Invited Outside

Last night, Brett went out to check on the deer hanging in our barn.  The kids, following close behind, stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the skinned doe.  

Our oldest stood there for a minute.  He looked at the deer and then he looked at his Dad.  "I think that looks like great meat!" he remarked.

It wasn't that long ago that we thought he wasn't interested in hunting.  A bird and animal lover, his heart breaks each time he spots a robin who has fallen from his nest.  Hunting DVDs pain him.

And yet he is continually invited outside.  He loves to hike, easily keeping up with his hardcore Dad.  His room is filled with skulls found on family adventures.

Tonight he will join his Dad on the river-bottom.  Surrounded by a canopy of golden cottonwood leaves, they will quietly watch dusk approach.  They will scout deer, sitting in twin tree stands. They will see the beaver build his dam and they will hear the haunting call of a red-tail hawk.