Deer Camp!

Every year, for as long as I can remember, the weekend after Thanksgiving, my father would head to the hills in search of the ever elusive White Tailed Deer. This tradition known to most as Deer Camp consists of a week-long Manfest in the woods, joined by a handful of your Manfriends, everyone enjoying copious amounts of Eating Manfoods, Drinking, Smoking, Story Telling, Card Playing and other Manly pastimes*. Then at 4am Monday morning, the men roll out of bed, eat a huge breakfast and head up the mountain in the darkness to their stands to wait for Sunrise and the hunt to begin. Some choose to use a blind, some a treestand, and some, like my father and I, choose to stalk the hillside in search of a trophy or in our case, a freezer full of Venison.

Around the age of 14, I was allowed to join in the fun (see below, hah!). As the youngest member of our camp, I was known as "The Greenhorn" for years. My duties included getting wood, water washing dishes and tying an old man's shoes (RIP Don). Over the years, I earned my keep and became a respected member of the Squirrel Inn gang.

Over the years, my father spent his free weekends keeping up the Squirrel Inn. He built foot bridges (flooding destroys the bridge every few years). He re-sided and put a new roof on the Cabin. He even put an addition on the House for Mazie. Most of all, we got innumerable cords of firewood down off the mountain to heat the cabin and neighbors, which I might add is one of my favorite pastimes. All in all, I think it's safe to say that my Father deserved to be left in charge of the Squirrel Inn and Burkhart Estate.

 

Happy Birthday Dad!

My duties here haven't changed much since I moved in. I still get the water and wood. But now I have some added duties. Like keeping the place clean, washing the sheets, and warming it up for guests in the winter months. I'm really looking forward to updating the cabin's furniture and cleaning out the years of junk that has accumulated in the sun room. I've already added WiFi to the list of services provided.

all that firewood ain't gonna cut itself...

The Squirrel Inn is going to be seeing much more than just hunters in the upcoming years. Hopefully all of you will come out for a visit. I want to share all of this beauty with as many people as possible. Maybe then you'll see that this world is a marvelous, magical world full of endless beauty and possibilities (the POSSIBILITIES!!) and not such a terrible place to live after all...

Photo by Matt Behling - Appalachian Trail, VA

*The only woman to ever grace us with her presence at camp was one Mazie J Burkhart, owner and proprietor of the Squirrel Inn. Therefore, it's a Manly pastime. Sorry, that's just the tradition of it all. Leave the Wives/Girlfriends at home!