Deer.

Some days just don’t go as planned.

I was sitting in my pj’s with a oversized camouflage hoodie on (detail important later) drinking my tea and giving spelling tests about 9ish am. I hadn’t showered. My pj pants were as mismatched to my top as possible. My hair… yeah. I hadn’t gotten in the shower yet.

Liberty went to do outdoor chores and came back grimacing. A deer had jumped our fence, broke its leg, and got stuck on the woven wire. What happened next I’ll spare you the details, but it’s a testament to my mercy that Beckett lives to see another day.

A call to the conservation department answered my question as to legality of putting the doe out of its misery. There was no surviving this and it was writhing in wretched agony.

And that is how I shot my first deer. Sterling, who had a tag last year but didn’t fill it and just got a tag for this year, was dismayed at that turn of events. It was most gruesome, but Sterling was proud that I was at least wearing camouflage when I got my first deer. And then. Sterling and Eden got the deer off of the fence and out of the pasture and Sterling skinned it and preserved the pelt. With adrenaline and atrophy going on, we decided not to butcher it for meat.

And then… I took a shower and remembered why I don’t hang out in my pajamas.