of weeks in Feb were consumed in our household by one thing.....Hunter's Safety classes for Amanda and myself. Last year I was able to go hunting because of the Mentor Program that the Game and Fish had set up. The program said that you could sign up for a year of hunting as long as you were accompanied by a fellow hunter with a valid Hunter Safety card (in the short story...you can look up the rest of the rules and regs if you want the full story). So I signed up for the program and was able to go hunting.....never thinking that I would be bitten by the hunting bug and want to go again. Then after our successful hunt, I realized that I would need to take the class and recieve my own hunter safety certification because by the next season my mentor program eligiblity would be gone. So the first opportunity to take a class I did (and as per Gabe's request, dragged Amanda along with me).I was a little nervous at first. The class that we signed up for was Mon and Thurs evening for 3 hours each time. I guess my first fear was that Gabe wouldn't show up on time and we would have to be late or worse yet, miss a class. But, I never had that problem. Gabe was always home to watch the rest of the kids and never once were we late.
Then after the first class I became nervous about the "homework" that we were required to do and that we would have to do a field test as well. If you are like me, the fear of the unknown can be a major drawback (and besides that I like to plan and really had no idea what to expect and couldn't do that either).
After the first week (the class was 3 weeks), I realized it wasn't so bad....but was afraid that Amanda wasn't going to pass. The day for the final came and I was again nervous.....would I remember all the animals that we were supposed to identify? Would I remember that a safety on a gun is supposed to be a mechanical device that can fail? Would I remember all the other numerous things that the teacher had told us? They handed out the tests and then I began to wonder if I was going through it too fast.....it didn't seem like anyone else was turning the test pages as fast as I was. I have always hated to be the first one done with a test in any class that I took, so it threw me off that the test seemed too easy. Plus there was the added pressure from the teachers that they had never had anyone get a 100% before....not that I thought that I would get one. Some of the questions were easy, some were a little harder---but it wasn't until the very end that I found a few that I had to skip and come back to. I finished the test and turned it in. They had you wait there while they graded it. He graded it and then looked at me. The look on his face was one that you really don't want to see....it was like I had failed and he really didn't want to tell me. He called me over and gave me my test and said that he hadn't had this happen before......I got that 100%, but I wasn't the first one in our class either.....I was actually the third one so far. ( I don't know if anyone else got 100% because we were supposed to leave after that, but at least 3 had them). I was floored. I didn't think that I had done that well. After waiting for Amanda to finish we were able to go home and breathe a little easier, except that our field test was in 2 days. (Amanda did quite well too.....we were only allowed to miss 30 questions to pass and she missed 17).
The field day was cold but not snowing (thank goodness). They had single shot 22 rifles there for us to use while we took the tests (just so that we didn't shoot anything). They divided us into two groups---Amanda went with the first group and I was with the second. Unfortunately I forgot the camera so I didn't get any pictures. The field test wasn't as hard as I thought. We walked through the field to a fence and showed that we could pass through the fence without hurting anyone. We had to walk through a ravine and then over a little hill----of course all while showing we were handling the guns safely. Then they allowed us to shoot 5 rounds through the guns in each of the five shooting postions---standing, sitting,kneeling and prone (2 were shot here). Then we had a few demonstrations of the power of a gun and we were declared Hunter Safety Graduates. Now Amanda and I are offical and can hunt the big game this fall without having a care in the world other than making sure we see the animals.
