Shed Hunting

Winter had grown tiresome. The sight of ice, snow, and bare trees, oppressive. One of my blogger friends posted pictures of daffodils, another bragged about the nice weather in Dallas, where I used to live. We're not so lucky in Illinois. Here, winter seems to be a permanent condition. Saturday, Hubby and I were suffering from a severe case of cabin fever. The weekend forecast looked promising, so we decided to get out of the house. Bob wanted to look for a shed.

By nine o’clock Saturday morning, the thermometer climbed to a balmy thirty five degrees. It was a bright, sunshiny day, laced with a brisk wind, which required a heavy coat. I pulled on thick socks, boots, and my favorite leather gloves. The weatherman promised to double those chronic twenty-five degree days. According to my husband, the combination of sunshine and fifty degree weather was perfect for shed hunting.

Now if you’re me, you have no idea how to go about hunting a shed. I anticipated a drive into Vincennes or Terre Haute, for a visit to Lowe’s or Home Depot, with a side trip to the mall for a little shopping of my own. On the farm where I grew up, a shed was an outbuilding used to get farm equipment out of the weather. In the city, a shed was one of those little buildings in the back yard where the lawnmower and weed whacker were kept. So, when I was told to dress for a jaunt to the woods, my curiosity was aroused. Knowing I was at risk for ridicule, I opened my mouth and asked the question anyway.

“What kind of shed are you looking for in the woods?”

My husband looked at me as if I were from another planet. Obviously I was asking a stupid question, yet I found myself repeating it.

“What kind of shed are you looking for in the woods?”

Bob rolled his eyes while shaking his head from side to side. “I thought you grew up in the country,” he said with a touch of frustration.

“I grew up on a grain farm. Is that far enough in the country for you?” I asked, just a touch irritated by his attitude.

“And you don’t know what a shed is. Have you ever been hunting?”

“Sure. We hunted mushrooms every spring. Once my brother and I found a whole patch beneath an old apple tree, there were enough to fill a grocery bag. Thinking we had hit the jackpot, we went back the next spring, but they didn’t grow there again.”

“That isn’t the kind of hunting I’m talking about. I’m talking about deer hunting.”

I perked up, “I went rabbit hunting once.”

My husband rolled his eyes again. “Deer hunting,” he said, with emphasis on the deer part.

“We didn’t have deer on our farm. They were practically extinct when I was a kid, so, no, I haven’t been deer hunting. Anyway, what does looking for a shed have to do with deer?”

Obviously I had spent way too many years in the city. My husband decided I needed an education. I was back in first grade with my teacher husband, teaching. I learned all about antler growing deer, make that antler growing bucks…females don’t grow antlers. A good hour later, he considered me properly educated in the antler growing process, so we loaded up the truck and we drove to the-coun-try. Isn’t that a line from an old television program? Oh, no, that was we drove to Bev-er-ly…Hills that is, swimmin’ pools, movie stars. There were none of those in our hills. There was plenty of mud, though.

For those of you who are as dim as me, bucks shed their antlers during the winter. Once the antlers fall off, they are referred to as ‘sheds’. It seems sheds make lovely pen sets, thus our venture into the wild. My husband was feeling creative.

The woods were about four miles down a long, winding, gravel road. Due to rain and melting snow, mud holes were plentiful. The ride wasn’t smooth. Bob parked the truck at the edge of a bean field.

The vast expanse looked more like a sea of mud than a field. I followed my husband, stepping into the watery wells left by his larger feet. This tack alleviated some of the sinking motion, momentarily putting off the onset of fatigue.

Once we made it to the trees, we skirted the edge in search of deer trails. When we found one, we would veer off into the woods, eyes scanning the ground, always searching for the elusive shed. We went everywhere there could be one of those lovely little thing-a-ma-boppers. We walked uphill and downhill, jumped across streams, or at least Bob did, I fell into one. That experience gave me a whole new respect for those Polar Bear Club folks. It was a good thing the predicted fifty degree weather turned into seventy-one. At least I didn’t get frost bite.

We continued scouring those woods for a good three hours, with nary a shed found. Noting his slow-moving, grubby wife, my dear husband took pity on me and gave up the hunt. We made it back to the truck in record time. It was sort of like that old horse that can hardly walk away from the barn, but runs like a thoroughbred on the return trip. That was me.

Back at the truck, Bob put the tailgate down and handed me a bottle of water. We sat on the tailgate, swinging our feet, while he entertained me with hunting stories. I listened, basking in the warm sunshine, enjoying a slice of summer amidst an otherwise frigid winter.

As my attention wandered from one more tale, I glanced toward a tree to our left, shrieked, and pointed. Excited, Bob hopped off the truck, certain I had found one of those precious sheds. Not seeing one, he turned to me and asked, “Where is it?”

“Right there!” I exclaimed.

“Where?”

“There,” I said. It was my turn to be frustrated.

“I still don’t see it,” he said.

I hopped off the truck, got down on all fours, and raked away the winter debris with my hand. Beneath the leaves were green sprouts peeking up through the damp earth.

“It’s a crocus!” I advised.

At first Bob was disappointed, after all, we had spent most of the day hunting for those elusive sheds, but then he smiled. Tomorrow would bring four to six inches of snow, and yet this little crocus brought a ray of hope to our hearts. As sure as the sun would rise tomorrow, we knew the snow would melt, the cold wind would subside, and the flowers would bloom. Winter would be reduced to pleasant memories of children building snowmen, ice glistening on trees, and snow sparkling in the sunshine. Spring was just around the corner.

Spring would bring summer. The summer heat would then grow tiresome, which brings wishing for the cooler temperatures of fall. And the cycle continues…it would soon be time for shed hunting again. Hopefully, next time we’ll find one.

Story ID:	3617
Written by:	Betty (BJ) Roan (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Diary/Journal Entry
Location:	Palestine IL USA
Year:	2008