I took advantage of the time and did some clean-up in the garden. Took down the cucumber fence and tomato teepee fence and got that stuff out of the way so I could till up a patch to plant garlic. Planted ~150 cloves. Still need to top the rows with compost.
Once I finished up out there I got our hunting gear ready for Saturday, which was the opener for whitetail deer season here. Had that pretty much wrapped up and the phone rang. It was Pops' buddy Zane calling to let me know that Pops had another heart spell while they were out putzing and that he was now sitting in the ER at one of the local hospitals. So I collected my nephew and off we went to check on Pops. They ran a bunch of tests and decided to keep him over night for more tests on Saturday. He was stable and not in eminent danger so we headed out. Got home around 10:30pm.
Got up Saturday morning and hit the woods. Popped a nice buck around 7:30am. He folded up in a zero-drag spot, which almost never happens. Usually they stop a good long ways on the wrong side of the creek. I picked him up with the tractor and brought him up to the barn for butchering. Got him hung up, gutted and caped, so I called to check Pops. All good there, nephew lined up to go check him around lunch time, so I proceeded to butchering.
Half an hour later my phone rings again. It's my buddy Nick. He's got a buck all the way down in the bottom of the holler at his hunting spot and needs help getting it out. Two old fat men have no business dragging a 200lb deer up a steep hill for 300 yards, so I hooked up the gooseneck trailer, loaded the little Massey tractor, and we headed out. 30 miles later, got there, unloaded tractor, and bailed off into the woods to fetch the deer. 50 yard uphill drag to a spot where we could get him under the fence, then into the loader bucket, back to the truck, load tractor and deer onto the trailer, and off we go back to my place.
Made it back home, got Nick's deer hung and caped, and called it a day. With one tag filled I decided to sleep in yesterday morning. Got up around 7:00am and went back to butchering. Nick showed up a little later to start working on his deer. We're picking away at the project and my phone rings. Oh crap, what is it this time? It's Mrs. Augie. She had gone to check Pops after her morning hunt. Two blocks from the hospital a lady backed out of her driveway and plowed into the side of Mrs. Augie's RAV4. Wiped out both passenger side doors and punched the right rear wheel hard enough to break it and flatten the tire. RAV was taken to the tow shop impound yard. #1 Daughter was over doing something with the horses, so she went in town to fetch Mom.
Nick and I finished butchering the deers and took some of the boned-out meat to the locker plant to have slim-jims made. Got back from that errand and ran all of our burger meat through the grinder. Cleaned up most of the mess and called it a day.
That's too much excitement for one weekend.
