Winter is a quiet time for our Amish partners. Once the harvest is in, the amount of daily chores on the farm becomes nothing more than taking care of the animals. This still requires getting up before dawn to milk the cows, but the rest of the day includes a lot of time they can spend for themselves.
Adults with a family to feed often use this time the way they do the rest of the winter. Many of the Amish crafts that are sold for cash are often created in the quiet times between the harvest and the deep cold. But for the growing young men of a large Amish family, this is hunting season.
Amish are subject to the same restrictions as anyone by law, so they have to wait for the deer season to open before they go out in the field. The first season to open is bow hunting season.
While it is not easy to down a deer with an arrow, weeks of practice once the harvest is in have honed their skills. The fields are less crowded with other hunters, so this is a good time for the kids to go out and bring home a real feast.
When rifle season comes around, our Amish partners restrict the technology they can use. For them, it's all muzzle-loading black powder. This means that they have one shot to put a relatively slow moving ball right where it needs to be. Once again, weeks of practice are essential to being able to bring down a deer.
For young men who have time to devote to this, it is essentially the only sport they have. The long hard days of late summer and the fall harvest drop off into a time when they can get out into the woods have some fun. Once they are married and have a family to care for, their time is spoken for like the rest of us. Until then, they have a few golden autumns to spend for themselves.
Deer meat is hard to keep in a world without refrigeration, so hopefully it is cold enough to keep outside or in an icebox packed with snow. If they aren't that lucky, a fair amount of salting or jerky making is needed to make sure that the meat is all used up. Usually, however, a fair amount of feasting and parceling it out to the extended community is sufficient to make sure that nothing goes to waste.
No matter how it winds up, the meat is welcome and the time spent in the woods is a welcome break between the hard work of the harvest and the shut-in days of a long winter. The simple life has its clear rewards at times like this. The hard work of practice and the patience of stalking through the woods pay off like any hard work should.
Written and published by Harmony Cedar, all rights reserved.