Been Awhile.....

With football season all but over, and a very busy last three weeks, I have not had a chance to post any football stuff. After a very busy Thanksgiving week, I spent the next week in Dallas on business, and now I have just returned from a hunting trip in Tennessee.

Dallas was busy, but enjoyable. I saw a part of town that I have not seen in my previous visits. I was hoping to find some cheap tickets and see the Cowboys and Packers while I was there, but couldn't swing the $500 for "cheap" seats. I am not a fan of either of them as I do not watch much professional football, but I do like the quarterbacks of both teams. I think Romo is the next big star as he continues to play well and to build on last year's performances. He is also a very well-mannered person who is very greatful for the opportunity.

Most of the pro athletes have forgotten about their good fortune, are not good role models, and do not give it their all. Why should they? They were paid well for last week's game, win or lose, playing with or without heart. This is why I do not care much for professional sports.

Brett Favre may be getting close to retirement and may not be as sharp or as quick as he once was, but he still the fierce competitor that he has always been. A future Hall of Famer, and probably a commentator for a network within the next few years, he remains tough, competitive, and plays with alot of heart. It is hard not to like someone like this.

I picked a bad time to spend a long weekend 7 hours from home hunting. If it was not raining, the wind was blowing very hard and, except for the first morning, it was just too hot to hunt. I found myself thinking about fishing alot of the time I was hugging the limb hunting. The 70 degree temperatures were more likely to help someone catch the big one than help me to hunt the big one. Deer do not stir around too much in hot, windy weather.

Yesterday morning, I sat in the tree until just after 12-noon. As the wind blew the old oak tree back and forth, I almost unscrewed my head from my neck looking back and forth and all around for the "monster" buck. On a low limb about 20 feet in front of me, I noticed an owl sitting there watching the grass below. He, too, twisted his head back and forth searching for movement in the tall grass as the wind tried to rock him to sleep by waving his tree from side to side.

As I watched the owl, it struck me that we were both there -- in almost the same tree when you consider the acreage in which we hunted, the number of trees that either of us could have chosen, and the proximity of the ones that we did -- with almost the same agenda and he was just a scaled down replica of myself. One wearing nature's own camouflage and the other wearing store-bought, we were both there, almost as mirror images of each other, trying to catch an unsuspecting prey. Just as I battled the wind to catch movement in between the trees and brush, he was looking for the same in between the blades of grass. As the wind moved my hair, head net, and blind fabric, it also moved his feathers.

Obviously, the primary contrast between the two of us was that I was hunting as a hobby and, although I eat every animal that take from the field, my survival does not depend on my success. It does not take many trips to the field to realize how blessed we are to live in such a beautiful land, and to have every opportunity as the next person to do whatever it is of which we dream. The only blessing greater than this is to see Mother Nature at work, in person, from 20 feet away.

The owl gave me the old mean-eye as only an owl can do and, as if he understood that I was not hunting him nor going poaching on his land (which, in reality I was poaching his land), he was content to sit there with me for about an hour. Neither of us had any luck and as I climbed from my perch, he flew from his. I almost expected him to be waiting on me at the truck.