Thursday November 20, 2025 Farther From Your Mind

 

Morning November 17, 2025. View from The Privy, a deer stand.

   Don't you wish your view from your privy was as grand? Maybe it is. I'm sure I don't have a corner on privy views nor think would everyone in the world would enjoy this one as I did. I just wanted to share it before it lost its significance in a pile of thousands of my other images that won't mean a thing to anyone else. 

   

   Woe Wednesday has a word in his vast encyclopedic collection for people who imagine things in cloud formations. I admit I am one of those characters of some voraciousness. Here, I immediately see an eagle with its wings back as in a dive, and to the right of the sun possibly a bear or a lion taken aback by the eagle's aggressiveness, its body recoiling -- or possibly going after the same thing just above the horizon.

   

   I remember that the morning of November 17th., was around 19-degrees before sunrise. "It's always coldest before dawn," I muttered to myself. If memory serves me correctly, I remember the line as spoken by a war-worn soldier in a WWI movie anticipating an attack over the trenches.

   I've been going outdoors at 6:30 am and 3:00 pm (or thereabouts) for eleven days with nary a break between them except the one day I had to go grocery shopping in Roseau to stock up. After spending so much time outdoors, post-opening weekend, beating the fallen tree areas and brush piles for whitetail deer, and not seeing a human soul except at home, going to Roseau feels like I'm entering Minneapolis. People drive like maniacs. Both traffic lights snarl traffic for there are no Roundabouts up here. All three of The Express Line cash registers are swamped at Super One Grocery after the toy factory shift changes; self-checkout devices don't exist. Good grief! Let me outa here! Country roads take me home!

 

   Arriving home I hurriedly carry-in both of the two-bag$ of groceries. I visit with the wife a minute or two about the stuff I failed to get that was on her list. Hurrying to the basement, I strip off my city clothes and begin to get ready to go out to post, checking my equipment lists (Hey, sometimes things change day to day) I wear florescent orange jackets or hoodies, insulated vests, warm gloves, headlamp-mounted head gear, wool pants and shirts, heavy socks, and warm knee-high waterproof boots. 

 

Catherine graciously gifted me this Gerber Model 475 hunting knife and sheath that I've put to good use this hunting season. Thanks Catherine!

 

   I ensure I have my hunting licenses; and butchering knives, that I have the correct ammunition in my pocket as I hunt with two different rifles specific to locations as some deer stands are close range locations of 50-150 yards, and others, like The Privy, offer long range locations up to and beyond 400 yards. I check that I have my all important asthma inhaler, a handful of facial tissues, long-sleeved gutting gloves, binoculars, and the cellphone that's charged to the max. Not surprisingly, after I'm almost ready to leave afoot or by car, something determines, "You must use the toilet." ARGH.

 

   

    The waist-high grass, red willow brush, and patches of white spruce, above, at twilight, offers superb safe cover for deer during this post-rut time period. Deer hunting is much harder after the beginning of season (November 8-22, 2025 in Zone 101, Minnesota) when most deer are hyper-wary of anything that moves or smells like human beings. Although elevated deer stands like ours are only 10-feet high at the floor and up to 16' line-of-sight they anchor a hunter in one spot, versus still-hunting/stalking or walking the land, they also help mask human scent.

   

    Wind direction too is paramount when considering a place to hunt as a deer's sense of smell is almost second to none. For example, if the wind is from the south, you'll want to position yourself downwind, thereby pushing your scent away from them, versus toward them. Many hunters think deer always travel into the wind to intercept danger, when in fact, they will often travel with or cross-wind as well, depending on their motivation, throwing caution to the wind and in rut, sometimes their very life. 

 

   I managed to harvest one deer from Josh's Stand this week as it approached me, surprisingly, with the wind at its back. Go figure. It didn't see me nor scent me.