In honor of the hunt...

A few years ago, I was left home alone with Cole while Floyd went hunting for a few days. I got a little bored and wrote this little hunting essay while he was gone. He's leaving me again tomorrow, so in honor of the hunt, here is my advice for hunting widows...

It's October and I'm alone - again. Before I married an avid outdoorsman, I pictured October as a time for hiking through glorious fall foliage and having picnics before the winter snows came. I never really pictured myself doing these things alone, yet here I sit. And I'm left to wonder - why didn't anyone warn me about this? Surely some other couple somewhere has faced similar obstacles and disagreements in their marriage. I had plenty of sociology classes in college. I learned about the obstacles of interfaith marriages, interracial marriages, marriages in which one spouse made more money than the other, marriages in which one spouse was more highly educated than the other, and marriages in which one spouse was much younger than the other. But there was no mention of the difficulties facing marriages in which spouse is a hunter and the other is not.

I am the "is not" spouse in our marriage. There has been some laughter, lots of eye-rolling (on my part, my husband is not an eye-roller), and a few tears as we have negotiated this difference. I like the outdoors. I grew up on a farm and find nature beautiful and awe-inspiring. Truth be told, I always hoped to marry an outdoorsman - I just didn't realize what that really meant. Our farm was a peaceful place. At our ranch, we frequently admired the deer and elk herds that came to drink from the creek. I remember the year my five-year-old brother had a friend who was going deer hunting with his dad. Not understanding what this meant, he asked my mom about it. Upon learning the outcome of a deer hunt, he immediately set to work making signs reading "there are no deer here" that he intended to take to the ranch to dissuade hunters from disturbing the local herds. Didn't work. Despite being marked "Private Property," there were many instances when hunters came to our ranch without permission, tore up the crops, and left litter scattered everywhere. Police officers had to be called on more than one occasion to handle he hunters destroying my family's property. I was not exposed to examples of responsible hunters, and as such, came to think of hunters as immoral and even criminal.

Enter my husband. I guess I should have been tipped off about what I was in for when his family served elk roast the first time I went there for Sunday dinner, yet I loved him dearly and desperately wanted to marry him and decided to overlook this. While I'm glad I made that choice, it would have been nice if someone had told me a little about what I was up against. In that spirit, I have reflected on the things I have discovered and write about them so perhaps I can help some young bride (or groom) better understand the "is" spouse of the marriage.

Lesson #1: Going on a hunt will always cost more than your spouse says it will. I begin here because this has caused more problems in our marriage than any of the other lessons. A common scenario went like this:

Husband: "I think I"ll go on such and such hunt this year."
Me: "That's nice, how much is it?"
Husband: "The tag's only $40."
Me: "That's not too bad, have a good time."

And I think we're out forty bucks. Wrong. At best, this is a partial truth, although I suspect it's a bit more sinister. The tag does indeed cost just $40, but the hunt will cost much more. In some states, you also pay a license fee ($50+). Your spouse also failed to mention the three scouting trips to the hunting destination that will be required, meaning you pay for gas and food ($100). Oh, and then there's the new boots that are, of course, a requirement ($150). And let's throw in a new camo shirt because your spouse only has long sleeve came and this hunt is in August ($30). Now he's ready, but there's still the cost of gas and food ($50). Oops, did I forget to mention that he'll need a new gun for this hunt since none of the other seven he owns is quite right ($400)? The true cost of the hunt turns out to be 20 times the cost of the tag. Not very likely that I would so willingly agree to an $800 hunt. I'd rather pay the mortgage that month. Now when my husband tells me how much a hunt will cost, I multiply that number by at least 10. It still bothers me a bit that he fails to account for all the costs of the hunt, but at least I know how much it will be.

