Thanksgiving on a Texas Ranch

[Mike P]

I am going home. It is my once a year hunting trip back at the ranch in Texas. And I must admit, as crummy as I feel from this cold, I feel equally as giddy about the prospects of once again hunting the very land I was born on. Call it a longing to return to the familiar places of my youth when life was all about the deer season and the cares of an adolescent boy were non-existent. It will be hard not seeing my own children and my grandchildren over thanksgiving, but my mother is now approaching ninety years of age and I know the years for this reunion are dwindling. And I have promised the blond Swedish woman I have lived with for the past forty years that we will head to Chicago as soon as we return in order to see the grandkids. That fact will be taking me out of the woods during some prime time here in Southern Ohio. But I will gladly trade that time for hunting the ranch.

It will be a time of family and food. And it will be a time of rifles. And as much as I love the up close and personal experience of hunting whitetails with the arrow, scoping a buck with a .243 at three hundred yards is a rush. And it will make me feel young again.

The other brothers will all be there. Usually we do not all make it as some come home for Christmas and some for Thanksgiving and the visits rotate. But the stars have aligned and we will all be home for Thanksgiving this year. And to hunt with my three brothers again is a dream that I thought would never happen. And on a small out of the way cattle ranch in McCullough County Texas it will once again be 1960.

The hunting stories will flow. The laughs about shots missed and the nods of four boy's heads when they agree on some somber point of deer hunting wisdom will carry the days. We will talk about the shenanigans we pulled on each other as we raced to see which brother would be king of the deer hunting hill. We will laugh about paying the local gun repair shop in town to load six rounds with no powder so we could substitute them in my oldest brother's cartridge belt. They will howl about the time they took the scope off my rifle and remounted it backwards and I didn't notice it until I put it up to my eye to shoot a buck. And we will tell of the many creatures that were placed in box blinds unbeknownst to the brother who was about to hunt said blind. From raccoons to javelina and everything in between had at one time or another been smuggled into a blind to surprise the unsuspecting brother upon entering.

And on Thanksgiving morning we will all gather at the big wooden table in the country spam of the ranch house and we will say a prayer for my father who passed away at that very table twelve years ago on Thanksgiving morning. I wrote a story about that day and shared it with the forum a while back. If you want to read it you will find it here.
http://www.excaliburcrossbow.com/phpBB2 ... ath+hunter


We will tell the stories about Dad and everyone will look at the buck he killed that morning as it is mounted and resides over the big stone fireplace in the great room. You can't help but think about him every time you see that deer. To a man my brothers and I all agree, he orchestrated the whole thing. He checked out the way he wanted to. And the monument he left us in the form of that buck is better then any headstone to be found.

And everyday we are home the brothers will hunt. For me it is a time to switch gears and forget all about southern Ohio deer. On the ranch, everything is different. The only constant between Ohio and Texas is a whitetails nose. They still smell you. But after that, it's a whole new ballgame. The thick hardwoods have been replaced with scrub brush and mesquite trees. And tree stand hunting will be replaced with spot and stalks. Shots of three hundred yards replace those of twenty yards. And I will love every minute of it.

I will once again be that young teenage boy hunting my kingdom. I will once again be the master of all the land that I can see. And I will revisit all the secret places of my youth where I wiled away the fall days hiding from the calls of my father to feed this or tote that. I will admire the splendor of Rio Grande turkeys roosting in mesquite trees outlined with big sky sunsets you can only see in the southwest. And I will be home.

Be it ever so humble...........

[dutchhunter]

hope you have a safe trip dont forget to give mom a great big hug .We will want to see pics

[awshucks]

Have a safe trip and a great time!

[VixChix]

Nothing like being with the people you share your earliest memories with! ENJOY!

[MrBigSticks]

Have a safe trip and yes theres nothing like family and home

[Sandman]

Safe trip~!

[FredBear]

That's awesome Mike! Good luck to you in getting to the top of that deer hill this year Id bet the brothers still have some competition in the bones. Be safe and have a great trip to Texas, and Chicago.

[mikew]

Safe trip Mike!

[hetichunter]

Sounds like a great trip and a great Texas deer hunt.

I really like watching the shows when they have a texas hunt. Do the shows portray what it is really like? Are they the way you hunt when you are down there?

And it is pretty funny about mounting the rifle scope backwards.

[Kelley]

Mike, enjoy every moment you can spend with your Mother and Brothers. I lost my Mother(94) in 2001 and only Brother(71) in 2002. I miss them both every day. I have a head-full of great memories of both that I can draw on and smile.
Kelley

[hikerman]

Have a good trip!!

[Limbs and Sticks]

Enjoy stay safe going and comeing back

WES

[HW]

I just got back from my home in Nova Scotia. We had a 40th anniversary party for my parents. Even though you live far from where you were raised, that place will always be your HOME. Have a great time and enjoy the stories with your brothers. As my father would say, you can tell a great yarn.

[saxman]

Breathe it in Mike and enjoy

[maple]

Enjoy every minute of it Mike. Times like that are treasures.

Maple