The "Big Fast Train" has done come and gone. Just as I said in that post, there was a point at Winfield where I had to actually sit down onstage and start playing the tunes I'd been practicing for months. Georgia documented it (below). There was a lot that needed to happen before then, though, and no, I didn't really get "whipped" at Winfield. It's just a fun alliteration. I'd use "Winning at Winfield!" (with more exclamation marks) but I didn't win.
The trip to Dallas to pick up our new Casita went well. We stopped in Clarendon and had lunch with Brianna and Quenten which turned out to be a good thing as they ended up moving (to Claremore...what's next? "Clareless"? "Clarefree"? "Clare-by-the-sea"?) the week I was at Winfield. We picked up the camper- another undramatic event, except that I had a blown fuse which was promptly fixed at the factory- and headed north to my half-sister's place near Pilot Point, TX. I'd asked for all kinds of advice for traveling through Dallas and we ended up taking 45 to 75 to 380. That was a good route but I have to say, north Dallas was the worst part of the whole trip! Lots of traffic, lots of construction, fast drivers. However, it still all went without event and we even managed to stop at the Cabela's in Allen, TX.
The Motherlode of Egg Campers
Checking out floor models while waiting
Getting together for the first time.
Out in the lot, ready to roll!
We'd stopped at Cabela's in Fort Worth on the way in and were disappointed. The place was full of screaming kids, merchandise was on the floor, and we just didn't find anything we wanted. Plus, we only had an hour before they closed and when they close at 7 pm, that means they empty the floor at 6:30 pm. The Cabela's in Allen TX was a lot better to us. The former is 250,000 sq ft and the latter "only" 100,000 sq ft, but the Allen store was cleaner, neater, and.... better. Maybe it helped that it was Monday morning and not Sunday afternoon. We scored all kinds of stuff on our list including a Benjamin Titan NP air rifle with a slightly cracked stock for less than 1/2 price. Derek's been wanting one of these for ages but I didn't want to spend $160 on one. This one was marked to $80 and we put it in the basket along with a pair of camo overalls for $20. We found a lot of things and the stop here was well worth our time. We also managed a stop at In 'n Out Burger but, honestly... it was just okay. I like Five Guys' fries better.
Cabela's in Allen TX
After that, it was to my sister's place, whom I haven't seen in 12 years or so, although we talk on Facebook. Her and her husband train, raise, and sell horses and we had a fun, although way too short visit. Derek and I slept in the Casita for the first time and started figuring things out.
Derek, Bryan, and Ky after a successful meal
We took off at first light for Winfield and stopped at Bass Pro in OKC on the way. Prior to this trip, I'd bought a Garmin GPS and, while I'm good with maps, this proved to be a useful purchase for navigating big cities. The main thing is that it warns you of upcoming exits and you get a little picture of what the exit looks like. Armed and empowered with this technology, we navigated into Bass Pro where we spent more money!
Bass Pro in OKC
And then, on to Winfield! Our GPS was pretty helpful here. I'd never come to Winfield from the south and didn't realize that I-35 turns in a toll road. So, we bailed an exit early and the GPS helpfully suggested a road that ran straight to the road I wanted. Finally, around 2 pm, we parked the Casita and breathed a big sigh.
One of my antelope hunters had given Derek a really nice fly-tying kit and I knew there plenty of experienced fly-ty'ers in our camp.
Coy and Derek tying flies
Proulxs and Donohues
The Casita. Camping.
The Famous John Beaver
Dugas and Moe
"Are you SURE you want to learn to play banjo?"
The evening flight of turkey vultures coming to roost
Winfield was fun. I didn't place in either contest and there was no question about that. I did better in the mandolin contest than I did guitar and got a lot of nice comments. One of the most appreciated was when Steve Kaufman- the original and for a long time only 3-time winner of the guitar contest- came over, pointed his breakfast banana at me and said "You played great in the mandolin contest! Smooth, clean, interesting... that was good!"
Advice from Steve before the contest
Wanna hear my contest tune? Video!
I drew next to last in the guitar contest and that gave me about 2.5 hours to listen to the other guys, get tense, and think about what I should've done. I played pretty good, but my arrangements and execution, honestly, are not up to Winfield standards. But I paid attention and brought some lessons home. This year was tough. Of the 5 finalists, 4 were previous winners. And at least 3 previous winners did not make the cut, as well as a few professional musicians there to try their hand at the contest. So, it was no dishonor to not make it. I think I could've played better and done more, though. Next year, maybe I will.
