September fades into October, soon to become November. Time to ready ourselves and our land for the 10 days of firearm deer season. Our children have become interested in joining in the harvest, not the least due to the price of ground venison in the stores!

Yikes. And I thought beef was expensive.

A lot of work goes into preparing for hunting. Given that we needed to have a new blind for Matt to use, it was appropriate that he was here to build it with Michael.

Matt developed a new respect for digging post holes by hand...

We have a corner of our land which contains a variety of deer hiways, but did not contain a deer fort. No more.

Matt, who climbs rocks for fun, did not like the aluminum ladder, preferring to climb the cross bracing. Yet, once snow flies, that would not be a good way to get him AND his rifle safely into Fort Ettsen.

Heck, even I might be able to climb that ladder!

Michael, as usual, solved the problem by making a ladder of 2x4s, and even put in the little entry platform so toes have somewhere to go instead of hitting the side of the fort.

It even has a handrail for wimps like me!

Now that the Fort is operational, he is reloading bullets for everyone’s rifles.

Finally found a combo that works for my rifle.

For the next 6 weeks, I will have to don my hunting coat and practice with my rifle and the new load. I will clean my rifle before the season opens, and after as well. We will also sharpen knives (a continuous requirement in our house...which means we always have knives to slice tomatoes!), and make sure the hunting clothes are aired out and any number of other details.

Hunting doesn’t mean just getting a rifle and heading into the woods. There is a bunch of prep work that goes into it, and then the packaging afterwards. But it’s so much better, and a lot more fun, than paying $13 a pound for ground venison!