Patience and Persistence

I have waited for this moment for a long time. May 26, 2010 – 9:15 AM. Today I harvested my first turkey in 11 years. I had been an avid hunter prior to my disability. I believed I would never be able to hunt again, especially by myself. Today’s success was the result of the labors of many people: my wife, who walked me out and help me set up, my nurse Rhonda, who came at 6 AM the mornings in May so I would have more time to hunt, my neighbor Mike, who allows me to hunt his land, my friend John, who gave me his time to set up blinds made out of snow fence and camouflage material, and so it goes. My wife likes to say “It takes a village”.

The blind

I am also proud of myself. Over the 11 years, I got discouraged; turkeys often were close enough to harvest but something always went wrong.  In the beginning it was my inability to camouflage my wheelchair well enough, then my finger couldn’t pull the trigger, or I had a muscle spasm which alerted the turkeys to my presence and were instantly gone. But I persisted and attempted to correct the challenges as they presented themselves. But at the end of each spring I had the same results — NOTHING. Often it was a process of trial and error, but gradually my efforts began to improve my chances. I created a trigger adapter which allows me to fire the shotgun using my mouth. Not only does this solve the problem of trying to find the trigger, but it also allows me to use both hands to steady the gun. At many points along the way it would’ve been easy to give up and quit. I know from experience it’s a lot easier to give advice to others than it is to take it myself. So get discouraged, get frustrated, but don’t give up.

The trigger adapter I made

One of the things I like the most about hunting is that it is totally irrelevant to the game that I am an individual with a disability. To the turkeys I hunt, I am just another predator and that’s all I ask for. Today was definitely a day worth waiting for.

The turkey on my lap. Notice the turkey call I adapted to sit on my thigh so I could use it one handed

A Quality Day

Going..

When I woke up this morning at a quarter of six the temperature outside was 27°. Even though it is May 10th you have to expect the possibility of this kind of temperature when you live in northern New York. My nurse arrived around six and the day began. I was ready to roll a little after eight o’clock but was delayed because of a problem my nurse had loading my shotgun. Bundled up in camouflage, my wife and I finally headed out of the house. I’m fortunate to be able to hunt across the street on a large area of abandoned farm land. I motored down the driveway, across a field, down an abandoned road and drove into the field to the place where I was going to hunt. At the edge of the field I back into an area of small trees and brush. One must blend in with the surroundings because turkeys have excellent vision and can spot anything out of place. Marge helped me with some final adjustments, covered my head with camouflage netting and left. Fifteen or twenty minutes after she left intermittently I began calling the turkeys. Turkeys call back and forth to locate each other during the mating season. Although it was cold with a brisk wind, it was a beautiful sun shiny day. Back in the hedgerow there was little wind and it wasn’t long before I could feel the warm rays of sun on my face.

going...

After a while I became aware of a bird jumping around from branch to branch.  A minute or two later it landed on my shotgun barrel and stayed for about 30 seconds. It was Black-capped Chickadee. They are cute and entertaining little birds. I glanced at its feet gripping the barrel of the shotgun. How can anything be so delicate? Even though we can have brutal winters, Chickadees are year-round residents. After it flew off I called a couple more times. Slowly my eyes began to close and I nodded off in the warm sunshine. When I awoke again the grass in the field was bending in the wind, as were the trees and bushes directly across from me, every shade of green rocking in the wind. I heard the raucous call of a crow. It kept repeating and each time after it was done I listened intensely for a gobble that never came. Often in the early spring during the mating season male turkeys will gobble when crows are calling. Again I became aware of movement in the bushes around me. This time it was a pair of Wood Thrushes who were also involved with the spring mating ritual. They have one of the most beautiful calls of the early spring morning but these two had other things on their mind.

gone

Sitting in the warm sunshine calling, nodding and watching, the morning passed quickly. I soon heard my wife’s voice as she arrived to walk me home. The hunting time ends at noon each day and Marge insists on walking me back home. Tomorrow is another day. Oh, by the way, I didn’t see or hear any turkeys, but it was only noon and I had already had a quality day. At one point during my recovery I never thought I would enjoy a day like this again.

The Equation……

Im sure most of you are used to my thinking process. I think, talk, think, talk ask all of your opinions and then usually take none of your advice. Yup Yup, that’s my thought process. So as many of you know, I asked your opinions on the topic at hand.
Bloging about AB/SCI relationship. What the hell does that mean? I heard you. Ab = Able bodied, its a term coined by those in wheelchairs to mean, non wheelchair users. and SCI= Spinal Cord Injury, those in chairs. So the equation goes something like sci+ab= Jim and I.
We have a dear friend who has a website and I offered to blog on there. We all know I love to TALK and lots of you think I can write!!!
I thought I would narrate my journey with an SCI boyfriend. Seems easy enough, and certainly interesting…..but there was one problem that kept arising as I would attempt to narrow down a topic. How can I write about having a handicapped boyfriend and our limitations and adaptations, if we don’t have any? Jim’s not handicapped in my eyes. Just a normal , pain in the………Oops, I meant boyfriend. Normal. Wouldn’t seem fair to blog about us!
But then I took a stroll back into history. ……..Care to join me?

Aprox a year and a half ago, Jim and I met. In one of the first conversations I was made aware of the wheelchair. I didnt know much about one, or anything about a SCI patient. Didnt seem important. Nice guy, cute, smart and wildly intriguing…..we talked, laughed and interests grew. We decided to meet in person and I was nervous. Normal nervous, first date nervous NO. Nervous that I would somehow feel differently when I saw that chair. That I wouldnt be able to stop myself from staring at it. That it would somehow change the man in it! I worried the entire ride there and when I met Jim – a funny thing happened, we laughed and talked for hours. I never noticed the chair. I never felt wierd or ackward and he never felt different.
Nearly two years later I have a great deal of interesting stories to share with you. I would enjoy taking you through the journey of Jim and I. Our intimate details and our hilarious falls but most importantly, our journey of love. This journey is no different then any of yours. Chair or no chair……I would like to welcome you, to the ab+sci equation……………