Hunting Escapades

Along with the many other things we have managed to do, Jason has been able to fit in some hunting... even if it was just squirrels. He was proud of them anyway.

He also got his wood duck back from the taxidermist. I wasn't too excited to have yet another dead animal in the house, but this one does look pretty good.
It's standing on one foot, and the other is tucked up in there, but it's pretty amazing how detailed the taxidermist is.
Below is Ruston's birthday deer. Yes, Jason went hunting on Ruston's first birthday, but it was opening day of deer season, so he HAD to go. The arrow went right through her. Someday, Ruston will go with him, I'm sure.
Then about 2 weeks later, he got this one... a bit more blood.
Jason had to get a close up of the blood too... ew.

Then the final pose... of him holding the deer. This must be the "trophy" pose, because all the hunters seem to do it, with the weapon they used laying on or by the deer as well.

Still turkey hunting!

Jason's been turkey hunting again... well, about a month ago he was turkey hunting! I'm so far behind in blogging!!! He's been on the hunt to get a longbeard for the longest time. In case you don't know what a longbeard is, it's a nice big turkey with a long beard and nice spurs... and a nice tail fan. He finally got one.

See those spurs?

One of his tnturkey friends is getting it mounted for him since it's his first longbeard ever. Good job Jason!!! We ate one of the breasts that day, and the other is still in the freezer!

Deer- Alive or Dead

We have been amidst deer hunting season since Ruston was born, and Jason has managed to kill 5 deer to date: 2 in one day with a bow, then a doe and a 6 point buck with a muzzleloader, and then a 5 point buck with a rifle.  We have also had several close sightings of deer close by the house.  Although these first two pictures are very clear (taken through the window of the house...), if you look closely, you see Tucker on the left and a deer on the right. 
The deer have no fear of Tucker, no matter how much he barks at them, which is what he was doing with this doe.  See her?  She has her head down on the right side of the picture.  Tucker kept trying to get closer and closer and eventually scared himself before the deer to scared.  Haha.
Below is the 6 point buck Jason killed.
Another picture of the 6 point... he was certain it was an 8 point because the antlers had such a wide spread, but no... only 6.
And here is the 5 point that Jason killed most recently.
Another picture of the 5 point.  Also, this deer is being hauled on the hitch haul Jason got for his Trailblazer.  Yes, that's right, we now have 2 Trailblazers and no pickup.  Jason traded his pickup in for a black 2003 Trailblazer because his transmission was VERY close to going out, and we didn't want to spend the money to replace it since the pickup had its share of other problems too.

Anyway, so you see, Jason has still been able to get into the woods and hunt since Ruston has been born.  He's doing a great job at supplying everyone with meat, since our freezer isn't that big anyway. :)

Time to catch up!

I've been quite neglectful with updating the blog with pictures.  Between work and being pretty tired from the baby in my tummy, I've not wanted to take the time to do it.  But this week, I've not been AS tired, and I actually feel like doing it, so here goes some pictures!

Back in FEBRUARY (see, I told you I was behind), we went up to Lafayette for the day to spend some time with family again... and Jason decided to go squirrel hunting.  Papa Wayne and Mammer always talk about how there are squirrels everywhere up at their house, so Jason was itching to kill some of them.  he managed to get 3 that day.  They're in our freezer... I told him I was refusing to try squirrel for my first time while pregnant because I knew I definitely would NOT like it!

In March, Jason had his personal interview for Nashville Metro PD.  Doesn't he look spiffy?  We managed to find this suit at the outlet mall for a pretty good price.  I'm trying to encourage him to dress up a little more. ;)
As an update on his hiring process, he is currently under a conditional offer of employment, assuming he passes all further medical and psychological exams, including a voice recognition test (instead of a polygraph).  He has two more appointments, April 27th, and May 4th... and I think that will be all of them.  THEN he goes to the academy in June!  Keep praying that everything goes well with that!

On the weekend of March 19th, Jason participated in the Middle Tennessee Kids Hunting for a Cure hunt and auction.  They do a juvenile hunt for turkeys, and the juveniles have to be accompanied by an adult, so Jason was one of those adult guides.  They also do a live auction to raise money for St. Jude's (I believe).  The night of the auction, they also had a live concert by Buddy Jewell, who was on the tv show Nashville Star awhile ago.  Jason knew who he was pretty well, and listed off several of his songs.  I knew the songs once I heard them, but didn't realize he sang them.  Here's a picture of us with him.  He was a really nice, genuine guy... like many country singers!

