We returned home last night from 2 1/2 days at a hunting ranch south of town. We came home empty handed this year but with plenty of memories that will last far longer than a couple of deer or hogs in the freezer would have lasted.

10 most memorable events of our days down south:

1. Polar bear – Rachael was sputtering with excitement: “Mom! This is the first time I ever saw a polar bear!”  I had never seen a polar up close, so I followed her outside.  The polar bear was a little smaller than I expected.

2. Badger – The boy was wandering about and unexpectedly found himself nose-to-nose with a stuffed badger. His surprised yelp was priceless, but he and the badger have become good friends now.

3. Blind dates - I always said I didn’t believe in dating, but today I went on not one but two blind dates. I really like the guy I went with. He was nice, funny and handsome. Oh, and he’s married to me. We agreed to meet up again soon.

4. Birds – We saw Mexican eagles (or Crested Caracaras) everywhere we looked. I also saw my first real live Cedar Waxwings and Pyrrhuloxias. I have read about these since I was a child browsing animal books but never actually crossed paths with them.

5. Boots & Bullets – The four oldest fired my trusty old S&W snubnose .357 magnum and took turns acting nonchalant at the recoil. I fired a practice round through hubby’s big gun and tried to act nonchalant at the recoil.

A child who would probably prefer to remain anonymous learned about gun safety the hard way. She is very thankful for two things: she was only shooting a pellet gun, and she was wearing leather cowboy boots. Even so, the pellet penetrated the leather and drew blood on her toe. She felt much older and wiser 10 minutes later.

6. Deer peels – The girls watched some of the guys “peel a deer.” They declined one young man’s invitation to pop an eyeball and decided not to stay for the whole process, but they did enjoy venison burgers at the lodge later that evening. They prefer deer after the blood is gone.

7. The one that got away – Hubby went on a late night varmint hunt with Deanna and Kaitlyn, and they found themselves being stalked by a bobcat as soon as they climbed out of the van. The guide’s Distressed Rabbit Call brought him in close enough for an easy shot but the comedy of errors that followed left a blind full of laughing, flustered hunters and one very lucky cat.

8. The other one that got away – I went on a third hunt w/o hubby and thought I was finally going to bag my first deer. After a long wait, a couple of very nice prospects were finally heading out into the open well within range, but one of the four people in the blind may or may not have dozed off and spooked them. I won’t mention names or assign blame, but the guilty party who staunchly maintained that he wasn’t sleeping and doesn’t snore was slouching with his eyes closed and making snuffly snorty noisy as he took long, slow rhythmic breaths. Not snoring, mind you. And maybe he even drew the deer in, since he sounded vaguely like a buck. Maybe we should let him keep snoring breathing noisily with his eyes closed.

9. The one that didn’t get away – But it wasn’t ours. A good friend of hubby’s managed to bag a beautiful bobcat. A thundering herd of wild children stampeded out the door to see the carcass and even The Boy hitched a ride out to the show. He’s been demonstrating the fate and exact position of the bobcat ever since. In garbled words, he tells me that the [something] got shot like bang and it died like this: [he carefully lowers himself to the floor, rolls over onto his back and exhales].

10. Our INS adventure - Fortunately we have a better sense of humor than the INS agent. Of course, any sense of humor is better than none at all, so we could hardly lose that contest.