Annette was on the road coming home from Hibbing, MN where her former beauty school had asked her to come to be a substitute teacher for four days while some of the staff there was on vacation. So, I was in our store alone with the dogs, Cookie and Delilah and they both know that 5 o'clock is dinner time, so they began to bounce around the office and I couldn't get anything done. I just gave up and headed the foot commute home which is about 158 feet away.
In the house, I fed the dogs, and decided to make myself something simple for dinner so I settled for ramen noodles and lentils. I never get tired of ramen noodles and I like lentils despite the fact that they are considered hippy food in many circles. As my fast-prep dinner is simmering on the stove, I do the dishes remaining so Annette doesn't have to come home to dirty dishes (she can get a bit testy and apparently I've been "trained"). My dinner is finally finished and the phone rings. It's in the bedroom so I sprint through the dark for the phone and answer it. My dad was on the line.
He's said that "he's currently on the Garden Lake Bridge and a deer was hit by a car." He was sounding disgusted because the deer was broken up and crawling while deer hunters watched with nobody taking action on that poor deer. Everyone in the group of so-called "men" were paralyzed in not knowing what needed to be done for the poor suffering animal. My dad speculates that nobody among the deer hunters would dispatch the deer for fear that it is a doe and this is an bucks-only season. Fearful that they would get in trouble for shooting an injured doe, they all stood there watching as we say here "with their thumbs up their butts". Whatta bunch!
Apparently, some other cars had stopped as well and my dad talked to a woman (of all people!) who had a .22 caliber pistol that she lent him. He being fearless of the law and one to address the decency of the moment, dispatched the big doe with one shot behind the ear and the suffering ended immediately. He handed back the gun to the lady and everybody left. He wanted me to call the game warden because his cell phone was dying. I turned off my dinner on the stove and called 911 where dispatch informed me that a deputy sheriff was at the scene along with a game warden. That was quick! I hung up the phone and went to my laptop to get some work done while my dinner cooled. Then, in 5 minutes, the phone rang again. It was my mom. "Bring the truck!", she said. I looked at my just-cooked dinner and decided it would have to wait.
As I found the key for the truck and my boots, and my jacket, and my mitts, and a flashlight, two pairs of eyes watched me intensely from the floor. Delilah always assumes it's her duty to go everywhere I go. Cookie wants to go for equal time. I couldn't take Cookie as she can be a pain getting in and out of vehicles. I think I can manage Delilah in the dark. So, I told a disappointed Cookie that she had to stay behind as Delilah raced down the stairs into the basement as we headed out on a hunt!
Into the darkness we plunged and I made my way cross country up to my parent's house which is about 300 feet away. The plow truck sat parked and ready as usual. My dad still plows the entire property and he also keeps the truck ready to roll in cold weather. It was in the twenties and pretty warm so the truck started up in flash. I lifted Delilah inside, hit the plow button which raised up that 800 lb. V-plow, put the truck in four-wheel-drive and the big diesel engine pulled us out of the driveway and onto the Fernberg road.
It was pitch black on the road and because of the weight of the plow, the lights shine low even when on high-beam. I made a mental note that we have to re-adjust these lights. So, being able to see only 100 feet ahead, my top speed was about 45 mph on the few Fernberg straight stretches. That's a dumb road that pointlessly winds around in the woods with no views or vistas but two - Refuge Pond and Rookie Pond. If you are going to simply drive through rocks and sticks with no views of anything and no shoulders to so much as fix a flat tire without getting killed, it would have been just as easy and far more sensible to make a straight road. As I drove that familiar snow covered, narrow road, I wondered what the designers "Fern" and "Berg" were thinking given the fatalities and injuries their "work" caused needlessly over all these years. We would have been better served had they been fired long ago. This is the kind of work we get from government bureaucrats, I guess.
Rounding a corner past the dreaded Fernberg Cell Tower that nobody even knows exists on the Fernberg, a deer pops out in front of me. I hit the brakes and instinctively begin to pump even though pumping with anti-lock brake systems is highly ill-advised. I do not want to test the strength of the plow against another doe for a "two-fer" this evening. I avoid the deer successfully and keep the truck on the shoulder-less road pressing onward to the bridge. Delilah is in passenger seat somewhere in the dark. What an exciting trip for the dog I thought. Can't see anything, bouncing along in a big tin can with engine noises, I bet she was wishing she had stayed home with Cookie.
I crested the final hill to the Garden Lake Bridge and slowed down to assess the situation. Vehicles idling on the Ely side of the bridge in the Minnesota Power boat launch were my cue. I saw the back end of the deer half way sticking out from under the north guardrail on land. So, I pulled up, talked to my folks and the deputy, turned the truck around and parked by the deer on the road. The deputy put on his blinding emergency lights and then all three of us proceeded to pull that big doe out from under the guardrail. We had a heck of time as it was stuck but we finally managed to pull it out. Then, the deputy and I wrestled that big deer up on the back of the truck. It hadn't been gutted yet and was extra heavy. He was trying not to smear himself up with deer goo as he had just started his shift. Of course, the avoidance was unsuccessful. For the next 8 hours he was going to smell like a doe, a female deer. In our wrestling I noted that one hind leg was broken close to the hoof and the other appeared to be dislocated at the hip. It's always really sad when that happens but at least this deer was not going to be wasted. We all said goodbye and I headed the loaded truck ten miles back home into the woods.
At home, my dad wanted to change out of his nice clothes and said to take 15 minutes. I decided to go home with Delilah and see what dinner looked like after sitting on the stove top for 45 minutes. It was still good. I finished it off quickly enjoying those hippy lentils blended in with all those noodles. It's actually a pretty tasty, simple dinner. After my fine dining, I went back to the other hill and this time brought Delilah and Cookie. Cookie went barreling down the stairs and ran all the way to Grandma's house in the dark. Both dogs tentatively checked out the carcass and went then inside to see Eddy my parent's dog along with Grandma, the eternal source of tasty dog snacks. It's always a party at Grandma's house when one is a dog.
Now, my dad is 82 years old. Definitely not a spring chicken. But, you ought to see him dive into gutting a deer. He instantaneously becomes 30 years younger when you give him a dead deer and big sharp knife in the dark. It may sound barbaric to those who don't know where beef comes from, but I was a bit in awe watching my 82 year old dad, bending over the whole time, in the dark, gutting a large deer like he does this every day. Then, there were "the ooh's and wows" as we both marveled at the healthy layer of fat on this very healthy deer. Literally, there is blood and guts and my happy dad. When, he's done with the main part, I flip it over to drain while he lays out a fresh tarp in the garage to put the deer on for the night. I pulled the deer into the garage, parked the truck, gathered the dogs and headed home on foot for the night to wait for Annette who still was not home.
Today, the next exciting part of deer handling will be preformed by my dad. Butchering. He just loves that part, too. Making steaks, and roasts, and hamburger, and stew meat. It's a surprise, joyous time of year. My dad got his deer.
