A God Thing

 This past week seemed like it was a little less of a whirlwind than the week prior. The week prior Aiyana’s volleyball team had won their conference championship, which pretty much meant that we had gone running to a volleyball game every evening.  On  top of that, Jenelle’s parents were here and so we were muzzleloader hunting with Ray. I also worked as much as I could when I could. It just seemed like a busy week. 

And so this week was more normal except for the fact that we were headed to Ohio on Thursday evening for a national volleyball tournament that Aiyana’s team was playing in. It would probably be Aiyana’s last playing time with her high school team. And so I worked the first part of the week and then the last part of the week was relaxing and mostly sitting around and watching good volleyball. 

So, to my story.

Because we have bears and other critters in our neighborhood, we don't put our trash outside. We have a garbage can in our garage and to keep things from getting smelly, I try to take it to the dump every week, whether it's full or not.

Since the dump is close to where I work, it's not an extra trip or anything to run to the dump. So on Wednesday I threw the trash on the truck and at lunch time I pulled into the dump to get rid of my trash. Now you all know how some people place their valuable trash by the dumpster for the next person, because, like they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

And there it was, right beside the dumpster. Something that I hadn't even thought about hoping for. Isn't it funny how sometimes things just fall into your lap. At least that's what I think. Jenelle doesn't always seem to agree. This one was a mounted four point buck. Most people just get their bigger bucks mounted. This was probably someone's first deer or a taxidermist was practicing or something. It wasn’t your typical big buck mount, but it was a nice mount. I asked the attendant if I could have it. He said sure. And so I put it in the back of my truck and headed back to work. As I still had several minutes left on my break and I like to call Jenelle whenever I get the chance, I called her up to see how she was doing. When she asked about my day, I told her about my find. "I think it's a God thing", I told her. "Do you want to hear about it?" 

"Well of course", she replied.

I told her the story. 

"I pulled up to the dumpster and there it was. It looked like someone just dropped it off. It was a little scruffy looking but it looked clean. It's just a four point, but I can cut off the antlers and make some glass antlers for it! It will be perfect for taking to the Iowa Deer Classic in the spring." 

"Oh really."  I could hear her eyes roll in the background. Jenelle isn't quite the visionary that I am, but I knew she'd come around.

All afternoon as I was working, I kept thinking about and broadening my plan. The Iowa Deer Classic is a big show. We did it last year and I really wanted to do it again. Now we didn't make a ton of money last year, but it was fun to be around all of those big bucks and the popular hunters that have the big name TV shows  and YouTube channels. We were diagonally across from the Whitetail Adrenaline Booth. It was fun to see all of the younger crowd gather around these guys and everyone having a good time. If you aren’t in the hunting world and don’t know who these guys are, well, they are the up and coming crew for sure. They do off the wall things like going to thrift stores to buy their hunting cloths, stalking and taking big whitetails on public land and then putting it into videos. To top it off they have an old mini van for their hunting vehicle. Every kid at the show that has a mullet is wearing one of their shirts.

Of course they drew the crowd away from us, but even with that, we were able to make a few dollars to help pay for our entry feel as well as pay for hamburgers and fries a couple of times. And we got to stop and stay at the in-laws for a few days. It was kinda like a paid vacation, or at least in my thinking. So we signed up to do it again next year. But this time I really want to do it better.

Since most of the people there are all into antlers and deer and such, when they come by our booth, I give them the spiel about how rare the glass antlers are and how I find them when looking for sheds. “They are almost always within a hundred feet of a lightning struck tree”. You'd be surprised at how many gullible people start to buy into it.

If I had an actual deer with glass antlers, man, just think…

All of those young twenty somethin year olds with mullets would be hanging around our booth instead of listening to all of those wild stories from Jared over at the Whitetail Adrenaline booth. We'd sell enough hats, shirts, and glass antlers at that one show that we wouldn't need to do anything else for the rest of the year. And Jared would come over and get his picture taken with me and the buck and maybe he'd even invite me on one of his wild hunting trips.

When I got home from work I shared all my ideas with Jenelle. She listened intently with her pretty eyes and beautiful smile and then she gently brought me back to reality. Oh well.

So maybe I can salvage the glass eyes and the foam form and use it to mount some future trophy. Or even return it to where I found it. Or maybe put glass antlers on it just for fun.

 I still think it was a God thing. If you followed along this far, then I'm hoping that you at least got a chuckle from my story. That in itself is a God thing.

God things are often small. 

Hope you find one in your day.