Turning the calendar from October to November signals the changing of the season in the Haverland household. The sweet, frivolous, pumpkin-spiced charm of autumn is over. My husband transforms from a modest, well-groomed, Monday-Friday insurance agent into a camo-clad, scentless, grisly-bearded, whitetail stalker. His days and nights are consumed by analyzing wind direction, temperature, and barometric data in a three-county area. His contribution to family life zeros out for the majority of the month, as he retreats into the woods under cover of dark to wait silently in the cold for a mature buck to cruise into shooting range.
Paul gets a few “warmup sits” in during October to shake the dust off before the rut. While he was out one Sunday, I was driving the girls to spend some time with family. As we crept through the neighborhood at a mere 15 miles per hour, a squirrel locked eyes with me as he stood upright on the curb. He bent over into the standard squirrel running position. “Don’t you do it,” I warned him via telepathy and exaggerated eyebrow furrowing. Whether he overestimated his own speed or mine, I’ll never know. He darted in front of my sloth-paced vehicle and placed himself under my passenger side front tire. Needless to say, uh, I won that fight. As I slowly rolled out of the neighborhood later, I saw my victim lying motionless in the road and felt such guilt. For a nanosecond I considered naming him and asking his squirrel soul for forgiveness. I didn’t. Instead, I took it as a sign that I needed to toughen up before I trying to kill a deer on purpose. I had a body count of 1 and hadn’t even sat in a tree yet.
When my alarm sang its cheerful tune at 4:30 AM on November 4th, it was time. Springing out of bed, I showered with the scent-killing, skin-drying magic hunting soap that Paul insisted on, threw on my base layers, chugged a cup of coffee, and hopped in the truck. We were going to private land in Dubuque County, the same place I shot Gunnar, my ol’ busted up shotgun buck, in 2017.
Parking the truck, I stepped out and took care of the first order of business: one last pee in the grass, knowing it would be the last chance to relieve myself for the next 7 hours. Then I began the layering on of gear: wool socks, Paul’s warmest boots, harness, bibs, coat, pull the harness tether through the slit in the coat neck in the back, stocking caps, gloves and Hot Hands in the pockets, range finder clipped to breast pocket zipper, phone in thigh pocket, attach quiver to bow, double check that release is buckled to the cam. Check, check, check. Time for the final touch: facepaint.
The great philosopher Michael Scott perfectly stated my stance on facepaint, “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.” I believe in spontaneity and creativity, but I also believe in routine and structure, which, on that morning, presented a dilemma for my neurodivergence. If you know, you know. After a 15-second lifetime of consideration, I crafted a shitty green mustache above my lip and filled in the rest of my face with the camo-trio colors to break up my pattern. Passing the facepaint compact to Paul, he hastily drew some lines across his face with no discernable pattern in a fraction of the time it took me to perfect my face-art for the deers.
The moonlight illuminated our walk through the field as we crept towards the woods. Dawdling behind my fit, focused husband as usual, I stole moments to stare at the clear night sky far away from any artificial light. It was beautiful; it gave me hope. Unfortunately, the boots I was wearing felt like clown shoes, warm, waterproof, camo clown shoes. Their enormity and awkwardness demanded my eyes downward to monitor the terrain.
Most of our hike had been at a steady incline, but the last 20 yards or so were the kind where you either had to go slowly and walk sideways, or just Leroy Jenkins it up the hill. Obviously, because we are both ideal specimens, we took the latter approach. When we got to our tree, I was drenched in sweat and so out of breath that I couldn’t even string together a whisper of words to Paul. I communicated in head nods, thumbs ups, and painful facial expressions made more ridiculous by the green mustache I divined would be good luck.
Paul climbed up and down the ladder to our stands hanging 20 feet in the tree a couple times, doing the things one does to prepare to hunt while I recovered, focused on my breathing, and reminded myself that I was a woman of the outdoors, not JUST a governmental desk jockey. Gliding back down the ladder, Paul grabbed my bow and clipped it on the bow rope. He told me to wait until he got everything set up and that he’d let me know when it was time for me to come up the tree stand. It was time time.
As I observed my husband squirrel up the ladder for the last time, I noticed that the steps were on the side of the tree that was leaning backwards… and that the ladder only had about 2 inches of clearance from the tree trunk. Shit, am I going to be able to climb that thing in these boots? After briefly contemplating walking back to the truck and bailing completely on this hunt, I got the signal from Paul that it was my turn to scurry up. I clipped the carabiner on my harness to the prusik knot of the lifeline and started climbing.
When I was about 7 feet off the ground, I realized that I might not reach the tree stand. My forearms and shoulders were burning and due to the size of my boots, I couldn’t get my toes on the actual steps without slamming the toe of my boot into the tree to try to move my foot forward in the damn thing. I persevered, struggling, for the next several steps. Then, about 2 feet below the tree stand, complete panic set in. My body was shaking, tears were streaming down my face, I had one foot on the ladder and was trying desperately to get my other foot set, but there was not enough room on the next step for my actual foot to gain any leverage. I was holding onto the “rungs” of the ladder stand, as one would a traditional ladder, so my hand grip was failing as I attempted to keep my desk-chair chic bag of bones aloft. Paul gently coached me through where to put my hands and feet, calmly reminded me to breathe, and when I got close enough, grabbed my harness tether and the back of my coat, stabilized me and helped me onto the platform of my tree stand. The Samwise Gamgee to my Frodo at Mount Doom… literally the exact same circumstances.
It took 20 minutes for my body to chill the fuck out after that. I was sweating profusely, embarrassed, and a touch alarmed at my total lack of physical prowess. BUT, I had made it. And now it was time to do the damn thing. I nocked an arrow, practiced drawing back and aiming through my shooting lanes (which were perfectly wide and clear). Then we watched the sun rise and waited for the deer to move through.
And waited. Aaaand waited. The squirrels and woodpeckers were very active and provided mild entertainment, albeit annoying when you’re listening for deer steps to crunch through the fallen leaves. Occasionally a fluff of milkweed silk would float by, indicating that my dear, bored husband was checking the wind direction and analyzing our position. The soft wind and gentle sway of the tree lulled me to sleep a few times, an unexpected and rare phenomenon, Maddy napping.
Around 11:00, we agreed that we had been skunked, so we packed up and retreated back to the truck. Happily, going down the ladder was much easier than climbing up.
While this wasn’t the start to the season I had hoped for, I tried to focus on the lessons I could take from my first time back in the stand after a two-year hiatus: 1. Never wear those boots again; 2. Pack in your layers, don’t wear them as you hike in or you will end up with swamp ass that eventually becomes really cold swamp ass; 3. Take the stairs more often at work; and 4. Paul is a badass beast of a man and the kindest, most loving person I’ve ever met.
We spent our afternoon playing in the leaves with the girls and enjoying the mild November temperature in the yard as a family. I shot my bow a few times just to scratch the itch. Paul spent the night packing the truck–he was officially on “rut-cation”, that blessed two-week spirit quest. My next venture into the woods would be the following Friday afternoon, and I already had a good feeling about it.
