Alan Liere: The deer blind and the retired love seat

When I first began hunting deer, everything I knew about the sport was gleaned from outdoor magazines. Unfortunately most of the articles in those magazines were written by southern and eastern writers for southern and eastern hunters, and it slowed my learning curve considerably.

Find “mast,” the magazines told me. I had no idea what a sailing ship had to do with deer food, but a trip to the dictionary found another definition; mast was the nuts of forest trees found on the ground – acorns particularly.

So I looked for mast, wasting a fair amount of time before I came to the conclusion acorns were not particularly common in northeast Washington and Idaho. The magazines also touted chicory, but the only chicory I ever saw was in the grocery stores – dried, ground, and used to extend a pound of coffee.

As the years went by, I learned on my own what deer liked, and I had my best success sitting in likely spots – where trails intersected or along tree lines leading from bedding cover to alfalfa. I felt intimately attuned to nature, leaning against a tree with my rifle resting across my lap. Sometimes, squirrels and chipmunks scampered across my feet and twice, a bird landed on my head. A waddling porcupine once stopped to nibble a shoelace. I was very happy with the way I hunted, but I gave this intimacy up when the green and blue love seat came back.

I had given the love seat to my daughter because I no longer had room for it, but it was returned when she married and combined two households. I still didn’t have room for it, but I didn’t want to toss it either. I decided to build an elevated deer stand on my property overlooking a field of clover along the creek and put the love seat in it.

There was more than thrift involved – I couldn’t wait to see the look on my friends’ faces when they threw open the door of the plywood blind 12 feet above the ground and found a six-foot love seat sitting on a shag carpet. I would even decorate the walls with pictures. A catalytic heater would provide warmth.

As you might imagine, it is not the simplest thing to hoist a six-foot love seat 12 feet in the air and set it on a platform, but it looked magnificent there before the walls went up, more like a throne than an unwanted piece of furniture.

A week after my muscle spasms subsided, the same friend who had helped me hoist the loveseat helped me build walls on the ground which were also hoisted up and screwed together. Windows and a door were cut and hinged, and after another week of chiropractor visits, I put on a heavy slanting roof and covered it with roofing membrane.

There followed several years of success from the deer stand, but by always using it, I had lost touch with the reason I hunted. I missed looking for deer scrapes and rubs and bedding areas. I missed the wildlife that came so near when I was sitting quietly beneath a tree. The deer blind is still an excellent place for a new hunter, or even a nap, but more often than not, I will leave others there and wander off into the forest to sit under a tree. Sure, I take fewer deer now, but I know I appreciate them more.