The Night I Hunted Santa's Reindeer

    There have been many amazing things that have happened to me this year, from the shooting of my first buck to the amazing proposal that has rocked my world for the past couple of weeks.  However, nothing could ever even closely compare with Christmas Eve past, a night that I will never forget.

    I, just like many of my "adult" (I use that term extremely lightly, as you well know) counterparts, stopped believing in Santa at about the same time that Barbies began falling out of style.  My brother told me, after he had spent the night on the couch in our family living room, that it was my dad who brought all of our presents down.  Horrified, I took the news in stride.  I began screaming, crying, and blubbered a series of nonsensical, possibly Farsi words, then refused to believe him.  My denial lasted all of about a week until all of my classmates began reciting stories that rang eerily similar to mine.  I grew up commonly enough but never truly got over the swift destruction of my childhood.  Adolescence brought with it conformity, followed quickly by my college years which brought with it a beast entirely different.

   I began questioning everything, especially after my first Jackalope hunt.  Everyone said I was silly, insane, even, for trying to hunt such a "mythological" and "imaginary" creature.  However, I had bagged, tranquillized and came out of the woods, blood-soaked, mind you, with my first Jackalope.  As I adhered his mounted dome to my wall, I evaluated more things that I hold a belief in without visual evidence.  This list included, Jesus (my Lord and Savior, no matter what anyone else says), Chuck Norris (I have an inkling no one has ever actually seen him and that he is, in fact, a hologram),  deer with 90-pound antlers (I don't even know how anyone could mount a rack that large) and banded ducks (I, obviously know there are them out there, but since this year, I have yet to see one duck, a banded one is completely outside of my realm of conceptualization).  All of this made me reevaluate my relationship with the fat man in the red suit.

   Just as I began to believe again, the story which you are about to read unfolded right before my eyes.  It is, as far as I know, wholly, partially, completely, sort-of, and possibly a perfectly concrete account of what happened Christmas Eve past.  Many aspects of this epic, Iliad-esque adventure may seem perplexingly similar to one that is popular around this time of year but I assure you, they copied me, not the other way around..

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
The Writing Huntress was cleaning, cleaning like a house mouse.
Her blog was neglected as she hung the dog’s stockings on the chimney with care,
In hopes that her statistics wouldn’t plunge horribly, waiting for Saint Nick to deliver all she wanted, under the tree, right there.

The dogs were nestled, after walking round’ and round’ in circles, all snug in their puppy beds,
while visions of marrowbones and crack-addled, suicidal squirrels danced in their heads.
DU in his leprechaun boxers, and I in my Red Head orange hunting cap,
had just settled our hunting-heavy brains for a short, Carolina winter’s nap.

When out on the pond there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from our log bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a Chuck-Norris flash,
I would have tore open the shutters and threw up the sash, but we don’t have shutters so to the porch I went in a dash!

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen frost,

gave the warm-weather creatures in the woods a start, making them appear lost.
When, what to my groggy, tired, annoyed eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh, and eight trophy reindeer.

I made a start for the shotgun in the cabinet,

but soon realized I would have become the most hated huntress on the planet.

Their master, a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a deflating moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than pterodactyls his mouth-watering courses they came,
and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by cut!

"Now Dinner! now, Shoulder! now, Pate and Flank!
On, Back Strap! On, Rump! On, Tenderloin and Shank!
To the top of the tin roof! To the top of the log wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild Carolina hurricane fall,
when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the wall.
So up to the cabin-top the coursers they flew,
with the sleigh full of ammo, and St Nicholas too.

Our dogs woke with a start, barking like crazy, as I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing of each little meat-toting hoof.
DU lay unconscious as I held tightly my shotgun and was turning around,
when down the chimney St Nicholas came with an earth shattering bound.

He was dressed all in rabbit fur, from his head to his foot,
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
He stared me down like a gunslinger as I checked out the sack,

filled to the brim with hunting goodies on the Old Man’s back,

His cheeks weren’t rosy, his eyes weren’t merry.
He looked exhausted, nothing at all like a cherry.
He told me I wasn’t the first of the night to assault him with gun or bow,
that he knew his fat reindeer drove even a sane man to stoop that low.

So as to not insult the saint, I stowed the weapon away with a jerk,
and offered the old man a reprieve from his tiresome work.
I motioned towards the perfectly wrapped cigar and flask,

told him they were for him to unwind for a moment, interrupting his task.

Sensing a safe place, he transformed into a chubby, plump, jolly old elf,
the dogs stopped growling as I lowered down to sit with the man, amazed at myself.

I dared to tell him that I stopped believing in him ages ago,
but the events of the night showed me all I needed to know.

