Deer Camp

The 2020 Deer Camp is now history so let the chronicles reflect that it was a robust attempt at a COVID-Compliant Camp.  

To be absolutely clear there is hardly a sport that isn't better-suited to pandemic precautions than hunting.  Deer hunting in particular.  Everyone is socially distanced by hundreds and hundreds of yards, outdoors and communicating by radio.  Easy peasy - right?

Alas, it is the social aspect of deer camp that makes things twitchy-sketchy.  What I have characterized as the Camaraderie Factor.  

Precisely how do you do engage in the social chapter of the interaction without turning the entire experience into a reckless super-spreader event that might mess-up the lives of your friends.

For Jill and me, virtually all of this year has featured no indoor guests under our roof to move-about in our living space.  We call it our bubble.  For sure we've hosted social gatherings on the porch or out on the driveway, in the woods or at a local park - all undertaken at a polite social distance.  And outdoors.  

Deer camp is an outdoor pursuit yet the camaraderie factor is always conducted indoors.  

Same for lodging.  Therein lies the challenge.

The proposed solution was to host the social aspect in the attached garage where everyone could be accommodated at a safe social distance and the air replaced by opening a window or overhead door.  Two hunters chose to sleep on two separate floors at a house located nearby.  One hunter slept in the garage and two hunters bunked  in the machine shed.  I slept with Blonde Dog on the couch.  The powder room was available for use of the indoor plumbing - mask requested.  

Unremarkably, some hunters in the usual group chose to take a mulligan this year - with plans to return in 2021 after a vaccine is universally available.  I take no issue with this choice as life is replete with choices.

And whataya know - it may possibly have worked out.  

The Weber grill was put to use, I had access to the kitchen, the cars were moved to the driveway and a couple of picnic tables replaced them in the garage with eight chairs and some picnic benches scattered-about.  There was the back-up coffee-maker too.  

Meals were served communally in the garage, sack lunches for hunting, masks worn when necessary, the garage fridge was stocked with food and drink and a fully-stocked bar materialized on the workbench in the machine shed.  Lube and oil on the rocks.

It was like magic.   My friends are improvisational geniuses.

Yeah, it was cold, inconvenient and without a daily shower in short order everyone began to smell like tarsal glands. 

It was a general pain in the tukus.  

Yet, it appears to have worked in a year when so much of our social life has been disrupted and deprived of us by the spread of the virus.  We hunter-gatherers remain consummately social. No?

And it you reflect-upon the situation, as grim as it may seem, you may conclude that many of our familial ancestors have endured far worse deprivations.  

Am I not correct about this?

Can we not rise to this current challenge? 

The camaraderie factor was a refreshing tonic to this blogger in particular and I suspect it was to the rest of the participants as well.

And the hunting was pretty dang good.

Nobody is going hungry this winter.

Everyone left for home yesterday afternoon following a mid-day breakfast of Shit On a Shingle preceded by a Bloody Mary Bar.

To the uninitiated SOS will cure whatever ails you.

So, on balance this year's hunt was a skinnied-down flurry of approximately 48 hours of high energy big-game hunting and reconnection.  It feels awfully damn good to have recharged my outdoor batteries.

Fingers-crossed that none of us is party to a contact-tracing effort in the next week and a half.

Stay-tuned......