We are in the midst of hunting season here in Minnesota. There are a lot of stereotypes about hunting just like there are for pretty much everything. I figured I would write a little something about hunting. I grew up in a hunting family. We hunt deer and pheasant. But hunting is way, way more than just sitting in a stand and waiting for animals to ultimately shoot and kill them—or miss.

Hunting brings families together. When we go hunting, we make a weekend of it. And it isn’t just my immediate family that is hunting with me—it is my uncles and cousins and sometimes their cousins and uncles. Also, sometimes second cousins that travel and stay with us just to go hunting too. This is a big deal. Hunting is like another holiday for our family.

We get up at the crack of dawn together, take turns taking naps on each other in the stand, celebrate a kill together, skin and butcher the deer together, eat and sleep a lot together, the adults drink a lot after a long day of hunting together, etc. As you can see, we do a lot together. One of the most important thing that we do together is plan and strategize what to do—like are we going to walk this grove and what time would be the best time to walk it. Or who should sit where and with whom? There is a lot more planning than you think. Not to mention the fact about teaching the youngest and new members of the hunting group how to hunt.

To explain this picture—this is my mom, dad, brothers, aunt, uncles and a bunch of cousins going out to eat after they all came back from a long day of hunting!

Hunting teaches you patience. I have learned a lot about having patience while hunting. Because you could be sitting in a stand for six to eight hours and see absolutely no deer. It can be stressful. Then you feel like ‘why should I continue to go hunting?’ Then, the next time you do go back, you may see something. Whenever you see a deer or animal, it really gets your adrenaline pumping. It is an exciting moment whenever you see an animal, let alone shoot at it. Shooting at an animal is one of the best feelings ever, other than actually killing it. Kill it and you feel like a champ. I wouldn't know because I still have not killed my first deer or pheasant. But I go hunting for the other aspects of it, as well.

Obviously, hunting has taught me patience because I still try to go every year and still haven't killed anything yet. As a group, when hunting we could sit in a stand for hours at a time or walk through many groves and see absolutely nothing but still go the next day and the next year.

Hunting gives you time to reflect. We are usually sitting in a stand for hours and we have to be quiet so we can hear animals and so we don't scare them off. This forces us to think and reflect a lot, even if some of us don't realize it.

The biggest thing hunting teaches us is to be gross—to be humans. We sweat a lot when we go hunting. We get blood and sometimes other deer bodily fluids on us when butchering. We get dirt and other things that come from nature on us. We just don't care about getting down and dirty when hunting season comes along. We just don't give a f#$%! It is fantastic.