2009-2010 Tote Your Own Steak & Kangaroo Kourt Night and the Arctic Blast!!

Picture a light snow in the morning, tempatures staying in the low to mid 30's during the day and a cold brisk night with a light snow for the prediction. Well this described Sat. Jan. 9, 2010 for our big night at camp. This may not be anything new to all of you that live north of the Mason Dixon line, but for us Florida Crackers, this was not NORMAL!!! If it gets below 70 degrees, we're cold. Our cook got up, stoked the fire, put a pot of coffee on and got ready to fix a big hot meal for the hunters before heading out to the woods, little did he know that someone would come around the corner and hit him with a snowball. Boy, what a surprise that is first thing in the morning. Our usual is getting up for breakfast, planning the days hunt, getting out to the woods and into the stands with our Thermocells to keep the sand gnats and mosquito's from depleting our blood count and watching the palm trees swaying when the wind is blowing. Not seeing adults instigating the kids to throw snowballs at others... But it was the talk of the day and probably will be for a long awhile.
Anyway, after the day of hunting and all the hunters came in from the woods, it was time to start dinner. This is when "tote your own steak" comes into play. Besides the members of our camp, we had others come to dinner from a couple of other camps and the deal is they bring their own steak and we supply all the trimmings. The head count was low this year (around 40) because most didn't want to come out in the cold weather, the reason for this is because this is an outdoor affair. All in all though, everyone enjoyed the meal, ate too much and tried to get the fire big enough to keep warm without burning down any of the bunkhouses or surrounding buildings.
It's time to bring Kourt to Order. At this time it was a whopping 24 degrees and the "judge" made an amendment to the normal activities and announced that shirttails would not be cut as usual and if the defendent was found guilty the shirt would be thrown into the fire and cremated instead. He didn't want anyone to go home with double pneumonia. Usually the shirt that the guilty party is wearing gets the back of the shirt cut and part of his back is exposed. All of this is done because someone has shot a deer and failed to bring meat to camp. Most of the time, whoever shot, the bullet didn't go quite where the hunter was aiming at. I think it's operater error for the most part.... This can be a drawn out ordeal, but because of the cold, they talked fast (except for 1) and tried to keep it to a bare minimum. One stands out the most. One of the girls (Firecracker) was up for missing the deer that she was aiming at. She said it was at least an 8 pnt. She was asked to describe her hunting area. It came out that she was hunting in a ground blind that her husband (Sprout) had built for him. She is only about 5'2" and he is 6'4" so she was having difficulties with trying to look out and get a good shot. To stand up and shoot, she would have to stand on her tippy toes to shoot and not be stable and to sit in the chair, she definitely was not tall enough to see out of it, so she had to do the best she could and steady herself. All she knew was that Sprout was in the path that the deer was going and she had to shoot before he went into Sprout's view. Just a little competition between a husband and wife. Anyway, the "judge" asked Sprout to stand and and verify that this was all correct and he agreed 100 %. A new charge was brought on and the "jury" was asked to decide who was guilty - Firecracker for greed and firing a firearm and failure to bring meat to camp or Sprout for build a ground stand and being selfish and having no consideration for his wife. I was going to let you decide what the verdict was but, Firecracker was found guilty. No Mercy in this court!!!