As if sensing my holiday spirit exploding, the old man finished his drink,
and filled all the stockings with everything but the kitchen sink.
I knew what was going to happen next so I sat up straighter;
knowing the Fat Man’s mode of transportation was not an escalator.

He turned, winking a quick Thank You, and laid a finger aside his nose,

and, as I only imagined in my dreams, up the chimney he rose!

I heard him laugh as he gave his team a whistle,
and away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
Before I joined DU in slumber, a familiar voice exclaimed over the imaginary rolling white,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Merry Christmas to you and yours, 

I hope the blessings of the season fill your home with joy!!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

Isaiah 6:9 

The Greatest Outdoor Proposal

   Many years of self-loathing has forced me to evaluate my life action by action.  I have a running laundry list of talents that make me grin with at least one of the seven deadly sins. Amongst these positive aspects of my person include: playing hockey, skating extremely quickly, eating rare steaks, understanding the deeper meaning of an obscure dead poet's divine masterpiece, realizing when wine has gone bad just by smelling it, adopting dogs that look sad (especially on SPCA commercials), cooking venison, and stealing every cover, pillow, or blanket within an 8-hour sleeping period (according to a study conducted by DU). The opposite list, chock full of those talents that I either need to work on or are wholly absent from my imperfect person, is much longer.  For instance, I have no clue (really, NO AWARENESS WHATSOEVER) where any state is positioned on our beautiful map.  Geography, a lesson in school that I must have slept through year by year, is beyond my intellectual grasp.  I argued with my mother for a good week about where Montana was, I believed the state was just next to Ohio (wherever that is..) and she contended that it was quite a long ways from where we unpacked my college life in Niagara Falls.  In addition, I lose everything. This little tidbit is a flaw which angers me to no end, one that I wish there were some pill to cure.  Daily, every remote in the house, whether I have touched any of them in the previous twelve hours or not, always ends up in the crevice next to the wall on my side of the bed.  My phone, of its own will and its interesting ability to sprout marathon-running legs whenever I require it, turns up in the most random of places from the inside of the refrigerator to in the yard, buried underneath 6-inches of canine-dug clay.

    My shortcomings and their antitheses do not end there, however.  I also have many of both that confine themselves within the confines of my hunting persona.  I feel myself a crack shot when it comes to shooting my bow or 5-stand range but when it comes to actually shooting a deer, my hands refuse to steady, shaking as if the doe standing before me were a triceratops or trophy jackalope.  I am happiest helping out, doing the hard work, especially when it comes to duck hunting.  The first volunteer to go "get that", "move this" or "shut up" is, of course, the shortest hunter in the party, which, again, is one my natural shortcomings (literally).  The shallower the water, the more able I am to complete a task.  Once the liquid surrounding DU reaches his mid- thigh, I know I must retreat.  One of the tasks which I find myself pretty useless is the movement and positioning of tree stands.  While I love to help whenever I can, I know that when it comes to pushing the statuesque structures against a tree, I stand back and allow those more vertically unchallenged to the task.  Knowing this debilitating condition well made realizing that something was array on Decemeber 8th an extremely easy task.

   After a full day of cleaning, organizing, and searching for jobs to whisk us away from North Dakota, I was enjoying yet another Christmas classic on TV (The Santa Claus, none of that claymation stuff for me, thank you) when DU called.  It was about an hour before he was due to get off from work so I had figured that he was calling to request some dish for dinner that I would surely burn/maim/make poisonous or inedible.  However, he told me that he "need my help" moving one of our ground blinds from our usual land to a parcel of new land that we just received permission to hunt.  Given that we only had an hour and a half before the sun was due to set, this seemed like a labor-intensive project for so late in the day but I wanted to get out of the house, so I went along, innocent as an angel.

    DU acted like his normal self, talking about when his parents were coming in for Christmas, how work was, and whether or not we should train Dixie to become a deer-tracking dog.  I, a little uncertain and figuring that this was just an excuse to get me near the mall to look at diamond rings, acted normal as well, until my mom called.  When I told her that we were "going into the woods to move stuff", she replied, uncharacteristically with, "oh really? moving stuff? Well.. that's good!".  I hung up, looked at a happily humming DU and tried to imagine what exactly was going on.

   We parked where the big field meets the little field, a divide well known by those who love Huntography because that is precisely where I shot my first buck.  This spot is also interesting simply because it is about a 20 minute walk in the opposite direction from the stand we were supposed to move. Feeling that something was amiss, I played the "damsel in distress" card. I sat in my seat and told a gun-loading DU that I would not go into the woods with a strange man such as himself, a girl has to look out for herself, doncha know? DU informed me that he was giving me a 25-second head start and that if I was quick, I'd be able to dodge the incoming buck shot.

