Treasures

The kids needed a nap. Justin’s emotions were on edge. Julia’s eyes were obviously tired, barely staying open while playing with her shopping cart and dolls. Speaking of dolls, why is she attached to the ugliest doll ever? It is all stretched out, dirty, and has been pulled across ketchup filled plates. It’s been thrown at the cat, given bike rides, and real milk to drink. No kidding. But, it’s “her baby“ and that’s all that matters I guess. Shoot, I even babysat that darn doll during lunch break for her.

The two younger kids fell fast asleep at 2 in the afternoon. My legs were cramping up, the weather was nice. I was about to open my mouth and ask Kari for permission to go look for shed antlers when “squeak” the bedroom door opens. Out sneaks Becca. She whispers “can I stay up?”

I put my boots on at the same time I asked permission to go into the woods. Kari said “sure”, Becca then promptly followed with “can I come?” I said “sure, get waterproof boots on”.
I explained to Becca how hard it was to find a shed antler. We talked about how far we would have to walk. We walked into the woods side-by-side. She is not the normal “woods buddy”. She talks a lot. I mean A LOT!

“Dad, remember when we camped out here when Mom was in school and Justin and Julia were all crazy and remember when we got that one buck and Justin cried because he was scared because he thought it was alive and remember when we cut wood here and remember when you got your tractor stuck and we called Josh to come pull us out and remember when we planted fields and we got to ride on the four-wheeler and remember when we hunted and we saw that one buck and remember when we were in that, what was that called? A blind? We saw some deer and they were too far away to get because we were hunting with a bow and remember…”

We walked, she talked. It was funny. I answered her questions at first then I started grouping my answers in-between her silent times. We went from the Pines, into the clear-cut, we crossed around a swamp. I reminded her that antlers are hard to find. We crossed fences. I held the barbed wire fences up for her and she helped hold them down for me.

I had given up on antlers. I pointed out other interesting things in the woods. Dead trees. Buck rubs and scrapes from last fall. Deer hair on a fence. We jumped a creek. Then something caught my eye. An antler! A small 3 point antler was laying on the Pine needles! I stopped and said “Becca!” She didn’t even let me finish when like lightening she picked it up and exclaimed “We are soooo lucky!”

I took out my camera. I agreed and confirmed how lucky we were. We both admired our treasure. Becca was silent almost all the way back, and then she tells me “Dad, when I am away and I want to be hunting or in the woods real bad now I can think about this”. I almost teared up. “Yes, Becca”. “Yes”. I hugged her.