Gun Season

Incongruous with this beautiful start to the morning, it is opening day of gun season here in my part of New York.

I understand (or try to understand) the lure of hunting.  Dan is off to hunting camp for the weekend. For him, someone who was brought up on a working farm & has hunted all of his life, this is the best time of the year. This is Christmas for him.  He is a responsible hunter and never shoots just for a trophy.  And yet I walk this beautiful land we live on every day; the dogs and I share the field with the deer and we have a comfortable respect for each other's right to be there.

Normally I would avoid walking at first light on this weekend.  We are surrounded by farms, and neighbors who hunt - it is probably not the safest time for a morning ramble.  But this year I have no access to the back trails since Hurricane Irene destroyed all of our bridges.  And I'm not willing to give up our walks so we prepared as best we could and went up to the field at our usual time.  I put Blackie's bright orange collar on him.  Lucy was in neon pink.  I wore a red coat and off we went.

When out with Blackie, and then with Lucy, there were several gunshots.  I'm glad we walked but I missed the peaceful quiet we usually have.  Fortunately no change to the beauty.