Here comes that train!
Picking away!
Warming up for the guitar contest
I didn't play well, but here I am.
My view
Derek slept well.
That was Winfield. It was a fun but tiring week and we drove 1400 miles round trip. On the way home, I decided that 2015 would be my last year. Next year, I'm going elk bowhunting or fishing or whatever. It's getting really hard to hear in noisy environments and I had a hard time participating in anything other than very small group conversations. So, I'm done. Of course, when I got home, I started learning new tunes and practicing. Maybe I'll go but just not say anything.
This is long enough. Next time, I'll talk about cattle shipping and the End of The Year. Maybe I'll even have a photo of me opening a box of the Revised and Updated 2nd Edition of "Falconry Equipment". We'll see.
The Family Reunion finished up this morning and after the usual packing and loading, we set out for a side trip to White Sands National Monument. The original plan was to spend the night in Alamogordo, but I was itching to get home because I have a bunch of incoming guitars to work on and so at 3 pm, we struck out across New Mexico, heading north on a 375 mile trip. If all went well, we'd be home by 10 pm, which is late and tiring, but it's worth it to be home. All went well and we got home right on time.
Mandolin picking at White Sands
This time, I shot 15 seconds of video every 50 miles. Darkness caught us about 120 miles out so I couldn't get the best part of the trip- close to home!- but I did manage to catch the Union County sign in the dark.
Gonna post this up real quick and hit the sack! This might be my shortest blog post yet.
We drove south to El Paso today (a 460 mile trip) and as we went through Alamogordo, I told Georgia (who grew up there)- "There's Harris' hawks here now". This is interesting because Harris' hawks didn't used to be there and have moved into the area in recent years. Derek perked up and started pointing out raptors on the telephone poles. I said, "No... they won't be up there. They're more likely down in the lower trees like... um... those mesquite" and then I point to 2 Harris' hawks sitting in a mesquite tree. Ha!
Decades ago, we were at the Sonoran Desert Museum near Tucson. I had yet to see a wild HH so I asked the lady there "are there any Harris' hawks here?" She says "not very many- they're pretty rare." We get in the car and drive about a mile and there at the top of a saguaro is a large adult HH.
Another time, I was driving down a remote NM road with a friend talking about redtails and describing the brown tail of the immature. I look out the passenger side window and surfing along in the truck's wake is... an immature RT hawk. It stayed with us for 1/4 mile and my passenger got a great look at the brown tail of an immature RT hawk.
It's almost like magic sometimes.
On the way down, I decided to video the scenery to sort of document the changing terrain- and boy, does it change from our house to El Paso! We went from high plains grasslands, down through the pinon/juniper country, then through yucca country, and finally into the rocky Mexican desert of El Paso. The yuccas went from ground level to 10 feet tall or more, the rocks went from sharp round volcanic to sharp flat granite. The hills go from smooth and rolling to mostly straight up and down. And the moisture went from snow to non-existent. If' we'd gone through Taos to pick up the alpine stuff, I think we could have crossed most of the major life-zones in the U.S. on this trip. Here we go....
First, we stopped in Las Vegas for a brunch at the excellent Charlie's Spic 'n Span. We started off with fun stuff:
Appetizers
Followed by a most excellent green chili breakfast burrito. This was one of the green chili things that you could smell a good 12" from your nose. I had no trouble eating the whole thing and drinking 2-3 cups of the coffee.
This is New Mexico Food
Properly stuffed, we hit the road again and promptly missed our exit. No worries- we just proceeded on down the road and took NM 3, a small and lonely road also heading south. That's where the video record starts.
Following are some comments I jotted down:
Duran is leaving the high country and starting out through the central grasslands. There's less moisture here and more yuccas.
The Corona area is full of pinyon/juniper and used to be full of deer- might still be. Once when Georgia and I were still dating, we were driving up to the ranch and going through Corona about 2 am. I was asleep, G was driving, and I suddenly woke up, grabbed the steering wheel, yelled "watch out for the deer!!!", and then fell asleep again. I can't believe she stuck with me after that.
Approaching Carrizozo, the country is definitely moving into the tall yuccas. It's getting drier and the grass is getting much sparser. I did raptor surveys for 2 years in the country to your right (west), all the way to the AZ border.
Running alongside the Jornada del Muerto or Journey of the Dead Man. This is a flat, dry basin running most of the length of central New Mexico. It's home to White Sands Missile Range now.
