Ice tea, sweet or un-sweet, must be the State Drink of Texas. On this trip, ice tea saved the day!
Layla, decided she would start Deer hunting and on a warm, sunny afternoon in early November we were alone at our lease in McCulloch County, and had selected our ‘hides’ for the afternoon.. She had chosen a small ground blind along a draw on the north side of the property and I was snuggled, near a feeder, into a clump of buck brush on the edge of one of our small, Texas, ‘mountains’.
A group of Turkeys was visiting the feeder that I was protecting and I was trying to pick one out, when, boom, from Layla’s blind! Quickly collecting my wits and gear, I followed “the sounds of the guns” until I saw her. A big smile on her face, standing over a Deer and as I hurried closer, I saw the horns.
She had just shot her first buck! She was excited, happy, laughing, and as she ran up to me, said, “I saw his horns, put the scope on his heart, shot and he fell in his tracks!” Picking her up and hugging her, I offered my congratulations and told her we’d get it mounted!
Layla’s first Deer
We gutted the buck and loaded him into the back of our Jeep Scrambler. Before we headed to the processor in Richland Springs, we stopped by the camp house and fixed us celebratory glasses of ice tea and headed out.
Driving east on U.S. Highway 190, we noticed a smoky smell and looking around, couldn’t see any signs of a range fire, so we proceeded on. A half, mile farther, looking into the rear view mirror, I saw the source of the smell. The Jeep was on fire and trailing smoke!
Quickly pulling on to the shoulder, we both hopped out and I crouched down to inspect the source of the fire. The smoke was pouring out just above a skid plate that was hung below the transmission and closer inspection showed a mass of weeds and debris had collected in the space between the two pieces of metal. The only thing we had to put the fire out was our ice tea and gathering both glasses and crawling under the Jeep I slung/threw the contents of both on to the fire. Luckily, it worked!
Not having my gloves on, they were in the Jeep, I found a stick and started poking the weeds and debris out. My stick broke so I reached into the space and, ouch! I had grabbed a sand burr that had been picked up during our off roading. Getting my gloves, clearing out the space was no problem and we headed on, “tealess” to get the buck processed.
Thinking through as to how the fire got started, driving through the weeds and brush, we had, unknowingly, packed this space tight and the heat, magnified by the tight space, had ignited, hence, our fire.
Thank goodness we had our tea!