Thoughts From a Tree Stand

Written Saturday, December 1, 2012:

Hello friends! I'm writing to you from 20ft above the ground in a tree stand. This is the last weekend of shotgun season for deer here in Indiana and the first opportunity I've had to give it a shot this year.

There is something so peaceful about being camouflaged up in a tree. I think it is one of the closest and most intimate encounters you can have with the great outdoors and the critters all around you. When everything is silent and the critters don't know you're there it's like the National Geographic channel, but it is live in front of your face.

It's a little after 10:00 am now and I've been in a tree since 7:00 am. No deer sightings yet. Lots of squirrels, birds and a raccoon have graced the area this morning though. It's a warm day. Especially for the first of December. At 7:00 am it was nearly 40 degrees and it is warming up toward 50 degrees now.

Are you thinking I'm just plain nuts yet? Well, I wouldn't argue the point with you. But a lot of people ask me how I got in to hunting or what caused me to take an interest in it. Most figure I grew up in the country and/or my family was big into the sport. Wrong on both accounts.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. To leave my neighborhood you had to get on a very busy highway. It was far from rural. The neighbors weren't rednecks walking around in camouflage with a spit cup and a mullet (not that I am judging any of those things).  As far as my family goes, the only relative I have that ever took an interest in hunting is an uncle I only saw once a year while growing up.  I'm guessing that wasn't the influence.

There was never even a firearm in the house I grew up in.  The closest we ever came was when I begged and pleaded and finally won the battle to get a pellet gun in my early teens.

As far as I can figure, I must simply have been born with an outdoorsy gene.  If the TV was on in my room when I was growing up, it was more than likely tuned to TNN (The Nashville Network). There was always either country music videos, fishing or hunting on that channel.  I loved all of them.

I remember the first time I heard Jeff Foxworthy talk about fishing shows being hypnotizing and thinking how right on it was.  Here's a little excerpt I love from that bit:

There is somethin about a fishin show, if yer channel surfing and ya come to one 
it will hypnotize you. Cuz ya always end up watchin it for a few minutes and it's the same 
thing every week. "Hey there friends, We're fishin on ol' lake Witchahatchee and Today 
We're fishin with our old buddy Jerry Reed. Course lotuvya might remember 
Ol' Jerry caught the biggest bass ever caught on our show, and like all our guests, 
Ol' Jerry let 'im go. We had ta whack 'is ass with a boat paddle, but ol' Jerry let 'im go. 
Well, today they're not bitin too good, That's why Jerry and I were gonna try some 
of these deep-runnin lures and We're gonna spray 'em with some of this P-U-Stink bait... 

Well friends, long story short, I have no friggin' idea why I like hunting.  I just do!  That's me.  And that's all for now.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for reading!

Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing (Christmas Style)

I LOVE decorating my house for Christmas.  Always have.  I can remember the Christmas tree we had when I was growing up.  It was an old school one that had a big pole with color coded holes around it at different heights.  The branches were separate and had a wire the bent down at a 90 degree angle which was painted in colors to match the holes on the upright pole.  You would spend an hour sorting all the branches and trying to discern the blue paint from the green paint on the ends of the branches.  Each color was a different size of branch so you could eventually figure out which were which.  I loved sorting the branches all the way around the dining room, kitchen, living room, hallway... where ever there was some floor space.  Then, with all the love and happiness in the world, I would put the largest branches on first, working from the bottom of the tree all the way up.  

Once they were on, it was time to fluff everything up.  With my arms and fingers getting poked and scratched by the artificial pine needles, I'd sing along to a Christmas cassette or CD (usually Garth Brooks, over and over again).  I'd bend each wire branch into the perfect position.  It would take at least one full day, if not the whole weekend for me to decorate mom and dad's house.  Most things had their place.  Mom had a layout for the Christmas decor, so I went along with it.  It was more about making the house beautiful and magical looking than being creative. It was the warm, fuzzy feeling I got from the season.

About five years ago, I started inheriting more and more Christmas decor from a number of sources (grandparents, parents, etc.).  I had a very large house and was married at that time.  Most everyone was getting to a point where they didn't want to do as much decorating anymore and I was the obvious first choice to call to off load anything they didn't want.  :-)

One day, my Grandma Leavelle asked if I had a theme or a color or anything that I wanted to focus on.  I really hadn't considered that.  I was just collecting whatever I could and finding places to put it all.  I started to search my mind and my heart for what it was that I loved the most and wanted to make the theme of my decor.  I thought about snowmen, silver, blue, angels, Santa Claus, Snow, White, Disney... all kinds of things.  And finally, it hit me.  I remembered how much I loved putting up the tree.  Spending time making it perfect.  Adding lights, garland and ornaments.  And most of all, I loved laying underneath it and looking up at the lights twinkling through the branches.  At mom and dad's house, there was a heat vent in the floor along the back side of the Christmas tree.  I'd lay down under the tree and put a blanket over myself and the vent and have the most warm and cozy place in the house.

That was it!  Trees.  I loved Christmas trees.  When we bought the big house, I got a second Christmas tree to put in a place that just seemed to be the perfect place for a little tree.  The next year, I started to have dreams that many would consider to be crazy.  I dreamed of a "forest" of Christmas trees inside my house!  It would have a little white picket fence and a snow covered ground.  Each tree would have a theme.  There would be snowmen and it would be gorgeous!  

I started measuring and planning and collecting Christmas trees from family members who didn't want to put theirs up anymore.  I bought a couple more when I found them on sale too.  I drilled out some 2x4's to make a base to stand the "fence" up in.  I even grabbed two tree shaped trellises that I had grown clematis on in the summer and wrapped them in lights and green garland to create two more trees.  We moved the furniture to make room for this grand display and I started setting up.

The first year there were seven trees and two snowmen in the forest.  It was stunning.  People thought I was crazy.  I never cared.  It became my favorite place to be.  I'd sit in that room almost every minute I was home.  I'd never turn on the house lights.  The twinkle and glow from the tree lights gave off more than enough light and was the most gorgeous glow.  It filled me with joy, love and peace to be there.

The first year

The next year or two years later (I can't remember which year is which), I would move to a new (much smaller) house after my divorce.  The lack of space wasn't about to take away my forest or dampen my spirit.  I figured out that if I moved the furniture out of the living room and made the forest a little more condensed, I could still fit all the trees in.  With a little re-working, the forest was back!

The first year in the new house

I added birdies decorating the trees that year

This year, I thought it was time to take it to a whole new level.  A level that would make many really worry about my sanity and gain me the title of "Christmas Enthusiast."  At the beginning of October I began working on a secret project.  I posted several things to social media, but would never tell anyone what it was or post anything to give it away.  I worked for over a month on it in every free moment I had.  It was a project all my own.  I took no assistance or advice from anyone.  I was on a mission to conquer the world in a way.  

There were some bumps in the road along the way including electrocution, bumps on head, stubbed toes, cuts, scrapes and a black eye.  It was all part of the experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Even the painful ones.  Go ahead and call me crazy.  You won't be the first or the last.  

In the end, I got it completed and installed and it is amazing.  It's a log cabin facade with a front porch that sits in my living room, among the Christmas trees.