Friday, October 9, 2015

Open Season


That's it!  No more pizza deliveries! 

Many years ago, our dearest friends came down with the influenza.  Well, not our friends exactly, rather their four children came down with the flu, at the same time.  They had been sick for the better part of a week and the whole family was exhausted and worn.  Sir Knight and I decided that we would do what we could to ease their burden and delivered homemade "take and bake" pizzas to their home - tucked away up a winding road on a country hillside.  The weather was sloppy - a wet spring snow had just fallen and the roads were soft with the spring thaw.  After dropping off the pizzas, as we made our way down their somewhat treacherous hillside, I rolled our Landcruiser.   Sir Knight and I crawled out of the truck (thankfully we had left our children at home), trekked back to our friend's house and called a wrecker.  The insurance company totaled that truck and to this day, I still don't like to drive to our dear friend's home in the middle of winter!

Pizza's ready to deliver

Last Friday, Sir Knight, the children (all five of them), and I packed into our Landcruiser on yet another pizza run.  Friends (on the other side of the county) had been through the wringer.  The husband, a logger, had been injured on the job in the spring and had been off work since.  Immediately after the injury, he had been advised to rest and then had gone through extensive physical therapy, only to find out that his ankle had been completely destroyed - to the point that no amount of physical therapy could help.  Finally, he'd had his ankle surgically repaired, and was now recuperating, unable to put ANY weight on it for the next two months, before again attempting physical therapy. 

The scene of the crime

 



And so, with the Landcruiser filled to the brim with children, pizza and smore's dip (complete with graham crackers for dipping), we set off for the small mountain town about a half an hour away.  In our defense, we missed four of them.  Four deer had jumped in front of our truck before the fifth one finally succeeded in its mission of self destruction.   I'm not kidding - that spike jumped in front of our truck before we saw it!  We felt the bump and saw the deer fly past the passenger side windows before we even knew what hit us!  Our front right bumper was ripped up and rubbing on the tire, so we pulled over to assess the damage.  Miss Serenity ran over to the deer to verify it was dead and found it incapacitated but still breathing.  Master Hand Grenade grabbed his knife and quickly put it out of its misery.  We tore the broken part of the bumper off, hopped back in the truck and continued on our way - arriving at our friends with a bloody knife to clean and deer hair to scrub off our hands.

After a lively debate about whether we should go back for the backstrap, we settled into a wonderful evening of pizza, fellowship and s'mores dip.  We drove home with one headlight, a funky turn signal and deer hair sticking out of the grill.

As Sir Knight and I  mulled over the evening's events, we finally found a common thread - pizza!  We have decided that next time we take a meal to ailing friends, it will have to be lasagna!

18 comments:

  1. That pizza can be deadly! On a serious note, I'm so thankful you are all okay. Hitting an animal of any sort can do some serious damage to a vehicle and it's occupants, not to mention the animal. Hope the repairs aren't too costly.

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  2. Here in north Texas we have a big hog problem. You see bodies by the side of the road once in awhile. My wife saw a HUGE bore probably 500 lbs or more by the side of the highway. This was along with a bumper, grill and parts of a fender. I can only imagine what hitting something like that at 70 mph felt like. Glad that none of you were injured!

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  3. Time for an aftermarket bumper with a 'roo guard'

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  4. Ouch! Double Ouch!

    I feel so sorry for your logger friend. I have much respect for loggers. They are honest, hard working men. The epitomize the good folks who built America. Sadly today the logging industry is targeted and literally persecuted by a dishonest, disrespectful and wicked government.

    Your logger friend is in our prayers.
    Montana Guy

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    1. Enola, some good news to help cheer you up: Your article 'Masters of Deceit' got top billing on SurvivalBlog. It was an awesome article and well deserving of this recognition.
      Montana Guy

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  5. What a night! Here in my neck of the woods, it's illegal for someone to dispatch an injured deer that they've hit. How is that humane? (Thankfully, it's not enforced in our rural county)

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  6. Wait a minute... You guy's seriously didn't go back and get the deer??

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  7. Deer pizza anyone?? Don

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  8. Are you not allowed to keep the deer?

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  9. We would have loved to save the meat but we hit him broadside and then he went under two tires so there was no good meat left.
    Miss Serenity

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  10. Makes good dog food though.