And here he is singing.
I couldn't help but put this in here.  The organizer of the event was one of the Jason's friends off of tnturkey, and this is one of his sons.  He managed to get ahold of this HUGE camera, and was trying to take pictures of Buddy with it.  The size comparison just made me laugh.
They also had several other singers at the event.  This is Gina West, who is an incredibly talented singer and songwriter (aren't they all in Tennessee??).  They wrote a song for a veteran who was hit and wounded twice in 6 months by IEDs... he was at the event, and drove all the way from Florida for it.  Gina said she's going to get us a copy of that song because Jason told her it made me cry lol.
Alright... next topic.  I found a new little critter by our house a month or so ago.  I was going to open the front door and put the baby gate across it so we could have some fresh air inside and Taco could look outside (he loves that),until I saw this little guy on our front steps sunning himself.  This was from one of our warm weeks before all the storms came.
We've had a lot of severe storms lately... and we've managed to survive them all.  The rain amazes me, and as you can see... there IS a house back there.  This picture is from the front door looking across the street.  I was impressed that the rain was SO hard that you could barely even see the neighbor's house.  Oh yeah, and this was in the daytime, but the street lights turned on due to how dark it got!
We've had about 3 pretty good severe storms so far... and this week's forecast called for storms 4 of the 7 days, so we have more to come.  Yesterday when I woke up after already being awake from 4-530 am due to the lightning, thunder, and rain, I looked out the front door to see this:
Yes, that is the neighbor's house, and their tree was completely uprooted from the winds.  What you can't see because the angle was wrong no matter how I tried, is the other house on the right.  Behind the very green tree on the right of the picture, is the next house over.  If that tree would have been 5 feet closer to the house or 5 feet taller, the house would have been damaged, but as it is, the branches are definitely touching the corner of the house!  Talk about LUCKY!  We've had several tornadoes touch down within about 30 minutes of us, but none real close to us.  Murfreesboro got hit really hard yesterday, and another one of Jason's friends from tnturkey was 2 streets over from the severe damage from the big tornado... needless to say, he has a lot of debris in his yard.  It was at least an F-3, possibly an F-4, and was up to a half a mile wide.

Ok, now I'm updated on pictures!  I will try to be better at updating the pictures when I have them instead of waiting forever, especially since I have had a little more energy lately.

Opening Day

Today was opening day of spring turkey season, so I bet you can guess where Jason was this morning!  4 o'clock came early, but he was up and out of the house without even saying goodbye to his sleepy wife. :)  He went with a friend of his off of tnturkey.com named Daniel, and hunted on Daniel's grandfather's land.  By 9:45 this morning, they had 2 birds on the ground (there was a third guy hunting with them too).  Apparently the turkeys were REALLY close by the time they shot at them, and they could have almost reached out and grabbed them by the neck to kill them.  Here's a picture of Daniel and Jason with their birds.

Thanksgiving Turkeys on the ground

I got my first fall turkeys this morning. One was a jake which is young male gobbler. The other one was a adult hen. I hope I can get some in the spring. (Sorry if the picture is smushed funny... the formatting is different from where this is posted.)

I got my second deer

I (Jason) went hunting again today to see if I could bag another one for meat or maybe a buck if I was lucky.   It was a nice day cool and no wind.  I took some pictures of the land near where I hunt so everyone can see leaves and the color and you see why this is my favorite time of year.


This is my second deer this season.  I thought it was a doe when I shot it.  But it's actually a buck and you can see its antlers just coming up.  Had I know it was a young buck I wouldn't have shot it but the deer steaks will be good.

From Rachel:  Speaking of deer steaks... we had some good ones from the other deer for dinner tonight!  YUM!!

Opening Day

Second post of the day...

Today is November 1... and therefore also the opening day of muzzleloader season for deer here in Tennessee.  Despite the late night at the Kemp's last night, Jason woke up at 4:45 this morning to head to his lease.  At 8:30, he called me and told me he shot a doe, but he still had to find her.  Eventually, he found her... and here she is in the back of his pickup.

Yes, she bled a lot!  We had to go buy a hose so he could hose out the bed after we dropped her off at the processor.  This deer is going to be steaks and burger... and the next deer he gets will most likely be completely jerky. :)  Gotta get the food in the freezer first, and then we can have our delicacy of jerky! 
Can you tell Jason is happy???  He's excited to get back out there later this week, but for now, he has to head to work this afternoon.  At least he works at Bass Pro and can talk about his deer and everyone there will actually know what he's talking about!
Jason doesn't work Wednesday through Friday this week, and I think he'll be in the woods all of those days... I don't mind, as long as we're getting meat! :)

Next weekend Jason's goal is to get Josh a deer... it'll be his first ever, so we're all excited about getting him one!