House work waits on hunting

It seems that while Brad may be making his last trip home from Gillette this weekend -- if all goes according to plan -- we'll be making another trip to the Gillette area in the next month or so.

It seems antelope season opens Oct. 1.

I spent last weekend in Gillette with Brad. He was very animated as he told me about a rancher who had volunteered to put us up and give us all the opportunities at getting antelope we wanted.

I agreed. After all, he's spent the last five months in Gillette and hasn't had a lot of opportunity to fish or participate in any other outdoor activity all summer.

"As thick as the antelope are up here, we should be headed home in an hour or so," I thought to myself.

We picked up one permit each at a sporting goods store in Gillette. We also picked up the regulation booklet. It was written in such fine print, most people would need a magnifying glass to read it.

Not Brad, though. He picked out the part that said you could have up to four antelope permits per person. We made a trip to Gillette to pick up two more permits apiece. Now we'll be hunting six antelope over a three-day weekend.

I can hardly wait.

They are already calling for snow in the Gillette area this weekend. We could be tromping through six feet of snow by the time the third week of October rolls around.

Over the past three years, I've learned how to butcher our big game. Last year, I butchered five deer (two from rifle season, two from muzzleloader season, and one for my dad) plus two antelope. I make Brad butcher the small game.

This year we could be looking at six antelope and six deer (Jeremy's living with us and is eligible to get his resident license). And Brad can't figure out why my enthusiasm doesn't match his when it comes to big game hunting.

The Wyoming hunt throws a little kink into my "Brad is coming home" plans.

More than likely we'll be painting the back side of the house in December and the soffit is going to have to wait 'til February.

All I can say is, it's a good thing we have all our warm weather clothes packed and ready to go to Wyoming. At least we won't have to spend a lot of time looking for them when it comes time to start the work on the house -- sometime in November.