Lesson #2: When your spouse gets a new job, automatically divide the number of vacation days by 3. This is approximately how many days of vacation you will have for the family. This was quite a shock to me. It's not that I think every single day of vacation should be family time, but I was sorely unprepared for the number of days that would be required for hunting and fishing trips. I don't have a lot of advice on this lessons except that you can either issue a complaint and come off looking like a shrew or live with it. So far, I'm choosing to live with it - I think. Maybe you'll have to ask my husband's opinion.

Lesson #3: You do not "catch" deer, elk, duck, pheasants, etc. You catch fish, but hunters do not catch anything. They get stuff. I say potayto/potahto. The end result is a dead animal either way. But for some reason, asking the question "did you catch one?" upon your husband's return from a hunting trip is likely to elicit one of two responses - laughter or anger. Fortunately, laughter is probably the more likely response. They think it's cute that you think they "catch" an elk. However, there is the possibility, especially if they did not in fact "catch" one and they have explained to you the difference between "catch" and "get" before, that their response will not be quite so jovial. So while it is tempting to ask if they "caught" one to make them laugh, I advise you do so cautiously.

Lesson #4: Facial hair, apparently, brings you luck when hunting. The more facial hair, the better the luck. It's just a simple evolutionary fact, although somewhat difficult to prove. Another fact - facial hair makes kissing uncomfortable. The more facial hair, the more uncomfortable. This is yet another example of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. You can choose to either bear the pain of kissing or complain enough that it gets shaved off. While complaining seems like the better option, it will most definitely be your fault if they do not "catch" one on the hunt and you will likely hear about it for many years to come. So I say live with the uncomfortable kissing.

Lesson #5: This is an important one. Even though you may not really care where your husband is hunting, make sure you ask and know where he will be before he goes. If he tells you and you have never heard of the place before, write it down. I realized the importance of this one time when my husband was a little later than he had said. An hour ticked by (with his birthday dinner getting cold) and I wasn't too worried, but once two hours had passed, I started to consider what I would do if he didn't come home soon. Cell phone service is basically non-existent in the areas he hunts, so that wasn't an option. It was when I imagined myself calling 911 report my lost husband that I realized I didn't really know where he was. I imagined the call going something like this:

911 operator: "911 dispatch. How can I help you?"

Me: "Yes, my husband was supposed to be home a long time ago and I haven't seen him yet."

911 operator: "Okay ma'm, can you tell me where he is?"
Me: "He's hunting."

911 operator: "And where is he hunting?"

Me: "In the mountains."
911 operator: "The mountains are a pretty big place. Can you tell me which mountains he is in so we could send someone to the correct spot?"

Me: "The Rocky Mountains, sir."
911 operator: "Well, that narrows it down to about 6 states. Can you give me any other information."

Me: Silence.

Not exactly helpful, is it? Now, I do try to pay attention to where he is going so that I could be a little more knowledgeable given the above scenario. Since he frequently hunts in two states, I at least try to know which of the two states he will be in!

Lesson #6: There are several types of camouflage. For a non-hunter, trying to tell camouflage patters apart is like a man trying to figure out the difference between his wife's seven pairs of black dress shows. But to hunters, there are distinct differences between them. One Christmas after we were first married, I was trying to surprise my husband by ordering a new quiver from one of his catalogs. It wasn't a huge surprise since he had already gone through the catalog and circled the things he wanted, but he didn't know exactly which ones I was going to order. What excitement! I pulled out the catalog and was just about to place my order when I looked down and realized the quiver came in four different camo patterns. Since they all looked the same to me, I did what any non-hunter would do and ordered the one whose name I liked best - "Mossy Oak." My husband kept the quiver, so I guess it was a good idea.

Lesson #5: All hunts are not created equal. There is a hierarchy of hunts, which as a non-hunter you are best not to try and understand. I suppose the hierarchy is a little different for each hunter, but the bottom line is that there are some hunts that don't "count." It took me awhile to figure this one out. One year, my husband complained all summer long that he didn't have any hunts to go one that year. I even started to feel a little bad for him (or maybe I just wished he had a hunt to go on so I didn't have to hear his complaints). Then September rolled around and he started talking about which weekends he was going hunting. "Whoa, hold on a minute," I said, "I thought you weren't going on any hunts this year." My husband explained that this was just the regular season rifle hunt, which everyone knows doesn't count. You don't have to do anything special, you just show up and buy a tag. So, a hunt only counts if you have to draw for it. In my husband's case, any hunt in which you use a rifle are also lower in the hierarchy. Much better to do an archery or muzzleloader hunt (speaking of which, I have yet to figure out what a muzzleloader is...yet another hunting lesson to be learned). One other caveat - only certain animals count. The same year that he had "no hunts" because he was only going on the regular season rifle hunt, he also went pheasant hunting. That somehow didn't count either.

Lesson #6: Speaking of equality, not all fishing trips are created equal. This essay is primarily about hunting, but as hunting and fishing seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly, it seems appropriate to discuss this also. My husband regularly complains that he hasn't been fishing forever, which confuses me since sometimes he complains that he hasn't been fishing in such a long time when he has been twice in the previous month. Once again, there seem to be rules about what really counts. My husband is a fly fisherman who prefers rivers, so if he has been fishing at a lake, it doesn't count. If the trip was less than about three hours long, it also doesn't count. After all, who has enough time to "wet their waders" in just two hours? If he takes along our son, it doesn't count. I've spent many an afternoon with our son and know what that's like, so I guess it's okay not to count those. Only ideal fishing trips actually count and since his ideal fishing trip would last at least three days and be somewhere on a river in Montana with his buddies, I guess he's accurate in saying he only gets to go fishing once a year (althought this year it was twice). Using that logic, I only get to go running once a year. Running is my favorite hobby and my ideal run is aon a solitary autumn trail run. Most of the time I go running, it is in my living room on the treadmill with some cartoon blaring in the background.

Lesson #7: On the subject of fishing, a rod and a pole are not the same thing. You do not, under any circumstances, go fly fishing with a pole. You'd think that when someone made this mistake, the other person would easily understand what was truly meant. Instead, the response was to act as if I had asked if he had remembered to bring his stiletto's to the river - total confusion.

Lesson #8: Not all hunters are created equal. When we married, I'll admit that I had a pretty stereotyped view of hunters. I thought they were all lawless crazies with no respect for life or property. My experiences with hunters up to that point gave me little evidence to the contrary. I have since had many experiences with my husband that show how narrow-minded my stereotype was. I'll just share a few examples. When we are driving down the road during hunting season and pass a truck with a dead animal hanging out the back for everyone to admire, my husband is always annoyed. I was surprised the first time he talked about the lack of respect it showed to the animal and how stupid it was to display your "trophy" for all to see. I've learned how wrong it is for a hunter to stay in their truck and hunt from the road. Oh boy does that make his blood boil! He is more annoyed with trespassers than I ever thought to be. There are several relatives/friends/acquaintances he refuses to hunt with because he doesn't think they follow appropriate hunting ethics - a phrase I would have considered an oxymoron until a few years ago.

I really understood this during last year's deer hunt. My husband had been out at my father's ranch and had shot at a deer. The deer ran off. He spent many hours and hiked many miles searching for this deer in case he had shot it, just to make sure that the animal was okay and he hadn't left it wounded. He didn't want to shoot another animal in case he had killed that one. He was never able to find it and came home absolutely sick about it. It actually made him physically ill to wonder what had happened to this animal.

My husband loves wildlife. Most of his enjoyment of hunting comes in tracking animals in their habitat and watching them throughout the summer. I could never understand how, when he claims to love them so much, he could actually kill them. Seeing the near-reverence he had for the deer he may have wounded helped me to see that he truly does love them. I may never understand the killing part, but I think I am starting to understand a few other things. So, I'll just enjoy this October alone as usual and maybe when November comes, there will still be enough time for me to head up to the mountains for my one run of the year.