OK, since Shelly made her post about this public, I'll "unlock" mine...

So, it's late-Fall in MN. That means it's firearms deer hunting season.

I'm not going to get into the ethics of hunting here. I've grown up in MN and so hunting doesn't bother me as long as it's not on a "game farm" (a la Dick Cheney's bird "hunting") or sport hunting (i.e., just for the fun of it). If you're going to either eat what you kill or donate that meat, that's fine by me. And, all things considered, in this part of the upper Midwest, there's a bit of deer "over population" (standard is set by the state's DNR).

In any case, part and parcel with the start of hunting season comes stories in the paper of hunting accidents and occasionally, though fortunately rarer, non accidents (those two people are unrelated). Generally, I've read such stories and wondered how anyone can be foolish enough to mistake another person for a deer. Especially if all of the hunters in the party are properly dressed in the requisite blaze orange. I usually wrote most of those stories off as stupidity.

This morning, one of those stories hit very close to home. Shelly called me this morning. She said she came home to a message on our voicemail from the wife of her cousin (who lives in town). Apparently, he'd been hunting this past weekend and was shot in the chest. He's in an ICU and is "stabilized". The stories I've managed to find seem to mirror the other typical accidental shootings. Someone else in the same party mistook him for a deer. Probably as they were flushing deer out from hiding.

We're just hoping he'll really be OK in the end.

Jesus.