"My Crazy Kids"

Left: My great-nephew Brody helping me play Euchre. Right: Alivia was the most dedicated geocacher of the group, getting out and assisting me at nearly every stop we made in the woods of Aitkin County. She most certainly found more than me; I think I had four finds to my name! By Allan Olson As is usual on an extended week, we were plenty busy. There was a mountain of food for Thanksgiving dinner, and guests started arriving as early as 10 a.m. My wife and mother-in-law and Abigail (who is usually only found in the kitchen when the food is done) were busy preparing dishes for the day’s feast.  The night before, Abigail had also prepared an amazing pumpkin pie cheesecake. I will admit that with all the pie choices we had on Thursday, I didn’t even sample it until the next day. But hey, the best part of hosting Thanksgiving dinner is having lots of leftovers – especially turkey, for cold turkey sandwiches. Thursday was spent crazing and cooking, eating...

 Unfortunately, my boys and I were all skunked while deer hunting this year. All we can do now is hope for better luck – and warmer weather! – next year. By Allan Olson I really enjoy hunting with my family, but I really didn’t want to make the trek north again this weekend. I really wanted my dad and my brother to knock some deer down so I wouldn’t have to head for the woods once again. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and my brothers all had other stuff going on this weekend with work and family, so me and the boys headed off for the woods one more time. The real story is what happened on Sunday,; the rest of the weekend was largely a dud. On Sunday morning Marcus and I took our normal stand, one that he could shoot from with his vertical restraints, should the occasion arise again. So on a fine Sunday morning, we were patiently (or perhaps impatiently, since we weren’t planning to hunt the full day) waiting on stand. The last two weekends we had heade...

My boys and their grandpa during hunting season. By Allan Olson It seems that this hunting season has been one of missed opportunities, at best. I sent a couple shots flying at a running doe this past weekend, but I missed. So did Nikolai, who started shooting at the same deer after I did, since it was running in his direction. Marcus was in the stand with me and tried to get lined up for a shot at the fawn before it bolted, too, when momma suddenly took off, but the little deer did not cooperate and so no shots were fired by him. We spent the better part of four days shivering in the cold conditions, waiting and hoping for a good opportunity at a deer, but it never happened. Coming into this season I was really not sure what to expect having Marcus with me in the deer stand; first of all, he’s a rather talkative sort and I wasn’t sure he could keep quiet in the stand. Also, there’s a lot of teasing and ribbing that goes on at deer camp, and one never knows how an ...

My youngest son Marcus joined me in the deer stand for the first time this year. Unfortunately for us, a good opportunity to take a deer never presented itself. By Allan Olson It’s been a few years since I had a new hunting partner. Nikolai is on his fifth season now, and his second year of hunting alone. I have to admit it was really nice last year not having to share my stand. While I usually stayed in the same vicinity as Nik, I enjoyed having a nice peaceful stand all to myself while on the hunt for the mighty whitetail. This weekend, Marcus took to the woods with me for the first time, and I was a little concerned about bringing him out, given his inclination for talking, but I have to say he did pretty well. While he did get a little chatty at times, he kept his tone pretty low, and when he didn’t, a gentle reminder was all it took to get him to tone it down a tad. As usual, the hardest thing was to get him out of bed, particularly on the first morning. I...