   I acquiesced. We walked to the food pile to "check it out", to "see what they have been eating" (DU's words, not mine).  I stared at the ground, pointed out that the potatoes have been all but eaten, and looked to DU for some sign that he actually cared about what had been going on with that particular area of land.  He didn't so he kept walking but then stopped some 60 yards away.  He turned to me once I caught up and said that this was the spot where "our whole lives changed".  This statement, rooted in pure fact, made me pause.  I had killed my first buck there, on camera, and who knows where that will lead? Besides that, we came home from that spot to have our world ripped apart.  Since then, we decided to change jobs, uproot, and embark upon a new adventure.  That spot acted as the catalyst for so much beautiful and horrible change in our lives that it only seemed natural for what happened next.

   As my feet began progressing past that thought-provoking spot, DU told me to turn around, to "look over there".  I did and noticed something on a tree that I hadn't seen before.

   Shocked, I turned to see a kneeling DU, holding a small box in his hands.  Too taken back for words, I looked back at the tree while my eyes filled with the tears from a lifetime of heartbreak by jerks who didn't care and for the lifetime ahead with my best friend.  My head swung back to the view of the man who had given me so much love, understanding, and confidence; the man who changed my world, broadened my horizons and showed me what it meant to me truly adored.  Everything that needed to be said was written on the tree so DU just waited silently for my answer.  He began shaking the box at me in an effort to pull me back into reality, to give him an answer.  I nodded my head as he took me into his arms, his future wife.

  

   My flaws are many and our troubles have been great since our lives began to intertwine. But, DU has overlooked my shortcomings (again, literally, as he's 6'5") and has supported me through the low times.  It is for those two reasons, as well as a list longer than imaginable, that I am overjoyed that DU asked me to walk with him for the rest of our lives, and it seemed only fitting that it started in the woods.  It took DU over three hours to carve the above proposal into that tree.  He walked into the woods with a pocket knife and a diamond ring, he walked out with a wife.
 
   Days later, my future husband sent me a text that read, "If I could give you one thing in life, I would give you the ability to see yourself through my eyes, only then would you realize how special you are to me".  The sentiment struck me as beautiful and humbling, as just days before I saw myself reflected in his labor-intensive proposal, the perfect choice for the rest of his life.














* I love you, more than you'll ever know. Thank you for who you are.

An Incomplete Review: Switch Eyewear

    The importance of proper eye wear never never impacted me as much as it did in Paris.

    If I could have changed anything about my trip to Europe last year, I would have made it a point not to go anywhere in France besides the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame.  I believed it a farce when those experienced travelers in my life informed me that Parisians really do dislike Americans*.  In my youthful exuberance, I continually want everyone to be good, nice and respectful if I, in turn, am as well.  However, this was not the case when DU and I traveled abroad last year. Cologne was delicious, Amsterdam was a trip (in more ways than one), Munich was beer-addled Oktoberfest-induced euphoria, and France was... France. We arrived normally enough, in a train, munching on mouth-watering sandwiches, sipping on French wine as the countryside passed in a nanosecond. Departing from the train station, the overwhelming stench of urine assaulted our olfactory glans until it became unbearable.  Our suite boasted amenities only previously seen in travel guides of royal palaces.  We feasted upon chocolates, fine cheeses, genuine champagne, and the ambiance of being in the midst of such a mystifying place.

Dom > Notre-Dame

    Then we left the hotel.  The people, by far and large were rude, more rude than I had even thought imaginable.  Once we started ignoring everyone around us, we began enjoying the sites of Paris. Our evening in front of the Eiffel Tower, sitting upon the grass, backpack champagne in hand, watching as the lights danced across the massive structure's burnt-umber frame, made the entire adventure worth the trouble.  As we ascended to the top the next morning, still ignoring everyone around us,  a chill tattooed up my spine.  I didn't want to leave the zenith of the world but we couldn't stay much longer as the crowds were beginning to thicken around us like incessantly chattering quicksand.  Whoever decided we should walk to Notre-Dame should have had their mouths taped shut but since it probably was me, I retract my previous statement.  The sun beat down upon us, upon my bare, sun glass-free face.  A headache began to form, wrapping its muscular hands around the most generous portion of available skull. We searched in earnest for a solution to my visual conundrum but came up empty.  The only sight I shall ever behold of the Tower of Notre Dame (which, by the way, wasn't as amazing as The Dom in Cologne) was through bare, tired eyes.  Only now, after I have met the perfect eyewear do I realize how spectacular that sight could have been.

