One Oak Tree Southwest Corner, Ground Blind, MN. This is my new address. It my be a downsize from my current home, but no TV's and no ringing phones. Just me and it. It's all about being there and not being there at the same time. Seeing it the way it is when I'm not there, only, I am there.
Tip toeing through dried leaves and limbs desperately trying to avoid making unwanted sound. It never seems to work and you end up sounding like a drunk elephant. Oh well, got to get there. Upon arrival to my new temporary home covered in a tangle of dead branches the worst is yet to come. The entrance zipper. Why is that thing so unbelievably loud? Again, keep on keepin' on.
Settled in, arrow knocked, and pack off. My favorite part. I get so lost in the common things. Birds, squirrels, leaves, and the breeze. Normally a person wouldn't pay two cents of attention to these things, but out here, you have to. It's funny. When we don't have much we make the best of what we have, and those things we do have are just that much better. It's kind of the same thing here. I'm forced to listen and watch. Not really forced because I love it but you get the point. 
Staring for movement and listening to every sound. It really is amazing what you see and hear. The strange thing is, we see and hear a lot of it all the time. We just don't pay much attention to it. Out there, you have to. I still can't figure out how when you hear a squirrel he sounds like a rut crazy 150 inch buck and then when you do see a deer you didn't hear anything. I'm calling Mythbusters! A wood pecker was blasting the blow down tree my blind is nestled in. He was only a couple feet away from my head just on the other side of my thin blind wall. Sounded like a hammer drill. I never new such an annoying sound could make me smile so much. I'll bet wood peckers wish they knew what Advil was.
It amazes me how the leaves change color right along with the setting of the sun. Seeing my breath more and more with every passing minute tells me the bewitching hour has come. The last hour of light. I wish it lasted for more than an hour. Some are getting tucked in for the night and some are just arriving for the night. Yep, another question. How is it that no matter what a deer stands in front of it takes on that very same color? I'm convinced that if a deer stood in front of a red barn the darn thing would in fact turn red. So sneaky. Does and fawns milled around bobbing for acorns amongst the leaves. The antlered boys never showed up. Guess I'll just have to spend another day in my home away from home.
