Open Season

Two weekends ago marked the opening of deer season in Minnesota. Ely has come alive. By Friday afternoon main street had turned into a parade of pickups bursting with hunters, dogs and guns streaming out of town so they could get started shooting deer bright and early Saturday. The ladies in my pilates class were all a-titter Friday morning, talking about how excited they were to finally get some venison back in their meat freezer. Just for comparison, East coast ladies who take pilates don't own meat freezers or three guns apiece. Hunting season is the most culture-shocked I've been since getting here, and I'm not even a city girl. Everyone in town was already wearing camo on an everyday basis, but as soon as deer season started the blaze orange came out in ways you can't even imagine. My boss' daughter (freshly single, if you remember) had invitations from two different boys to go hunting with them this weekend. It seems that killing deer together is the Ely High School equivalent of dinner at Applebee's and a Vince Vaughn movie for the rest of us. However, she chose to go with former boyfriend, which evidently rekindled the romance.
I've put together a little photo montage to try to portray what deer season is like. Keep in mind this is only a taste of what Ely is like right now, and there's still another week to go. I hope you enjoy.

Camoflage cake, courtesy of my friends in AlAlon (which is actually all my friends) who were full of cake but still hungry for venison.

You can drop your deer hide off in this cement pit at the gas station if you're not going to use it. You can also bring your dead deer into the grocery store and they will butcher it for you. Like, walk right through the front door past the produce with the carcass slung over your shoulder. Also let's look at the closeup:

Here you can see the ATV on the back of the SUV, the deer hide drop off, and the two men entering the gas station dressed in their finest.

So I went to my boss' homestead (40 miles outside of Ely, just unbelievably off the grid) for the weekend to do some novelty hunting. By which I mean work on my Rubik's cube while sitting inside wearing orange. I may have showed up in skinny jeans and Converse and Banana Republic outerwear, but thank goodness I brought my orange sweatband. I'm totally ready to go hunting, you guys!

The mannequin in the window of the radio station (what are they supposed to display, RADIO WAVES? Don't be ridiculous) was able to demonstrate how hunting works, apparently.

A shelf in my boss' house. I was way too terrified to figure out where the rest of the deer was.