and Amy’s first deer. You only get so many first in life, and the first time your first child decides to go hunting with you is one of them. Now. Factor in that she’s a teenager when she makes that decision, and it’s even more special. When they’re little, they more or less have to spend time with you. They ain’t got a whole lot of choice. But when they’re old enough to choose to do so, well, that’s something altogether different. And that’s what we’re talking about today. A Hunter took place twenty years ago this month. Today’s show was all about my first baby girl, the one whose name cost a class made of mine a quarter when we were both of the sixth grade. Amy and I are going deer Honty today. But first, I’m going to tell you this story. Thirty one years ago, when my daughter Amy was three, I took her to town to buy her some of those wading shoes people wear it to the beach when they go swimming. My little girl was born more mature and growing up than I am now. She more or less helped raise me instead of the other way around. She was always thinking and being observant of her surrounding, and stating the obvious when the obvious seemed a little obscure. So we shopped for little girl waiting shoes and we found some. Not surprisingly, Amy picked out a pair of pink ones. I found her size and took one out of the box for her to try on. I placed that shoe on her beautiful little square foot that looked more like a hamhock that should have been in a pot of beans on a foot on a little baby, and I told her to walk down the aisle and back to see if it felt all right. She stood up, and she walked down the aisle, never taking her eyes off her foot with the waiting shoe, her head bobbing back and forth as she emphasized every other step, she got to the other end and turned and walked back to me in the same fashion. All the while she walked, she never took her eyes off that shoe as she waddled back to where I was standing, and I squatted down and asked her, well, what do you think. My little blond haired beauty looked at me with her big old eyes, her face and demeanor as serious as I have ever seen her, and she said, Daddy, I think I want two of them. And that’s just how that happened. She’d been fourteen years old for nine months when she said, Daddy, I want to go deer hunting now. From a little girl, she loved the fish as long as I took the fish off her hook and baited it. For I had taken her with me to brush doug Blass before she was old enough to start school. She’d wear her boots and her hunting clothes and complete with a camouflage hair bow. We’d walk around in the woods a little here and there, and she’d grown up going to deer camp on family night. All the other kids were there to play with, and it was the social event of the season. We’d all sit around the fire before and after supper, the women folks eventually gathering up all the youngins that were too young to hunt the next day had school or would rather sleep in their own beds rather than a drafty old camp house that varied in temperature from blistering hot and freezing cold, depending the amount of wood that had been crammed into the stove. Now, had she wanted to stay and hunt, or any of the other girl cubs in the family for that matter, she could have, and they could have, but she and they chose not to, and for fourteen years that was where it was. Then she decided on her own that this was the year she wanted to go. Do you want to shoot? Yes, sir, all right, we’ll go tomorrow. Now all I had to do was hope she didn’t change her mind, And it was all like auld duke, contain my excitement. I bought her some boots that were supposed to keep her feet on a dressed her in everything I could think of to keep her comfortable. Once we got on the stand, and I gave her a crash course on aiming through a scope, controlling her breathing and squeezing the trigger. After we ascended the letter to the buddy stand. We both occupied. We were hunting in a hardwood flat that she wouldn’t see for another thirty minutes when the sun started climbing into the sky. We passed the time snuggled up and giggling, and me asking her every few minutes if she was warm enough, and she reassured me that she was. Amy is my first born, the first girl on my mother’s side of the family, and was everyone’s little princess. As you can well imagine, she still mine and has held that title for all of her thirty four years. She could read before she started school, has her grandfather’s sense of humor, and she only seed the good in people, trust others beyond what most of them deserved. Love’s with her whole heart. And on that day, when she could have been anywhere she wanted to be, she chose to sit with me in the cold, in the woods and in the dark. Now, what kind of bird was that? Daddy? When will we see a deer? This gun gonna kid? I answered every question this best I could, And when daylight started creeping in, I put a pair of headphones on her ears to protect them from the shot I prayed would eventually come before she got too cold to stay any longer. A couple of days before, I’d poured out some rice bran about fifty yards away in front of that stand, the cream colored pile of deer food was there for the taken by anything