The trip nothing happened...

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The first day was the normal blur that comes from working all night before driving out to hunt the next day. Mostly spent checking the trail cameras and unloading gear before going out to see nothing but a chipmunk. I slept almost as soon as darkness fell. Next morning I started out just right. With light enough to walk without using a flashlight but just barely. My stand choice was a maple hidden right behind a white oak high on the ridge behind the cabin. An oak loaded with acorns. The trail cameras showed this place was used by several deer including at least one pretty good buck. He must feel safe here feeding on these acorns. The sun came up beautiful as it always is when streaming thru the fall woods.
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The maples were just starting to turn bright crimson but the hickories and sassafras were a golden yellow. All morning a chipmunk ran to and fro under my tree making an awful rackett in the dry leaves. About forty yards out a grouse stepped out into a patch of sunlight then slipped back into shadow. Leaves rustled loudy behind me and I tensed up. Part of me almost wished it wasn't the buck as it was just the first trip of a long year, better a fat doe for the freezer. It was neither, simply a grey squirrel out for an acorn breakfast. Soon small birds began to fill the woods, a mixed flock of chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers and kinglets. I spotted both yellow and ruby crowned kinglets, tiny birds barely bigger than a hummingbird. In fall and winter the woods can seem devoid of life one minute then full as these flocks move thru foraging. A rustle and my friend the chipmunk was back. Then quiet again. It was getting warm and I eased Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey out of my pack. A good book allows me to stay on stand a bit longer and I've killed a couple nice bucks after slipping a book inside my coveralls. Sometime later loud raucous calls fill the wood. First one crow then another swoops thru the trees. Alighting for a few moments then moving on till a couple dozen have passed. They carry on this way for an hour their calls ringing thru the trees. It's quiet again and now very warm, time to get down. As I'm climbing down one of the many acorns that have been showering down all day hits me on top of the head and bounces inside my shirt. This gives me an idea and I fill a pocket with them upon reaching the ground. Lunch is two potatoes boiled on the small backpacking stove covered in butter.
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While the pot boils I open up the cabin, propping open the door. Last night I set off a bug bomb inside and slept in the back of the explorer. Hundreds of dead wasps covered the cabin floor. I swept them out using the brush I'd brought to spread tar on the cabin roof and made a mental note to bring a real broom next trip. I also filled a cup with water and the acorns I'd picked up earlier, an experiment to try and rid them of the bitter tannin. After lunch I happily spent an hour up on top of the cabin fixing the roof. But it was no chore in the bright sunlight on such a pretty fall day. Satisfied the old cabin would keep me snug for another winter, I began to think about the evening hunt. That evening except for a brief visit by a grey squirrel and the distant yelp of a turkey, the chipmunk and I were alone again. With about ten minutes of daylight left, after already deciding to hunt elsewhere in the morning, I began to get down not wanting to take apart the stand in the dark. I lowered the bow to the ground on a rope and started to descend. About eight or nine feet off the ground all hell broke loose. A crash and a young doe came running by about thirty yards away. Not wanting to betray the stands placement I froze. More noise and here came another doe straight at the tree. She walked up about ten feet from my bow lying on the ground and ate an acorn. I flattened myself against the tree amazed she hadn't spooked. Stopping she looked back over her shoulder. I immediately heard grunting and here came a buck. The buck. He stopped twenty feet away and grunted. The doe ate another acorn, He grunted again, a long drawn out grunt and she bolted with him right on her tail, passing two or three feet from my bow but going full tilt. Only a month early, the earliest I've ever seen a buck chasing a doe like this. I left the stand where it was. Supper was a sandwich and chips under the stars out on the cabins deck. Out here you can see the band of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. Soon a shooting star streaked across the gloom. Sometime later just before bedtime I heard a deer walking in the bone dry leaves on the hillside across from the cabin. The next morning a few more squirrels and my friend the chipmunk again. Make that my friends the chipmunks, it was becoming clear what I thought was one was really two. A chipmunk who kept mostly to the east side of my tree and one who mostly foraged right under the tree and off to the west. He was soon named the great western chipmunk because he was a bit bigger than the other one, because I liked the name and hey it's the kind of thing you do after sitting in a tree for three days. All else was quiet except for the drumming of a grouse behind me. All the books say grouse drum in spring, but I hear them here all the time in the fall and had one hop up on a log and drum right in front of me for hours a couple years ago. This time I did take the stand apart and bring it back to the truck.
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Pouring the water off the acorns I then toasted them for a few minutes over the small stove. They really weren't all that bad. A longer soaking and maybe some salt and they would be tasty. Loading everything up, I headed out planning to have lunch with some dead Indians. The dead Indians were at at Mound City Group in Chillicothe, Ohio. One of the best places I know if you have an extra hour to spare. Or a week, it's that kind of place, I recommend it highly.
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After that on to the Little Miami for a bit of fishing and to check on my old friends, the eagles.
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Knowing that now was the only good time of year to examine the eagles nest site, I made that my destination for the evening. Any earlier in the year and I might disturb the fledglings, any later and everything would be covered in fallen leaves. Under the giant sycamore that held the nest I found the remains of some of their meals, A few turtle shells, alot of small bones, and (jackpot!) a few eagle feathers.
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Clutching my prize I headed for home and a new work week. Later talking on the phone about something else a friend who doesn't hunt or spend any time outdoors asked if I got a deer on my trip. I said no. They said "I'm sorry you had a bad trip" and changed the subject.