Happy New Year

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years have come and gone. It's been a busy season. If you found yourself doing more than your normal routine, you're not alone, and if you're at all like me, you're probably at least a little bit satisfied knowing that things will soon be back to normal.

For some of us, on top of all the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas season comes rifle and muzzleloader season for deer. Even though I consider myself primarily to be a bowhunter, I pretty much hunt all of the seasons. Since most of my friends and neighbors are hunting the gun seasons, it feels like there is this added pressure for me to get out there or I'll be missing out. Kinda like the thousand and one Christmas events that you just don't want to miss!  Now that it's January, most of the hunting seasons are over, at least here in Maryland. Everything except for the late bow season and small game season. Some of the bucks have lost their antlers, it's cold out, and so a lot of bow hunters have called it quits. The orange army is also gone, and the forest has almost gotten back to normal. And I like it! It feels good to get out with bow in hand and see the critters and deer back to their slower patterns nibbling and digging in the snow for acorns instead of bounding from one piece of cover to the next and hiding there until they get bumped out again.

I actually tried to find normal a little early, and hunted one of the last evenings of muzzleloader season with my bow in a place that hadn't been disturbed much during rifle season. I probably chose the wrong tool for the time as I had several deer within muzzleloader range but just outside of my bow range. It was fun to watch them scratch through the snow for acorns and I hoped that one would ease my way. It didn't happen, but it was a really good evening just the same. The next day was New Year's Eve. It was the official last day of muzzleloader season, but my side of the family was getting together at my brother's house to celebrate Christmas and so we didn't hunt much. Caleb and I got out in the woods early in the morning for one last hurrah before heading to my brother's place. Other than a deer silhouetted on the snowy side of the mountain about a half mile away, we didn't see a deer. 

That night we shot in the new year with our muzzleloaders. Instead of lead balls, we stuffed crumpled Christmas paper on top of the gun powder. It made a bigger and brighter flash in the dark.

And so the new year is here. I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. But I do like to take some time to reflect and look back on the past year as well as look forward into the next.

This morning I'm in the woods once again with my bow, trying to watch for deer while writing on my phone. I've seen a coyote and two deer. It's hard to stay focused on what I'm writing because I'm constantly looking around, but It has to be one of the best places to sit and reflect. Over the past year I've written a blog every Monday. To some of you, that sounds like a daunting task. But since I like to write, it hasn't been. It's a little bit like eating a beef. If your family likes to eat steaks and burger, eating a beef in one year isn't a big deal. But if you don't like steak and I told you that you needed to eat a whole beef in the next year, you'd think that that would be downright disgusting. 

So I've enjoyed writing. I believe that some of your lives have been enriched in some way as you've followed along in our daily lives and family adventures. More than that, I hope that you've taken the time to consider your own path, where you've been and where you are going. I'm big on believing that God has a specific path for each of us. And it's not an easy one to seek out. Often it consists of taking little steps.

For me I'm feeling like I need to cut back on the blog and put that time into other parts of the business. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like, but going into the New Year, my weekly blog writing will be something that will only happen every other week.

If you look forward to my blog each week, well here's the bright side. Maybe if I'm writing less, we'll have more time to make new stories and the new stories will be fresh, and you'll enjoy them more! Anyways, thanks for following along and more than anything, I just want to say, 

Happy New Year!