that wanted to stop. The first movement we saw heading toward that buffet was a mama coon and a couple of her kittens. They ate and played around the pile of as if they’d stumbled upon the divine treasure, and we watched them in silence except for the giggling as the little ones climbed all over everything they could find, including their mama and each other. I first saw the dough as she slipped between the timber, heading straight toward where that family of coons was feeding, And as soon as she entered into the little opening, Amy and saw her too. I looked at her, and I could see the excitement in her eyes and the increase in her breathing, cold air turning into a white fog as she borderlined on hyperventilating the kind of calmed down on it you got all the time in the world, and made sure her earmuss were on, and laid that rifle across the wrist in front of her. The dough crept closer and closer as she watched that family of coons waiting around and what she was wanting to eat. She stopped and she stumped her foot, claiming that pile of groceries for herself. Lacouz took the hint, moving along at a pace they seemed fairly familiar with, kind kind of like they’d been wrong off before and recognized their spot in the pecking order. Amy had slowed her respirations down to about sixty per minute and was intently listening to every whispered instruction I was giving her. Really, teaching time was over now. It was just a matter of calming her to the point where she could make an ethical shot. It was early. I didn’t care if the deer left. We weren’t going to rush the shot. And she had up and until the time she’d pull the trigger to say, daddy, I don’t want to do it. I was seated to her right, and she held that rifle firmly to her shoulder, and she leaned forward, trying to get adjusted properly to the eye relief and find the deer in the crosshairs. Can you see the deer. No, sir. I looked at the scope. It was on nine power. I turned it back down to three. What about now, no, sir, why could she not see this deer? I looked at the deer and the orientation of the barrel. They weren’t even close to being similar. I told her to aim to the writ and down. She did just that, and in a few seconds she whispered excitedly, I see it. I see it all right. Now. You see that crease right behind that deer’s front shoulder. Yes, sir, put the crosshairs right there in the middle of that deer. Tell me when you’re there. The big old dough fed like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, completely oblivious of the conversation going on fifty yards away. Okay, Dad, it’s there, Sissy. I’ve taken this safety off. Are you ready? Yes, sir, I pushed the safety off. I didn’t ease it off. I wanted her to hear that audible click. I want her to know that the only thing between that if for firing or not firing, was her. Now, don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. Then just squeeze it slowly until it fires. It’s not gonna kick, and you ain’t gonna hear it, said, don’t be scared. I’m ready. The door turned and was facing away, and I reached up and re engaged the safety. She turned to look at me, like what now. I told her just keep looking through the scope and once she turned back again, we’d start over. About that time i’d finished telling her that the door did turn back broadside. All right, are you ready? And after a few seconds she said, yes, sir. I punched the safety off and said, shoot whenever you were ready. I watched the deer the end of the barrel settled into stillness. I leaned back and eased my fingers in my ears, and from the corner of my eye I saw her finger go inside the trigger guard. But later, bam, dirt kicked up from beyond and beneath that deer who exited stage right at a rapid rate of speed. Did I get her? Now? You missed, sissy, But you did so good. You were quiet, You took your time, and you didn’t shoot until you were ready. Did it kick you, no, sir? Was it loud? No, sir, I’m sorry I missed. Daddy. Don’t be sorry. This is fun. There’ll be another one along, don’t worry. I’m very, very proud of you. For forty five minutes, we went over everything that had happened that morning so far. She seemed to be more relaxed with each stick of the clock. We watched squirrels, and we listened for deer, and resumed the joking and the laughing, trying to be as quiet as we could. I didn’t care if I ever saw another deer who were sharing a moment that can happen a million times, what can only happen once. The first time, a carbon copy of that deer she miss stepped out into that little opening, and I hadn’t seen her approaching when I did, kind of startling me, SIS said, there’s another deer. Her demeanor immediately changed. She eased that rifle to her shoulder with a slow and steady movement and acquired her target like she’d done it a hundred times before, rather than only once. Can you see her, yes, sir. She sounded more confident at that time, and I didn’t notice it until replaying that scenario over again later on. But I pushed the safety off. I said, shoot whenever you’re ready. I didn’t get it out of my mouth. Good When a bam, she dropped that deer like a hot rock. You got her, You got her. I am so proud of you. She was smiling