Relative Something

It has come to my attention that I can obsess with relative ease. Obsession is something I prefer to avoid due to the preoccupation filling a mind constantly and intrusively to a troubling extent. It’s just not mentally healthy.

When a glimpse of blaze orange appeared from our front yard about 45 meters (50 yards) into the woods to our north, Asher and I both took notice. Asher wanted to freeze and stare while I preferred acting nonchalant and continuing as if oblivious.

Once inside, I didn’t hesitate to whip out the binoculars to see if I could verify the possibility there was a hunter crouched beyond a ridge, waiting for a deer to wander close. Unfortunately, I couldn’t improve on the basic perception of a small blob of orange. There was just too much distance for my wimpy binoculars and too many branches or tree trunks obscuring the view.

After staring for far too long in the hope of seeing some movement, I gave up and decided to check back periodically to see if it was still there. Hours eventually turned to days and I was able to convince myself it was not a hunter but more likely a hat or some other article of outdoor clothing that had been dropped and lost.

That didn’t stop me from continuing to look for it every time I walked nearby. I was curious if the hunter would return in search of the lost item, all the while reminding myself that our usual privacy was likely being invaded for random periods during the 8 days of the deer hunting season.

Eventually, enough days passed that I decided to deal with my trending obsession fascination with the blaze-orange object by taking the risk of walking into the neighbor’s woods to see what it was.

It wasn’t a hat. It is a hand warmer with a strap that wraps around the waist to secure it… unless it doesn’t. I would expect the hunter’s hands would get cold enough that he or she would have missed it and retraced steps to retrieve it at some point.

Turning around to look back at our house, I had a renewed sense of weirdness over a person walking so close to our place that is otherwise very secluded.

I picked up the hand warmer and walked a short distance to the plowed field where I hung it up prominently in view for someone to find should they come looking for it.

This morning we heard a couple of close shots from the other side of our property. It has been relatively quiet for the six days between last Saturday morning’s gunshots.

Tomorrow is the last day of the hunt. I look forward to the return of wildlife being the only creatures wandering around in the woods surrounding our house and an end to my seasonal obsession with blaze-orange sightings.

Knowing it’s a hand warmer hanging in some branches at the edge of the woods nearby will help me avoid obsessing over it, but I’ll check occasionally to see if anyone retrieves it.

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