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  11. Parts run to the junkyard time! Is that bumper metal or plastic? Here, you can keep the deer, but you're supposed to report it to the game warden. Maybe next time, try Chinese food..

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  12. My wife took a deer using the same method a few years ago but used a Montana mini-van instead of a Land Cruiser. The buck managed to get into the woods and the mini-van managed to get home. In the end the vehicle was totaled as was almost certainly the buck. No winners...

    Here you need a Police or Conservation Officer to sign that the you took the deer 'legally' before you take it away.

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  13. The bumper is metal.
    We are allowed to take road kill but master hand grenade is a butcher so we have plenty of meat so we have a lot of dog food.
    Miss Serenity

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  14. kamikaze Bucks!
    While I was spending what was to be the last four weeks of my dad's life with him, I use his big car to go back and forth to the hospital. The VA does not allow pickup campers or any other RV on their lot, even ones with DV Wyoming plates. Not only did the young female VA police officer tell me NO! when I inquired, her body language was aggressive and her tone harsh and she further stated she would have my vehicle towed immediately, she didn't care if my dad was in ICU on a ventilator, keep that camper off HER parking lot. Well....
    Despite being on a ventilator, dad wrote to me asking if I was driving his car, as he wanted me to do so. I replied yes, that I had to. He shook his head knowingly. I think he had asked the doctors before I arrived if I could park my rig and just stay there and he'd found out that I could not. The Sunday night before he passed away, I was called back when his lung collapsed and began bleeding. The ICU nurse finally hinted I needed to go get some rest, dad was unconscious and would probably be so until the morning. So I left in the darkness that 2200 brings along with a dark and heavy heart.
    Just north of the city, on the four lane divided highway in fairly rural Missouri (corn everywhere), I saw them out of the corner of my left eye, as they crossed the south bound lanes and were headed east. Braking was no good, so I floored it. Dad had a "grandpa" car, big and powerful and it is fun to drive, so much different than my diesel truck that is a workhorse. I almost succeeded in outracing the herd, but the big buck slammed into the left rear fender right at the tire. The car swayed fiercely and then began to die. I got it off the road but the Sunday night traffic was brisk and opening the door was risky.
    I called for a tow truck and in what is unusual behavior, I cried like a baby to our Lord. I needed this car so I could get back and forth to be with my voiceless father everyday, to hold his hand and to be his advocate in a VA center that didn't think enough of old men to get them to surgery when someone else was "more emergent". Miraculously, in a few minutes a tow truck appeared and a very well dressed man came to my window and asked me what was wrong. He was not the one that was to be dispatched by my insurance company. He saw my flashers and stopped. He knew immediately that it was the automatic fuel shut off and he got into the truck, reset it, inspected the damage (minimal, but plenty of hair embedded in the dent and the cracked finish) and got me on my way. He wasn't on duty, but was just in his truck, white dress shirt and slacks.
    I thank God for the big buck that disabled dad's car because I witnessed that He sent his angel on earth to help me and I knew He was riding beside me and would be there as I moved through the next few days on little sleep or food and much black coffee.
    A few days later, my father passed away, my husband joined me and my SIL came to help our teenage son keep a handle on the new place in Idaho. They were hit by a deer just a couple miles from the road we live on, after crossing the most dangerous part of the trip around the south part of the lake system. I thanked God again, no one was hurt, they didn't swerve and end up down the bank or in the line of travel of another vehicle.
    I thank God that you are all well, too, Enola and family.
    Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
    God's Blessings
    sidetracksusie

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  15. Glad you got out of this one safe and sound. Too bad you weren't able to salvage the meat. No such thing as too much...

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  16. I have never thought of making take and bake pizzas. What a fantastic idea! I bet your friends really enjoyed the food and the friendship. What great gifts!

    Quick question about your take and bake pizza. Do you prebake your crusts? I have made homemade frozen pizzas and I prebake the crusts a little bit. When I want to make pizzas ahead of time, I'm always afraid the crust will keep rising and I have a hard time getting the timing to work out. Wondered if you just made them and took them or prebaked?

    Love your blog! Great posts.

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  17. my husband totaled his Toyota Corolla hitting a deer this past November. We had deer fur hanging on as well!

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