New Realities. Old Realities.

 

"I can make out the noise of the tractor somewhere in the darkness."

    I can hear a big tractor working a field a half mile away as the farmer takes advantage of the lack of snow cover and warm November temperatures of 40-45 F. I am deer hunting, enclosed in one hundred sixty acres of trees, brush and wetland, with several hundreds of similar acres behind me. 

   Southwest of our place is an intersection of two roads where on-coming vehicles often the hit rumble strips preceding the stop sign, or truckers use their engine-brake for reasons known only to themselves. This increased vehicle activity, so natural in the spring of the year, seems quite alien now. I would wear ear plugs to drown out the unnatural man-made noises, but listening to what’s going on around me during hunting season is important just as deer and other animals must accept its presence in their world and gauge what threatens them -- as if their lives depended on it. 

    Sometimes, vehicle noise is such that I feel I’m hunting in a city park, a phenomenon that I never thought, in a million years, I would experience here. Sometimes it's so prevalent it makes me wish I could take the whole place and move it, in its entirety, away from where it sits. Contradictorily, days that are dead calm and seemingly devoid of any noise, natural or man-made, i.e., no birdsong, no wind, no stirrings of flora or fauna, no vehicles even faraway, as of late, create a vague feeling of impending doom for reasons I am yet to fathom. 

    Deer aren’t afraid of tractors necessarily; a farmer driving a tractor can often get quite close to deer in a field, who many times just stand and watch it go by, unless it would stop there. Perhaps they associate its actions as non-threatening or familiar, and liken it to vehicular traffic that speeds by, for as many of us know they sometimes like to play ‘tag’ on occasion although it may cost them their lives, and us, our vehicle.

    Aside from high decibel sounds I cannot hear, there is a lot I must pay attention to during the hours spent in a raised deer stand or sitting camouflaged on the ground. For instance, distinguishing between the noise of a sudden wind through in the woods and a deer walking or running; or the wind swirling the grass or blowing through dry leaves; perhaps a magpie scolding something, or a murder of crows overhead warning others of an owl in the vicinity — or perhaps a deer hunter ...

    Distinct animal footsteps through paper-thin thin ice may be a deer — or disappointingly, sharp tailed or ruffed grouse erratically looking for seeds or tree buds. What I might think a grunt or bleat of a deer could just be the friction of two tree branches rubbing together overhead, or my own wheezing ‘epp’ or ‘huh,’ upon inhalation. It's possibly the deer stand itself. It could be a loose tarp corner flapping or unsecured plexiglass window panes flexing against window frames or tree branches scratching against the stand from a neighboring tree.

    Of course eyesight, especially combined with good judgement, is of utmost importance, although https://www.acb.org/content/blind-hunting-tom-lealos offers blind people an opportunity to deer hunt with the advice of a remote assistant. But truly, a fully sighted person experiences the chance of recognizing movement in the woods; a sudden appearance; the explosive eruption of a frightened bird or animal somewhere very near you that you can’t explain by sight, only conjecture; and in the same breath, wonderfully notice loose silky threads of cobwebs among the trees that reflect sunlight and resemble diagonal dashes of rain. 

    Sunlight, which had earlier warmed me in the deer stand so much that I had removed my cap and jacket, has now passed west thinned by the tops of hundreds of leafless trees sending temperatures plummeting. Although I can see my breath, I can quickly write observations barehanded as shorthand notes or single words. "Shadows grow. Perspective changes." Trees east of me cast shadows; taller, tallest deciduous trees appear white as sunlight wanes; colors become indistinct. 

 

 

     The sun reappears from behind the islands of hybrid poplar and white spruce I planted in parallel contour rows — something else I never embraced in my youth as I thought such plantings were unacceptable/fake; an attempt to create a falsity resembling nature. But I’ve learned, just as those sweeping arcs of tree rows at first, appear too orderly, they age and reproduce offspring by seed, or as suckers in the case of hybrids. 

 

 The young go their own way and fill in the openings as nature intended with under story seedlings. An example being the tall conifer trees in Hayes Lake State Park by the dam and boat landings, and those north of the lake by the beach and picnic areas that were similarly planted in furrowed rows, in the late 1960s, to later create a natural forest setting in 2023.

 

    Colder temperatures stream in through the open windows; my fingers protest. I light the propane heater with which each deer stand is equipped. This one ignites and lights up reliably. Its quiet ‘breathing’ fluctuation begins, its warmth arising below my stool, and I dangle my fingers over it to warm them.

    Traffic goes by as hunters from the Hovorka Swamp leave for home elsewhere. I can make out the noise of the now greatly-illuminated tractor  somewhere in the darkness, as I can a semi-truck heading south on Hwy 89, two miles east, reminding me of that old John Denver song, “Back Home Again,” that I used to like although at the time its lyrics didn’t quite fit my foreseen future life here because of that very line: “There’s a truck out on the four-lane a mile or so away …" …"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgSHHziz0LE

    

    But maybe, one day, that’s going to come true as well, alas.

 

    In the meantime, life goes on. It doesn't seem to bother wolves or dogs who pass through on occasion to negatively affect our deer hunting prospects. Yet, when the country becomes devoid of all its predators and their kind, I'll be sadder yet.