I smell Fall in the air...wait, no, maybe it's just cover scent...

While everyone else is posting about the excitement of fall approaching, the excitement of the fall foliage, football, etc; there is a different kind of excitement going on in the Rodgers' home. Not that we don't enjoy the approach of Gator football season, we are excited about that, but there is another, dare I say more important reason for fall excitement in our house...oh yes, fall marks the beginning of hunting season. Some families mark their seasons with football, we mark ours starting in March with spring turkey. After that follows a summer of scouting and getting stands and food plots ready, then comes September with bow season, then moving into black powder, fall turkey, and general gun wrapping things up in January.

Over the summer we enjoy riding the 4-wheeler in the woods, just looking around, and Jesse scouting for the next season. The past few weekends have been spent with food plots, putting out corn and getting stands moved to just the right spots. Over the weekend we went riding and Jesse took the boys up in one of his stands for the first time. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, but both of them loved it; Wyatt was very upset that he had to get down!

These boys are destined to be lovers of hunting. They have been riding the woods on that 4-wheeler since they were each about 4 months old. I would leave for work in the evenings to Jesse strapping their carseats to the 4-wheeler and off they'd ride, doing all kinds of "man stuff." To this day, that is one of their favorite things to do with Daddy. As we're riding through the woods, they'll randomly yell "Look!! A buck!!" (usually there is no deer to be seen, because with 2 certain somebodies yakking away, we've all but scared them off, but they do like to pretend!). They can spot a picture of a turkey, deer, or hog and know what it is and what it "says." Their Daddy is super proud of that!

They only have a couple more years at home with Momma, and then all my guys will be in the woods from September until January! They just have to practice being still and using their "woods voice", which they haven't quite mastered yet. Oh well, give them a few more years, and they'll be shushing me as I'm opening my Little Debbie, or turning pages in my book, or playing games on my iPod as I sit waiting on the big one to come by.

We're hoping for lots of luck this year, hopefully I'll have good hunting stories and lots of pictures this season. I'm going to try to get out there a little more this year, maybe I'll get a monster....