Too tired to hunt

I wanted to go hunting this morning, the last day of deer gun season in Ohio, but I just couldn't make myself do it.

I was up yesterday at 4:30 a.m., drove my wife to work at the hospital, then went to my fathers house for a morning hunt. Snow and icy flooded roads made for a tough walk back to my stand. After watching 8 or 9 deer hanging out with 75 yards of me all morning, I finally decided to shoot the biggest one and get out of the 23 degree temperatures. I checked her in at the game station, came home, and saw a group of hunters, sans permission, tramping through our woods. I chased them down and sent them packing, then guided some friends who DID have permission to hunt to some good stands (miles of walking, and all this in a foot or more of snow.) I cooked for the kids, went out for the evening hunt and then (7 p.m.) went to pick up my wife from work. She had a "little thing" to do on the way home - put in an appearance at the Emergency Services party.

The little thing turned out to be 2-1/2 hours of eating and dancing (only soda for us, though...she worked this morning and I was driving.) We saw another friend at the dance who reminded us that yet another friend was hosting an event at a winery located near our house. We stopped on the way home, I had a couple glasses of their Chiffon (a fruity white) and we ended up staying for two hours at that event, too, listening to a pretty good band called Free Howie. We finally got to home around midnight...at which time I had to trudge through the snow again, out to the barn to put out some hay for the horses.

When I got a call from my father this morning at 6 asking if I'd come hunting and shoot him a deer with his muzzleloader (he's 77 and the snow and cold are just too much for him,) I just couldn't do it. It'll have to wait until regular Ohio muzzleloader season. For now, I'm just too tired.