   Switch Eyewear, a new company offering an interesting product, approached me some time ago about doing a review of their product.  I searched through their website and placed myself within the safe confines of Marci's capable hands.  I, as illustrated above, have never really owned a pair of real, honest-to-goodness eye protection before so this was uncharted territory. Polarized versus non-polarized amounted to a battle of epic proportions as I had no idea what each size was fighting over.  Marci already knew that I planned on using the glasses for outdoor use; during hunting, shooting, or simply walking one of trio down a leafy trail.  So, she opted to decide which lenses would work the best, leaving my over-stimulated brain to the difficult part, deciding which frame would best suit my little noggin.  I choose the frame that was the solitary one which resembled camo the closest, Stoke in Olive.  Marci put my order in, and I waited just a couple of days for the little guys to get here.

fig. 1

    I hope that by this point, I won't have to feel it necessary to explain to you the extent to which I adore mail.  If you have no idea why anyone would love anything so menial, then you should revert to a couple of my earlier posts about gloves, women's camouflage, and tactical boots.  However, I have found one more reason to love product reviews; the invoices.  One of the beautiful things about my anonymity is that no one really knows my name.  Companies know me by The Writing Huntress, a title, produced from my clever brain in mere moments, now brands me which provides my little ego with an endless amount of joy (see fig.1). 

   The sheer amount of literature that accompanied the Switch sunglasses was a sight to behold.  Pamphlet after pamphlet, directions after guarantees spilled from the package even before I unwrapped the Stokes.  I read almost every word and was extremely impressed by the information.  Switch glasses work with magnets which allows an owner to employ various kinds of lenses without a complicated way of assembling or disassembling the glasses.  The lenses are not flimsy in any sense of the word, making the glasses the most durable I have ever put to eye.  I was given low-light rose and polarized contrast amber reflection bronze lenses, each perfectly suited to days spent in the field (up a tree, in a boat, what have you).  The olive Stokes blended in quite well with my camo, as well as my all-important face paint.

    I began wearing the sunglasses immediately after they waltzed into my life.  Being a skeptic, I really did not think that they would make much of a difference but obviously, since I'm writing this review, they did.  The rose lenses worked perfectly in the early morning and late evening of a hunt, the amber in between. The world around me seemed to snap into focus the moment I sported the frames; shadows sharpen, defining the edifices within their reach.  My dogs' happy faces shone through a little bit brighter on our walks, their cuteness seeming to multiply when viewed through the frames.

    Hunting with the Stokes makes me angry that I had been hunting for so long without them.  The forest gains greater depth, each leaf is given center stage.  The hunting experience becomes amplified and the proof is in the deer- flavored pudding.  Unfortunately, I had just pushed the glasses atop my bandanna-enveloped dome when I shot my first buck (you can see how beautiful they look when not in use when Huntograhy, season 2 releases).  However,  redemption came when I harvested my first muzzleloader buck while wearing the Stokes, the lenses helping cut through the dense fog of the early morning.   I had planned on reviewing the Switch sunglasses whilst duck hunting but extenuating circumstances (weather, the lack of ducks, depreciating finances, our plans to move to North Dakota, etc) have prevented us from doing much hunting as of late.  So, this review is part one of two, an incomplete dichotomy if you will, the second installment coming whenever we find the time and money to venture out to kill some ducks.

    Efficiency, durability, and effectiveness aside, I find myself struck by the company as a whole.  Their customer service is next-to-none (I really mean that, ask Marci, I e-mailed her approximately 49 times in one day), the technology is innovative (and works, a combination rarely seen in those attempting to alter something that is already perfectly fine) and most of all, Switch's connection to the customer is (for me, at least) unmatched. DU and I have been going through an extremely difficult time, for reasons I cannot divulge here and for reasons that y'all are well aware.  I expected my Twitterbuds, family and friends to surround me with love but when I never expected was for the Switch people to contact me, express their concern for our plight and the pledge to help if need be. 

   Switch sunglasses employs a program that allows customers to send in scratched lenses for new ones, for a small fee.  They state, "You no longer need to replace the whole sunglass if you scratch or damage a lens".  This saves time, money and a little bit of worry; all things that comfort potential buyers while creating lifetime customers.  After my experience with the glasses and the people whose livelihoods depend on them, I count myself a member of the latter.



















*Please note: This is a representation of our time in Paris.  My cousin, who is fluent in French and even lived there for a time informed me that the whole of the country is not as rude as I had come to think.  Hence, if you dwell in France, dub yourself a Parisian or simply just enjoy the toast that is mass produced there, please do not take these comments to heart as it is the perspective of one who has a horrible stay in your fine country,
** A big, huge thank you goes out to Switch Eyewear for allowing me the opportunity to try their product out,  y'all really do make a fine pair of sunglasses.  Stay tuned, there's more to come!
*** An even bigger thank you goes to Marci, Switch Eyewear PR Queen, who helped me through this process and cared enough to check up on us after the difficult passing of Oscar.  Your compassion meant the world to us, thank you to the moon and back.