The Season Begins

(( (Knocking on the door)...
"Come on guys, its time to get up"
I rolled over and grabbed my cell phone to see what time it was...5:45am.
Opening day of hunting season, you gotta love the early mornings...
I slowly got dressed, making sure to throw on my under armor, chances are the bay froze up over night and we'd have to bust some ice to get out to the blind this morning.
Once I was all geared up (waders, camo pants, camo jacket, face mask, gloves, 2 duck calls, and 1 goose horn) I walked into the kitchen and sat down for a quick cup of hot chocolate.
We still had about an hour until legal shooting time, so us boys (me, my brother, my dad, and my cousin) sat around the kitchen table and bs'd about the mornings hunt.
At about 6 o'clock, we all got up and headed out to the boathouse.
Turned out I was right, the bay was completely froze over with about a quarter inch of skim ice, but that was nothing the Merc couldn't take care of.
My brother and I hopped in the 14 foot Lund and backed slowly of of the bay.
We broke through into the open water and headed up the crick
Our blind was about half a mile from the main lake, and since it was so late in the season, we'd probably be the only ones on the water this morning.
We winded our way up the crick until we came to the spot where we ditched the boat and jumped onto our land trial which led to the blind.
The ground was froze over,
so that made walking through the cat-tails much easier than in the fall.
As we made our way into the blind, the sky above us just began to break open,
and the morning sun seemed to welcome us as it rose above the distant horizon. ))

The above narrative describes a typical day out at my brother's house (or the ranch, as I like to call it) in northeastern Indiana during hunting season.
This weekend was the season opener, and I missed it...
Why did I miss it?
The 10-12 page research paper I have assigned in English...
Talk about commitment...
((Alan))