Perfect night and my old tree

Last week a fellow teacher wrote about the perfect night, sitting in a deer stand.  I have to agree.  On Saturday night I got the chance to go bow hunting for only the second time all year, it was cold, windy, and snowy.  But that did not matter.  The important thing was, I was out in the woods.  Away from the rat race of life.  I think that is something non hunters struggle to understand about hunters.  I am not a cold blooded killer (okay, given the chance I can be) but really I just enjoy being out in nature.  I saw one deer at about 150 yards away eating in our turnip food plot, it spent half an hour there, then left.  I still consider it a successful hunt.  I got to go and sit in a deer stand for 2 hours.  No cell phone, no TV, no talking.  Just me and nature.  Priceless.

The other subject I was reminded of this weekend was on a little sadder note.  I went to check my deer stand in my Grandpa's swamp on Saturday.  My tree is starting to die, even as I write it is hard to keep a dry eye.  I have spent 17 years hunting out of this old tamarac tree.  I am on my 3rd stand in the tree.  I have the old one at about 15 feet up, the second one is a crude box stand at about 17 feet up, and my portable is about 35 feet up, so I know every inch of this tree.  I have spent hundreds of hours thinking, watching, and just enjoying life from that tree.  It feels like a piece of me.  I even get jealous when other people sit in it, not because they might shoot my deer, but because they are in my tree.  Several years ago one of my brothers cut off one of the branches, I could have killed him!  People don't understand my connection to this tree, and probably never will.  I am trying to decide what to make out some of the wood of this tree when it dies.  Maybe a coat rack?  I am not sure, but I will have a piece of it to remind me of all the fond memories of this tree for the rest of my life.  I will probably ask that a chunk of its wood gets buried with me.  Oh yeah, in 17 years I only shot 5 deer from it!  Again, hunting is not about killing, it is about getting away from the rat race that is life.