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Meanwhile I could hear my own heart beating......

Deer hunting also opens you up to some funny rodent related opportunities....

See, there isn't much that I'm afraid of. While I certainly won't invite a spider to dinner, I won't run away screaming from one either. Snakes don't bother me in the slightest (in fact if I see one I will make it a point to pick it up). I live in the boonies, so I'm no stranger to rodents. Even with three cats they do occasionally get into the house, and since the cats are generally too stupid to take care of them I have to catch them myself. I've had them run up my legs while chasing them, and also pinned one to my arm with my hand when it tried to escape when I had it cornered. I don't have the heart to kill them and simply toss them outside (the one that ran up my arm got evicted in a snow storm, I still to this day laugh when I imagine the look on its face as it was flying blindly into the pitch black and heavy snow after I bifted it out the door). The only time I ever got lethal with them was during the great squirrell eviction of 2006. When I bought the house it had been empty for two years and was infested with squirrells in the basp00get and attic. I systematically trapped them one by one with a rat trap using peanut butter as bait, and ended up getting a dozen of the little s. I had to get serious with them because they're so destructive. Lots of houses have burned down thanks to those things.

Deer hunting also opens you up to some funny rodent related opportunities. Because you sit so still the wildlife has no idea you're even there. I've had countless squirrells run right up my back. Last year while sitting in my tree stand a squirrell climbed the tree, went out across my arm, and sat right on the barrel of my .30-06 and stared at me for a good 15 minutes or so. I've had a mole run into the sole of my boot when I was sitting down in the snow with my legs straight out in front of me (I could hear him squeaking through his little tunnels and actually felt him thud against the bottom of my foot), a chipmunk once climbed my leg and sat atop my knee and stared me down for a good half hour, neither of us moving a muscle, and one time a weasle actually tucked himself under my ass cheek for warmth as I sat crosslegged (the one and only time I'd ever seen a weasel in the wild). It's not just rodents, either - chickadees are always landing on my hat, and one even tried to get down the back of my neck, probably for warmth. The scariest moment was when I was sitting behind one of those collapsible blinds and could hear something small coming toward me but couldn't see it because of the blind. It kept getting closer, and finally there was a small rustling and the blind quivered slightly. I looked down and an enormous skunk had joined me in my blind. It looked up at me, turned around, crawled back under the blind, and casually walked away. Meanwhile I could hear my own heart beating...

...My point being that I didn't kill these two on purpose. Although I hunt, I only hunt to eat and will not kill an animal for nothing. They startled me, I slammed the drawer shut, they got squished. Their arses hanging out, while sad, was also funny (and would also be something nobody would ever believe), so I took the pic...