Just outside Alamogordo is where we saw the Harris' hawks. Note the tall yuccas and tall mesquite trees. The soil is sandy and this is some seriously dry country.
At the end of this journey, these are some seriously steep mountains. Hueco Tanks State Park- a famous bouldering area is just around the ridge to the right.
Derek and I are back from another outdoor adventure. This time we traveled to Sipapu NM for what was supposed to be a 2-day 3D archery shoot. We had a rough start, as we were intending to use our Coleman pop-up but only made it as far as the pavement 10 miles from home. When I stopped to check things, I discovered a flat tire. Our spare was flat, too, and Mom had to come to our rescue with a tank of air. I'd had a premonition of a flat and so this wasn't too surprising, but it did turn our 6 am start into a 9 am start. Instead of traveling w/out a spare tire, we decided to just sleep out of the truck, so after re-packing, we were finally off.
In case you're not familiar with the genre, a "3D shoot" is where you shoot at foam animal-shaped targets which are set at unknown distances. This is in contrast to the "field archery" shoots we've been doing all summer at which flat paper targets are set at known distances. 3D archery is a booming thing but, honestly, I prefer field targets. 3D is suppose to sort of, kind of, simulate hunting conditions, but I really don't think it does. For one thing, most people carry chairs stuffed with cold drinks to sit on while waiting to shoot. It's common for people to use umbrellas to shade each other and block wind. I can't remember ever doing that during a hunting. The distances are unknown and the shots are frequently "challenging" with sharp uphill and downhill angles, often obscured by branches and such. In a real hunting situation, I'd probably pass on about 1/2 the shots we take in a 3D shoot and I'd be using my rangefinder on the rest. From 10-30 yards I can use my 20 (or 25 yard) sight pin, but 3D shots are commonly 35-45 yards and I just can't guesstimate that distance accurately, I know that, and thus when hunting, I'll use my rangefinder or pass on the shot.
3D advocates are often critical of field shoots and we actually had some discussion about this in my group, one of the guys being a field shooter like me and the others being 3D-only guys. The 3D guys said "what's the point of shooting more than one shot? You only get one one shot when hunting!". True (usually), but again, while hunting, I know my limits and I'm not going to the take the shot if they exceed my limits. 3D targets score 12-10-8 and then you get 5 for hitting the body. In my opinion, a 5 ought not to score- that's a "wound"! In fact, there's a seldom used variation of 3D scoring that scores the "wound" as "-5". With that scoring, there's some incentive to pass on a shot instead of scoring a "wound". Another thing about 3D is that you can never be sure just how good you're shooting, since the distance is unknown. If you miss, did you miss because you blew the shot or because you misjudged the yardage? At least 1/2 the "game" in 3D is judging the distance in the first place. In hunting, you often have to make a split-second estimation and shoot, but in 3D, shooters glass the target, stare at it for awhile trying to estimate the distance, glass some more, shrug their shoulders, glass some more, etc. That's not hunting.
A foam 3D target
Typical scoring
In spite of my complaining, I like to shoot my bow and 3D is one of the games we do, so we were off to the shoot, our first 3D shoot of the year, and looking forward to it. We arrived at the Agua Piedra campground, got set up, and then discovered that our neighbors a few campsites away had Screaming Kids On Bicycles and were the kind of campers who feel the need to bring boom boxes and noise with them from the city. I guess you have to take what you get, so after setting up camp, Derek and I walked down to the stream to do a little fishing. Stream fishing is a lot tougher than the lake thing we usually do, and we ended the day fishless. We hit the sack tired, wet, and sweaty. The shoot was to be on a ski slope and during the night I had a dream that I had a heart-attack at the top of the slope and died. I obviously didn't sleep very well after that, but I took some deep breaths and morning found us at the shoot, ready to go.
First camp at Aqua Piedra campground
A heart attack was certainly a possibility as we hiked up the slope, down it, up it again, and down it again, in the breezeless, 90 deg weather but I just took it easy, drank a lot of water, and actually felt fine, except that my feet hurt. We started at 9 am, shot 25 targets (and there's another thing... in a Field round, I'll shoot 28 targets for 4 arrows each = 112 arrows. Here... just 25 arrows), and finished around 2 pm. I probably don't like 3D because I stink at range estimation and in my group of 6, I was running dead last. I made some good shots, but too many bad ones ("5"'s). Derek shot pretty good from the Cub stakes. We were both glad when it was over, ate a couple of dramatically over-priced resort burgers, and looked forward to fishing.