and hugging me back, but she didn’t She didn’t say a whole lot, just answering my questions of did it kick? And did it hurt your ears? Did you? Did you feel comfortable? As we unloaded the rifle, gathered our stuff, and climbed down the ladder, I could see she was very moved by what she’d just done, and I wasn’t exactly sure which way the pendulum was going to swing on her experience. I wanted her to be a part of experiencing our way of life and contributing as much or as little as she wanted on her own terms, by choice of the enjoyment of participation, and not by guilt for taking the life of an animal. Closer we got to the deer, the more the realization of what she’d just done became evident. We nailed down beside that door, and the silence and stillness of that little oak, flat and fur a moment, neither of us spoke. We just just looked at her. I glanced at my daughter who had made the choice twelve hours ago to go hunting and two minutes ago to shoot a deer, decisions that were made all on her own, one of which weighed a lot heavier than the other. Wow, look what God gave us, I said. And then we prayed, and we were thankful that we were granted the opportunity to take that deer’s life to feed our family. And we talked about how God gave us these animals to take care of and that we should take that responsibility very seriously, and if we took care of them, they take care of us. It’s our belief that’s how he intended it to work. She’d been a hunter for less time than it took for me to tell that story, and in the shallow span of time, she’d experienced every emotion a seasoned hunter goes through all in one morning. Anticipation of the hunt, the beauty of the world as it awakens, the wonder of animals at play, the adrenaline of seeing what you’re after, the sadness of a missed opportunity, the redemption of another chance, and the realization of taking a life. That’s a lot to soak in for an adult even more so for a fourteen year old girl who had only done it once. Now, after we’ve prayed and talked about it, it seemed the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. Perspective can be a powerful thing, especially when viewed through the diameter of a scope. It’s only when you back away that you truly see the totality of the situation and bear will witness to the masterpiece had been a part of creating. Now in our case, the woods with the canvas, the deer hunt was the paint, we with the brushes, and God was the artist. I think of that day during the most random times throughout the year, and have since it happened. Sometimes I call her text amy about it, but nine in nine times out of one hundred, I just sit and relive it all over again. The thankfulness in her voice, the happiness in her eyes, the feel of her arms squeezing my neck, and finally, the relief and knowing that what she’d done was good and pure, and whether she chose to do it again or let that be the last time, she had nothing to be ashamed of. And she could see it from both sides now, and we’ve shared a lot of first things and me and that girl. She was the first to call me daddy, and her daughter was the first to call me papau. Last weekend, my granddaughter Piper was hunting with my son in law, Colin. Piper shot her first deer, and, much like her mama twenty years before, once they’d headed home, the reality of what she’d done began to sink in. Amy contacted me this morning as she and Colin were together and said she’d been thinking about her first dear ever since Piper had gotten hers. She told Colin how she’d gotten upset, and that after she and I had prayed about it and I’d explained it to her our responsibilities in the choice we make to do these things, that it became an honor instead of a burden. Then, as if right on cue, Colin told her that he and Piper had had the very same discussion with the very same results. These are the good times, the times that take seconds to happen, in two lifetimes to relive. That’s good stuff. It’s really really good. There’s a framed quote of unknown origin that hangs in the Meat Eater studio right behind Steve’s chair. I noticed it for the first time. Last month when I was there hosting Radio Life, I asked my friend Randa Williams about it, and he couldn’t find the source, but thought it was possibly a portion of a forward to a book. Regardless, I’m going to read it to you now as it had quite an effect on me. And here it is. In describing seeing his children newly born, he wrote, far from being young, as young as a human being can be, they seem immensely old. They’re foreheads and features streamlined by time, as archaic and smooth as the heads of pharaohs in Egyptian sculpture, as if they had traveled an immense distance to find their parents. Then in a second they became young. I like to thank all of you for listening to us here on the Beggaris Channel. Clay Lake and I we really really appreciate it. Good luck to everyone out chasing deer. If you’re sitting in a tree, do yourself and your family and friends of favor where a safety right please, And there’s a young and somewhere who would like to go to disass Until next week. This is Brent Reed signing off. Y’all be careful
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