Sitting in my blind along a ditch and near a fence on my parents Montana ranch, I was enjoying the nature.  Hoping to see some deer and hopefully have a shot, I sat quietly only feeling the movement of the growing baby in my tummy. 

As evening closed in I heard rustling in the grasses.  It didn’t sound like a deer, or was it?  I prepared myself just in case it was, bow up and ready.  It seemed then, the only noises I heard were the rustling and movement of the animal and my heart leaping out of my chest.  The grasses along the ditch were too tall to see anything until the critter was right in my range and the ditch was only a couple feet from my blind so I had no idea what I was in for.

It was coming down the ditch toward me  I could tell that much and was sure that it was too small to be a deer.  What else could it be?  Oh no, I thought, a SKUNK. We had lots of them this year.  I went into panic mode, if it was a skunk, what would I do.  I couldn’t shoot it because I would for sure end up sprayed.  Maybe if I just sat still it would keep moving and not stop to investigate me.  But my mind flashed to the skunk joining me in the blind.  Now that would be a disaster.

My mind was going in a million directions and yet I wasn’t even sure what was making its way toward me.  Whatever it was it was almost to the blind and in just moments I would see.  All I could hear was my heart beating and suddenly a mama pheasant and her babies moving along in a cute little line, passing right next to the blind in the ditch bottom.  They had no idea I was there and went right on rustling down the ditch.  Whew, what a relief, no skunk for me this time.

I was amazed at how I reacted to the noise, it seemed as if my hearing increased 10 times and I didn’t seem to notice anything else during that time.