Derek giving advice
Derek shooting at turkey
Everyone shot a little low on this one
Back to camp we went and stream fishing we did go. Derek eventually caught a fish (right... "one fish"!) and I caught- of all things- a water snake. It reminded me so much of the verse, I just had to laugh:
Luk 11:11 NKJV If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
After releasing the snake, I cooked Derek's fish, took 3 Ibuprofen and hit the sack, tired, sore, sweaty, and sticky. It rained that night, forcing me to close the truck camper windows and turning my little space into a sauna. The next morning, Derek and I talked it over and decided to skip the second day of shooting and move camp to Coyote Creek State Park where there was beaver dam fishing and- praise the Lord!!!- showers! So, move we did, after stopping in Mora for some gas, coffee, and a Allsup's chimichanga.
Sunday morning in Mora
Coyote Creek was pretty full of campers but many were leaving and we found a great primitive site, set up our simple camp, and went fishing. It took a little while to find the lay of the land, but once we did, we quickly caught 5 fish. A storm was moving in and so we took a break from fishing. I headed straight for the showers, only to find that the park people were just getting ready to clean the bathrooms. The cleaning lady said "half an hour" and I said "I'll sit right here and wait". I must've looked pretty beat, 'cause then she, God bless her heart!!!, said "I'll do the ladies' room first and you can use the men's shower while I do that". It wasn't the best shower I've ever had but it sure might've been one of the most appreciated and I sure felt better afterward.
Coyote Creek campground
Beaver pond fishing
Storm over Mora Valley:
Then it was back to fishing in between storms and finishing up our limit. Back at camp, we cooked up 2 fish for supper, cleaned up, and then the real storm started moving in. I thought, "you know... it's only 6 pm and we're going to spend the rest of the night huddled in the truck or under our tent. Home is just over 3 h away." I broached the idea of heading home to Derek, he agreed, and we packed up in lightning speed and hit the road. We had enough daylight to take the scenic route home thru Black Lake, Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, and Cimarron. The storm sprinkled on us, but visibility and driving were great. In Cimarron, we stopped at the Cree-Mee Drive In for some killer smmooooothhhh ice cream cones. The place was packed with Boy Scouts on their way to/from Philmont Scout Ranch.
The end of the rainbow in Eagle Nest
Leaving Cimarron, there was a huge storm front out on the Eastern plains and we finished the drive home in sporadic rain, listening to a mix of Sharon Shannon and Natalie MacMaster. We pulled in just before 10 pm and the last song to play, as we approached our little house, was "David's Jig". I liked that. I'd like to think that David was with us in spirit. We sure miss him.
Here we are Monday morning. Georgia was off to Amarillo at 5:30 am for her first cancer treatment follow-up so I got up to see her off. I'm looking at the results of over 1" of rain (and still sprinkling), I've finished my 2nd cup of coffee, and Derek just heated the last of our camping Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Until our next trip, it's over and out!
Derek and I have just returned from the NM State Championship archery shoot in Farmington, NM. It's a 400 mi trip there, clear across New Mexico from the far eastern corner where we live to the far western corner. Fortunately, my mother lives in Santa Fe, a convenient half-way point. On the way in, we stopped for lunch and finished the drive in the afternoon, but coming back we spent the night and came home Monday morning.
The way the State Championship works is like this: there are 6 shoots during the year- American, Vegas, Indoor, Field, Animal, and Hunter rounds. You get 10 points for winning, 9 for second, and so on. You can carry 40 points to the Grand Field. At the GF, you shoot the Field, Animal, and Hunter rounds again. The Field and Hunter are 28 targets x 4 arrows each for 112 arrows each round. The Animal round can score on the 1st arrow and, done right, you'll shoot just 1 arrow for 28. That's a total of at least 252 arrows, plus any practice shots. All this is done in the field, up and down hills... quite a bit of walking... in the hot Farmington July sun. It's a physically tiring round and it's important to pace yourself and stay hydrated.
Over hill and over dale
Terrain
Derek has good form
Two sets of 20's
Derek won State Champion last year and, since it was the first year for his class, he set State records for every shoot. He didn't start shooting until the outdoor rounds, but still won the overall. This year, he shot the Vegas, Indoor, and all the field rounds and won them all. Me, I won 4/5 with a 2nd place. This meant that we both carried the full maximum of 40 points to the Grand Field. In addition, Derek had a new bow this year- a Diamond Razor Edge- which he shot in all the field shoots. Immediately after the last one, though, he got another new bow- a Hoyt Ignite- which was going to be a bow to grow into. However, he shot it so well, that we made the last minute decision to use it for the Grand Field. I was shooting a new-to-me Hoyt Alpha Elite that I used for the last Field round and I had an also new-to-me Hoyt Vector Turbo that I decided to use during the Animal round to give it some field experience. The stage was set.
