A Hunting Season Survival Guide

Autumn is my favorite season. The air begins to feel crisp, and the leaves on the trees turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange and red before falling to the ground and crunching under our feet. Pumpkins begin appearing on front porches, and scarecrows, ghosts and goblins dot the landscape.

Just around the corner is my husband’s favorite time of year – deer hunting season.

Opening Day of rifle season is a bona fide holiday in the family I married in to in Michigan. Around the dinner table (or in the garage, or while working in the yard, or anywhere, actually), stories of hunting seasons past are told and told again, each year more thrilling than the next. Fathers retell stories their fathers told, and their sons tell the same stories to their grandsons.

The men in the family begin thinking about their trip “up north” in early October even though they won’t leave until November 13. After all, they’ve been salivating for months over all the bucks they will bring home.

They will spend three hours – sometimes more – driving to the perfect spot in the woods where they will sit from dawn until dusk, waiting for the perfect buck to walk by.

While I love my husband dearly, I look forward to our time apart every year. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, the time he spends out in the cold, wet woods hunting for deer have surely contributed to our successful marriage.

What is a wife to do when so much your husband’s life revolves around hunting? It’s time to create some hunting season stories of your own!

Here are five steps wives can take to enjoy the time spent apart from your dear deer hunter: