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| The Grandpa Glaze Hut |
You’ll have a that day but you won’t ever get this one again, and it would be a tragedy if you wasted it, waiting to be released by someone else. -John Pavlovitz
These word from Pavlovitz's recent piece about living in CV times seemed to hit home. I hate to think I've been wasting days, but in truth, there does seem to be some waiting....for that day. To be honest, some evenings, I just want to get to bed, sleep if I can, and get to the next day-one day closer to ending this nightmare. But I also have time to live in the present and am doing my damn best to follow that path.
Which leads me to Grandpa Glaze's Hut. With more time on my hands, and nothing pressing, I've dove back into writing this blog and making pictures-both things I've neglected for a long while. Daily walks are almost a requirement now- to soak in what's around me and appreciate more. With camera in hand, they have also become daily photo walks where there is a pressing need to make at least a few good images.
The sun was up early and that pushed me out the door with Mara sooner than I had been. I made a picture of the Reed Farm landscape while sipping coffee, of a deer skull and an old no trespassing sign. Grandpa Glaze's tiny hunting stand is atop a hill on the Miatke farm. I almost felt from the start I'd end up there this morning and I did. If I recall correctly Dean (Grandpa Glaze's son and my dear friend) made this little box stand many years ago. It's been moved around a few times, but now has settled here overlooking several hundred acres of cropland. During deer season, it's fitted with an LP heater so one can just kick back, sip coffee and eat cookies all day without worrying about any deer bothering you. Knowing the Grandpa Glaze deer reports every year, that pretty much is the case. ;)
Grandpa Glaze is a story teller for sure and his exploits of spotting far off bucks just by their walk and ability to drop 'em in their tracks at vast distances are renown in our neighborhood hunting camps. It's not unknown for him to take a few breaks, wander around the adjoining woods and even stop in at the Reeds farm or our house for coffee and conversation. That has always been his preferred hunting technique as long as I've known him. Like so many of us older hunters, it's no longer about getting a deer, it's about being there with family and friends and living in the moment. GG Glaze is in his later 80's and still settles into this hut and other scattered blinds and tents (he does like variety!) come every rifle season. I'm reminded of him every time I walk or snowshoe or ski past this stand, and look across the fields wondering about those 300 yard shots. I think about his stories of him still being out here and I look foreword to next November when the hut is occupied again.
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