Deer Stands and Geocaching

While driving my dad’s Ranger, Abigail said, “I got the gas part down, but I don’t know to do the whole steering thing.” It was definitely a moment to remember as I pretended to be terrified, much to her amusement.

By Allan Olson

I think by now I’ve clearly outlined my carpentry skills for you in many other previous columns, but for those of you not familiar with my disclaimer, I’m not very skilled in that department (and that might be an understatement). And I’m the only one in my family so seriously lacking these skills, which is likely my own fault; I can think of more than one occasion where I intentionally skipped out on related projects growing up. Of course, some of it might be genetics, too, because it seems that some people just don’t get these skills, and I’m that person.

The reason for this disclaimer is that we made another trek north this last weekend because my wife wanted to spend some time with her grandfather and hopefully treat him to a dinner. I was torn between staying home with the kids or going with her, or doing another option all together that would’ve resulted in both of us burning up fuel. 

Ultimately I gambled on the weather and decided to go north. I was going to make a little improvement on my deer stand and another one. The repairs I had in mind were minor, and I knew that I could handle those tasks with little to no problem. Unbeknownst to me, the real problems were not so much with my skills, but rather with the lack of tools required to do the repairs.

Normally when we work on deer stands, there are many hands involved, including those of my dad and at least a couple of my brothers, all who are much more skilled at such things, and normally my oldest brother always brings the tools we need. But this weekend, my parents were not home, and my brothers weren’t going to be there. No big deal, I figured. I would just use Dad’s tools, since my drill is over a decade old, and I don’t own a working chainsaw, and I don’t really have any nails lying around the house. 

So we left home early Saturday morning, and I got to my destination at about noon after dropping my wife and Marcus (he went to a cousin’s to play) at her mom’s so they could go see Grandpa.

I got to my folks’ place, found the keys to the ATVs and started gathering supplies from the barn. I struggled to find anything resembling tools, but I did locate a few nails and so took my hammer – the only tool I brought with me – and I headed to my stand. I managed to put in a couple of boards with the help of the kids and some terrible nails, but since I had no saw of any sort, I couldn’t finish what I wanted to do. I sent Nikolai to another stand to grab the old ladder figuring by using the tape measure and the old ladder as a pattern, I could at least get that made.

Back at the farm again, I tried finding tools again, but learned that my younger brother had taken everything to another location where he was working on a new stand. I was really annoyed now, but I was determined, and so after a few phone calls and text messages I located some marginally better nails and with the help of Alivia and Nikolai we did get a ladder made. I eventually had enough of testing my carpentry skills, and so finally cleaned up the materials and tools I had used, made some pizza for lunch, and then we headed out doing something I was far better at – geocaching.

Those repairs will wait a couple weeks, at which time my brothers will be there again, with the proper tools.

The best part of that part of the day was driving the Ranger with Abigail, when she told me, “I’ve got the gas part down, but I don’t know to do the whole steering thing.”

There were only four geocaches I wanted to target, which I thought were the only four left in Lake of the Woods County I hadn’t found, but it turns out that there is another one I need to locate – and it’s way out in the boondocks. The first one was in a steep ditch filled with loose rocks and wet grass. I was really trying to be careful – I had searched for this one before and I remember not letting the kids try for it because of the location – which is probably why I didn’t find it. The girls started searching, and after playing around a bit Abigail came up with the find in a place I had suspected on the rocks, but hadn’t yet wanted to get on.

The second one was a cache not found in two years, but it had been maintained recently. It took us a bit to get to the location, about 400 feet into the woods, in a spot which in most years would’ve been wet. Once we got close, we spread out to make the find, and in the end I was the one who found it, but it was the girls who were the genuine brains of the operation in recovering that cache and getting our names on the paper. Abigail determined the method to recover it, and Alivia had the right rhythm to make the small cache descend from its great height for us to grab it. Everything was going great – we got it back in place after inking the log sheet and headed back out to the vehicle, where Nikolai was waiting. We were just about there when Abigail, exhibiting gracefulness running in the woods, fell over a log and so decided she was going to sit out on the next adventure and take some time to recover a bit.

For the third and fourth geocaches of the afternoon, I made the discovery on both. Thankfully, they didn’t require any special techniques by which to retrieve them. From that point, we headed back to town to pick up Marcus and then headed home. My wife decided to stay behind and come home Sunday morning with her mom.

For this weekend, a wedding is in our plans…YAWN. I could think of far better things to do on a fall day than going to any wedding, but it is family, and so I had better attend. Hopefully, I can sneak in a little geocaching before and maybe even after the shindigs. Who knows, maybe I will even enjoy the festivities. The calendar for the next several weekends is filling up fast, all the way into mid-October. With at least one activity per weekend, it has the makings of a busy fall season.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that will be carrying our most precious cargo. Also, snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.