My First "Hunt"ing Venture

Last night, Mark took me on my first "hunting" trip. We went to his lease close to Cross Creek, where we came to a big, metal gate across the entrance. Mark unlocked it, then asked me to hold it for a minute. Just as I started to grab the gate, he said, "Oh, yeah, watch out for the spider." Real casual-like. Then I looked and this was the spider!!! Apparently he lives on the gate. He was about 4" tall and was truly awesome! Of course, I had to get a shot, or 4, of him :).

Then we started our trek into the property, not too far to our destination. I carried my glasses, a bottle of water, and my camera. Mark carried everything else. And, I snapped pictures along the way because that's what I do.

Mark walked on ahead while I photographed these flowers. I don't know what they are - they were growing wild in the woods. Then, I was like, "oh, look! A butterfly!" I totally missed it. There were all kind of booby traps to watch out for - like sticker bushes, spider webs, branches and twigs at face level, and tons of cow patties. Now I understand why they are called that :). And, no, I did not step in one.

When we reached our destination, Mark set up this ground blind for us to sit in and wait. He brought chairs for us to sit on as we waited.

It's bow season, so that's what we took. We never used it, though. I did all the shooting with my camera :).

While Mark got everything ready, I took pictures of what I could see from where we were going to watch.

Then, we went into the blind and waited. Mark was real particular about zipping the back of the tent all the way shut. I didn't understand why at that point, but I found out before we left.

Yes, I know I look thrilled here. We were sitting on 3-legged stools, which were great to have! However, due to my vertigo, I spent a lot of effort making sure I didn't fall off the stool, which explains the look on my face - lol.

This is one of the little windows we watched out of. We sat and waited, and listened, and took more pictures of the landscape as we waited.

We saw a red bird/cardinal. I did not get a good picture of it. Then, I spotted a turkey across the way, staring at me from behind a big bush. I did not get a picture of him either :(. Then, after awhile, one hog wandered into the area - on my right side. He got spooked and left before I could get a picture of him. We could hear him crashing around behind our blind, which is why Mark zipped the back up so tight - thank you, Mark! I love you! Then, all of a sudden a herd of "rampaging" hogs came storming into our camp in search of food. Thankfully, Mark's feeder had just thrown down a bunch of feed, so we were good. It was almost dark at this point, so the pictures aren't too good, but here are some.

There were 3 big boar hogs and about 12 little babies.

This guy did not like us being there. He growled at us and stared at us as the others ate their corn like good little hogs :).

Then, darkness came and we needed to leave. The only problem was - the hogs were all still there, especially Mr. Grumpypants who didn't like us being there in the first place. Mark told me to hit my camera flash, to see if that would scare them off. Not a chance. They didn't even seem to notice. I started coughing really loud, a leftover from my cold, and they didn't even notice that. Then, Mark stood up and unzipped the tent so he could try to chase them off. The sound of the zipper startled them and all the hogs went crashing off through the woods, in the same direction we came in through. Mark had to figure out a different path for us back to our car. And so went my very first "hunt"ing venture. LOL