There were some exciting moments. As I mentioned, we shoot 4 arrows at each target during 2 of the rounds. All year long, I'd not needed any spare arrows and so I was carrying 5 arrows of the same fletch and 3 spares with slightly different fletch. No surprise then that one of my shooting group nearly did a Robin Hood on my arrow, breaking it. No problem... I pulled out my spare. A few targets later, though, I shot a very tight group and one fletch sliced the fletch off another arrow. No problem... I pulled out my different fletched spares. On the first shot with it, the arrow cork-screwed and hit about 6" low giving me a nasty 3 points instead of 5. Bad shot, I figured. On the next target, it did it again. Now we had a problem. Close examination showed that one of the fletches was misaligned- this happens rarely, but it does happen. Fortunately, my other spares were good and I finished the round out in good shape. And also fortunately, I'd brought my fletching gear, so I spend that evening stripping off my odd-fletch spares and re-fletching them all to match.
On the next-to-last target, Derek shot and his arrow corkscrewed. On his next shot, the rest didn't drop like it was supposed to. Turns out his cable clamp was loose. There are rules for this, though, and I quickly fixed his mechanical problem, he retrieved his arrows, and shot again, scoring an 18/20, saving the day. Good times.
Derek ended up scoring considerably higher (30-50 points higher) this year than last, thus setting all new records. I shot better than last year, too, although not so dramatically. We both won State Champion in our respective classes, which was a fun thing to do. I feel like I worked hard at my shooting this year and even though there wasn't much competition in my class, I was happy.
State Champ!
State Champ 2!
Coming home, we took a side trip thru the Jemez Mountains. I'd worked here for 2 summers as a biologist 20 years ago and hadn't really been back, and I wanted to show Derek the country. We were going to cut in from Cuba, NM but I thought that might be too much "mountain" for car-sick-prone Derek, so instead we hooked up from San Ysidiro to La Cueva, and then across to Los Alamos and down to Santa Fe. It added about an hour and half to the trip, but it was worth it.
In the woods
At the Valles Caldera
The Jemez was, of course, gorgeous. The caldera has got to be one of the prettiest places on earth. There's a popular climbing spot just to the west of the caldera and we stopped to watch some climbers work. Derek noted a couple of cabins across the road and said that would be a neat place to live; fish in the stream, climb on the rock, and elk hunt in your back yard. Hard to argue with that.
Heading hom: 62 F, 31 mpg, 8 am
It was a long and tiring, but fruitful, trip. We saw pretty much most of what New Mexico has to offer, from hot desert country to cool green meadows to wide-open plains. We saw elk, deer, pronghorns, prairie falcons, violet-green swallows, towhees, kestrels, red-tailed hawks, and a goshawk. It was dry, raining, windy, still, hot, and cool. We ate green chile, pizza, and steak.
Georgia, unfortunately, had a rougher weekend, coming down with a fever and irritable bowels. I think she needs a little more rest after her cancer treatment. And I don't know about Derek, but after driving 800 miles, shooting 300 arrows, and hiking up and down hills in the hot sun, I'm needing a little rest, too!
We have just returned from the
annual North American Falconers Association (NAFA) Meet, held this year in Kearney, NE.This is where a bunch of falconers get
together, fly their hawks, visit, eat, buy/sell stuff, and so on.It's fun and I've been to about a dozen meets
over the years, although we had a gap in attendance between 2000 and 2010.David was born in 2001, Derek in 2003 and we
were just too busy raising kids to do much falconry.In fact, although I had a few birds during
this time, I'd pretty well dropped out of falconry and was probably going to
quit altogether.In 2010, though, I took
Derek to the meet in Dodge City
KS (just 4 h down the road) and
he got really interested.That's when I decided
to try for a wild peregrine falcon, rebuild my hawk house, and all the stuff
you can read about earlier in this blog.
