Another Day of Hunting

You might not know this about me, but I'm short.  Some people don't notice because I usually wear high heels.  Some people don't notice because I am generally seated at a desk.  But I'm short.  A short, middle-aged woman with a desk job.  In other words, I'm not exactly a graceful gazelle out there in the wild.

My sweet hubs and I were sitting on yet another hillside, looking for elk.  The two previous days of hunting were fruitless for me, so we were at it again.  At last, Sweet Hubs sees an elk a long way off;  we put on our packs and pick up our gear and plan to trudge over there, close enough to try to get a shot.

This is central Arizona we're talking about here, folks.  We grow two basic kinds of brush:  the kind with stickers and the kind with BIG stickers.  Most of it grows about up to my neck, which is oddly appropriate. 

We are picking our way down a steep, brush-covered, rocky hillside, when I, with my pack on and my rifle slung on my back, get my size 6 feet tangled up in some of that thorny brush and slowly...slowly....ever so slowly......... over I go. 

The barrel of the gun sticks down into the mud like I was trying to turn it into a fence post.  My pack is caught under the small of my back, pitching my legs way up into the air and my head is on the downhill side of the slope.  And there I laid, like a giant overturned turtle. 

If momma had signed me up for ballet lessons, maybe this wouldn't have happened.  I wallowed around for a minute in the rocks and mud and thorns, chuckling to myself because this is all so damn ridiculous, while my sweet hubs tries to clean the mud out of the barrel of my gun.  OK, it's actually HIS gun, and he can keep it.  It carries no luck at all for me. 

Just call me "The Turtle".


*****************************