July 5, 2024

Patience

We woke up a little before seven o’clock, ready for the day. My wife had plans for a yoga practice at the Wilson YMCA, while I would spend the morning sitting in my ground blind taking pictures. The topic of our morning discussion over coffee was the weather. It was going to be hot today, with the heat index reaching 107 degrees. This meant that we needed to get any outdoor activities done early.

After my wife left for yoga, I changed clothes and gathered my equipment, along with some snacks and cold drinks. Outside, I noted the morning weather still felt pleasant, although the humidity was apparent. I wondered how long my camera lenses would need to warm up before I could shoot.

On the way to the blind, I heard twigs snapping in the distance, probably deer moving through the forest. I put out some fresh corn in the feeding area, hoping they would show up. As I put out the deer corn and bird food, I remembered the snake I saw yesterday. Although I didn’t see it, I kept my distance from the stacked logs.

This morning, I made a few changes that would hopefully make the session more comfortable. Today, I opted for a more breathable t-shirt and pair of pants. I had forgotten how cotton held on to body heat in the summer. I also opened my camera bag and zippers so I wouldn’t have to fight with their noise at a crucial moment.

The forest was quiet, too quiet. There were no birds or squirrels around, and the wind seemed to be gone with them. The silence amplified any noises I made. My breathing instinctively became shallow, and even swallowing sounded loud. These were tough conditions for being stealthy.

Today, I enjoyed the convenience of using a gallon baggy as a makeshift urinal. Yesterday, while shooting deer for an extended period, I had to use the restroom from all the water I drank to stay hydrated. I had found a solution to this problem that would serve me well throughout the day.

From underneath the cardboard in my blind, I saw a small reptilian head poking out. It looked like a tiny snake, but as it wiggled away, I saw it was a large skink. These little lizards were beautiful with their bright blue tails. While sitting in the blind, some type of bee or fly would wrap itself in the window's material, buzzing loudly for a minute at a time, sounding like they were stuck.

I heard a wren singing nearby. The small bird, being cautious before approaching the feeding station, stopped right on the edge of the blind’s window, looking out for predators, never seeing me sitting just inches away. Up close, the wren’s song was startlingly loud.

Looking deep into the forest, I saw several squirrel tails waving rhythmically. They seemed to do this when they were lit by the sun, which made their tails look like signaling flags. I wondered what messages they were sending. The morning was heating and the heat index was already at 100 degrees. So far, I had seen nothing interesting.

That’s when the thoughts usually started creeping in. There was nothing out in this intense heat. I was hungry, and the house was nice and cool. Maybe I should call it a day. And the other side of those thoughts, too. Something was bound to happen, and I didn’t want to miss it. It seemed logical that the longer I waited, the more likely I was to see something cool.

While playing whack-a-mole with my thoughts, hammering each one down as they popped up, I saw something flash through the forest. It was far, about five hundred yards away. Something large had moved through the trees from east to west. About ten minutes later, I saw the movement again, this time about three hundred yards away. Through my binoculars, I picked up the familiar reddish-orange color of a deer’s summer coat. There was a herd of deer feeding and meandering towards me.

As the temperature quickly rose, the deer took their time, slowly closing in on my position. After thirty minutes, they were still a hundred yards away. After another half hour, my patience paid off as two deer and a fawn came out into the open. At one point, the mother and her fawn were about twenty feet away, incredibly close. 

At that distance, I had to be careful not to make any noticeable movements or sounds. Even clicking my camera from photo to video mode, or switching on and off the lens’ autofocus was almost too loud. Yet there we all remained. As wary as deer were, they never detected me. These moments were always an intense experience.

I took several photos and videos, being sure not to make any mistakes with my camera controls. Yesterday, I had pushed the video record button while my camera was still in photo mode. This inadvertently recorded the video in a lower resolution than I wanted. Today, I was careful to get the higher quality video I sought.

The deer stayed close for another forty minutes. I was cooking in the blind, but I didn’t want to spook the deer, or have them associate the blind with a danger they should avoid. Even when they had left outside of camera range, I waited for them to leave the area before getting out of the blind.

Drenched in sweat, I strapped on my two cameras, slung my camera bag over my shoulder, and grabbed my gallon ziplock half filled with urine, dumping it in the grove before heading home. Even this had to be done with forethought, as the smell of urine in the woods could deter the deer from coming back near the blind. I had to dump it somewhere far away.

While walking through the grove, I spotted a young buck feeding in the crop field. I thought it saw me, but the wind was in my favor. As I walked south, the buck moved casually into the grove until we crossed paths, about twenty yards from each other. The buck startled, and without making a noise, he shot into the thickets. It was a comical seeing the animal’s eyes get big, looking like a cartoon character.

When I cut west toward my house, I heard a deer bark from the pine grove. The deer were everywhere today, probably taking it easy in the hot temperatures. Today would be a record high for Wilson County. When I walked into the house, I was happy to see my wife. The air conditioning didn’t feel bad either. I took off all my equipment and put on some cooler clothes. After, my wife and I made sandwiches and enjoyed a quick lunch break together.

In the late afternoon, a DHL delivery person arrived with window blinds my wife ordered. I took out a cold water and gave it to the delivery person, which they accepted with a smile. My wife hung the blinds up during her study breaks, and we both loved the way they looked in the house. She studied into the evening until we were both hungry.

For dinner, we picked up food from Pino’s Pizza. It was nice to get away from the house, if only for twenty minutes, to grab a hot meal. Ehab, the owner, was happy to see us, as usual. We were hungry and when we said the pizza smelled good; he opened the box to entice us with the hot pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and melted cheese. We all laughed.

When we returned home, there was a lone doe in the pasture. It seemed like she was waiting for us to come home, and we clicked noises at her, saying goodnight before we went inside the house to eat. We had survived the record heat and a long day of studying. We felt good about the day’s accomplishments and were ready for a good night’s sleep in a cool, dark house.