Falcons in the weathering area
A red-naped shaheen
Derek loved this little merlin
Dead 'possum. Derek had never seen one. All above photos by Derek
I missed 2011 (more on that below),
but we made plans early to attend this year’s meet in Kearney NE.The last time the meet was there, I lived in Boise ID and drove solo
in an old beat-up blue Toyota
4WD pickup that burned a quart of oil every tank of gas.On the trip home, I was approaching Casper WY when I
realized I was the only person on the completely frozen-over Interstate.A gust of wind suddenly spun the truck around
and and I did 2 complete 360’s before coming to rest backward in the
median.After putting the truck in 4WD,
I made it to Casper
where I planned to spend the night, which just happened to be Thanksgiving Day.I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and driving
past a 7-11, I figured I’d check in to the Super 8 and then come back and get a
burrito or something.When I came back,
though, the 7-11 was closed!Back in the
room, I pooled all my change and came up with just enough $$$ to get a “Grandma’s”cookie and a Coke for supper.
The next morning, the wind was
blowing so hard that the flags were like painted boards stuck to the
flagpoles.I got some real food and headed
home, taking the scenic route across Wyoming
to Jackson Hole and then into Idaho.It was so cold in the old truck that I drove
wearing a full-length winter coat I’d bought at Cabela’s for Georgia, a hat,
gloves, and my winter boots.I’d stop to
take a nap and wake up freezing an hour later.I finally made it back about 4 am.When I woke up around 9-10, I noticed a big indoor car sale advertisement.Long story, short, I ended up trading off The
Blue Peril for a much newer and nicer Isuzu Trooper II.I later had some driving adventures in that
rig, too, but we’ll save the telling of such for another time.
Going to this year's NAFA (falconry)
meet reminded me of last year's meet.The plan was for Georgia, Derek, and Brianna to go down south to Pinon NM, and me and
David to go north to Vernal
UT for what would've been his
first falconry meet.Unfortunately, he
wasn't responding well to transfusions and the last place I needed to be was 600
mi from home, so I cancelled and he and I stayed home.We went to town on a Wed to get his blood
checked.It turned out to be one of the
lowest results we'd gotten to date. With
the Thanksgiving holiday looming, and a weekend after that, both of which
would've required an ER visit rather than his normal doctors, we all made the
decision to push for ABQ on Monday.Georgia arrived
home on Sunday, took one look at David, and immediately re-packed and took
off for ABQ.I didn't see them again for 10 days
and when they returned, David was on the steroids that gave him an unexpected
and unexplained boost.He didn't get
another transfusion until the week before he died in May.
The period between early December,
when they returned from this long hospital stay, and his death in May was the
only really hopeful period we ever had.David responded to the steroids with never-before-seen energy, strong
appetite, and good mood.His blood levels
stayed up for several weeks before slowly dropping and we were all hopeful that
this course would buy us some time to find a definitive diagnosis and a cure. In spite of the steroid’s boost-
and we could see him getting puffed up and bloated, not a healthy look at all- I
still had a strong sense that his time was going to be short and I tried hard
to make the most of it.I wish my
feeling would have been wrong, but it wasn't. I remember telling Georgia sometime in April that,
whatever happened, I was just thankful that we'd gotten to see David strong and
happy.
This time, last year: David with his new Ruger .22 and 1st prairie dog
This time, last year: At Ronald McDonald House during The Long Stay
It's a hard thing to say, but
David's death freed us to do all the things we suppressed when he was with
us. Since his passing, we've gone to Bandelier Nat'l
Monument where we climbed the tall ladders, gone elk hunting in the mountains, gone
to the falconry meet where we beat the bush for hours, gone swimming in the
hotel pool, and so forth... all things I couldn't or wouldn't do with
David.He would've tried and he would've given it all he had, but these
things would have exhausted him or exposed him to too many germs and, for his
sake, I would not have suggested them.So, I
dunno… doing these things is a mixed blessing.We’re glad to be doing them again, but the reason we are is because
David’s no longer with us and doing them reminds us of that fact.
In retrospect, this time a year ago,
we started moving down “the final stretch” of David’s life and I’m sure I will
be thinking about this over the next several months.David passed many milestones in these few
short months- participating in 4H, shooting his first rocket, learning to shoot
his Ruger .22, shooting his bow in competition, reading and writing extremely well, and so on. As we pass those milestones a year later, I’m
sure they will bring back those memories. I also feel that when we reach the 1 year
anniversary of his passing, that it will bring closure of a new kind.From that day onward, we will be moving
forward in a time in which 365 days previously David wasn’t with us.Until
then, every annual event we do reminds us of what we were doing last year, with
him.So it was with this year’s NAFA
meet.
For now, though, we are, once again, "waiting on winter."
Psalms 30:5 NKJV ….
Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
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