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COHT  Fall Hunt
or
Sometimes you can fool mother nature.

The weather prediction was bad for the first weekend in October. Cold temperature, low in the 20's and snow flurries or rain was in the forecast. This sure puts a damper on a good time. You plan and ready your gear but when bad weather is predicted you just know it isn't going to be as much fun.
Frank and I loaded our necessity's and headed down to Blue Rock State Forest Friday morning. Bob and Randy's friends from Iowa , Brad and Joe were due in today and the weather wasn't too bad yet . Kind of cool and cloudy but we have seen much worse.
When Bob and Randy and Jeremiah arrived we decided to take their friends back to our farm and not hunt at Blue Rock. We told the guys to follow. This is our neck of the woods so we had to slow down so the rest of the men wouldn't loose us in the Morgan Country hills. Only a few were car sick from the twenty minute ride across the country roads . Now this is Franks twenty minutes which could mean anything from twenty minutes to twenty days. I'm afraid visions of "Deliverance" were going through their minds. We arrived safely on the farm and all seemed to really like the new location. Here we could make camp in the woods and have no others to disturb our 18th century mindset.

I knew who was going to join us so I gave everyone a ring and hoped I hadn't forgotten someone. Even the sun started to shine. Maybe this was going to be a good day after all.
On the way  in we saw 6 turkeys run into the woods. Some nice long beards too.
We packed on our gear and went to the forest to make camp. Randy ,Bob and Jerry went to gather fire wood.
Darylee, Dan ,Butch and Rob had  not arrived yet. I was hoping they had all gotten my message on the change of location.
Many of the men left camp to hunt and explored the nearby area. They saw many deer while out on their scouting excursion.
Upon returning the hunters made camp and prepared for a cool evening. We ate some venison stew I had prepared and visited the rest of the night.  I decided to go to the top of the ridge to see if anyone else had arrived and saw the turkeys once again only a few yards from camp. Dan O'Leary arrived right before dark . We were glad he had found the rest of the hunting party. The weather was crisp and cool. Nice squirrel hunting weather. We were grateful for a nice day and just knew it would rain or snow tomorrow.
After we all tired of the talk we settled into our wool blankets and stayed quite conformable. IT was in the 30's this nice fall evening.

Saturday Morning.
Still nice weather. Cool and crisp. No rain. No snow.
Rob and Butch came in early this morning. The sun decided to shine. Could we be in for another nice day?
After breakfast many of the men went hunting again. Some rested in camp and just soaked up the beautiful fall weather and colors.
Our son Frank and his two lovely daughters, Justine and Jessica joined us for a visit at camp. I always love having them whenever they can join us . Only trouble is now they want breeches like Granny .Oh no, not more women in men's clothing!

The venison stew was mostly gone so Randy and Bob prepared a big roast and potatoes and carrots for the evening meal. MMMMM Good.
Jeremiah had success hunting and added a nice gray squirrel to the menu. He fried it in bacon grease and it sure looked good.

Darylee had not arrived yet and it was in the afternoon now. We had talked about a blanket match so we started to set up some targets to see who was the best marksman (or woman ) for the day. Frank decided  acorns sitting in the fork of a branch would make a good target. If you could see it at twenty yards.Now it may not have been twenty yards but this is my story. Right? You couldn't touch the forks with the rifle ball. Just the acorn.Noone seemed to be too eager to start.Frankstepped up. Bang. Acorn gone..... but it didn't count . He cut the corner of the fork. I stepped up. Bang. No acorn but no score. I hit the left side of the fork. I hear a voice from the crowd. You don't cut anyone slack Frank. He replies. No slack needed!
Brad steps up with his smooth bore. Bang. No acorn. No touching of the stick. Brad gets the point.Almost everyone was done shooting when we hear a hello from atop the hill. Darylee had arrived. We told her we would wait and she too could join in on the shooting competition.
She came down the hill and loaded her smoothbore.Bang. She missed also.No point. Now let's see what else should we shoot? How about some small rocks on a limb? A few of us hit them.Now we will cut a string. Most of us missed. Except Darylee.  Moving her to first place.Now Brad and I were tied for second. I shot at an x. He shot at the x. Brads ball was much closer than mine. This put Brad into second place. Now the teasing began and Brad got his new name. All the men at this hunt are fine shots but today was ladys day.Even for Brad (shoots like a woman) . WE told him hold his head high .With a big grin on his face he stepped up to the blanket and picked second place.  All the guys were laughing and teasing him.What a good time.
We went back to camp and ate our evening meal. The roast was great. Our son Frank returned with three pies to finish off the meal. I think we got totally spoiled at this hunt.

The sun went down and everyone sat around the fire talking, laughing , and appreciating what a beautiful day we all had. Sunshine and all.

Sunday
We awoke early and I got the fire started again.One by one the hunters awakened. The sounds and smell of the morning had begun.Many tin pots surrounded the fire once again.It had gotten in the 30's but everyone slept confortable.
After breakfast most of the hunters had to return to civilization.
We said our fairwells and will share in the found memories of a fall hunt . Around noon it started to rain. A cold rain. Well maybe just for once we did fool mother nature.For now we look forward to the next adventure.
Till Then....................
Keep On Trekking,
Granny Lin
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