Hunting with responsibilities

How can May be almost over already?
I was going to blog all about the beginning of May and now we are approaching the end.
The rhubarb is ripe, the summer flowers have replaced the spring flowers , the canola fields are no longer bright yellow, Spargel season is in full swing and I am still waiting for the arrival of warm sunny weather and the sound of the cuckoo.

We often have three holidays all in May, this year no exception.  May 1 Labour Day, Ascension Day, forty days after Easter and fifty days after the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, also worth an event and holiday Monday, on Pfingstmontag.

Germans danced in the month of May, we had a nice long weekend. May 1 fell on a Friday and my Schatz der Jäger was excited about the start of buck hunting season.
There was also a full moon so all serious hunters were out at moonlight.
Well you can't sit in your lookout and hope to shoot a buck if you spend half a day searching for animals that other hunters have wounded and cannot find.  In the morning of May 1 the phone rang to search a wild boar and the next morning to look for a deer. After running kilometers for hours, in the moor, fields and woods you are too tired to do much else the rest of the weekend. Except work on your hunting hut, that is.
This week he drove it out to its location. Finally complete and he could not have been prouder.
A portable hut. He built it on an old sixties trailer that has been just taking up space in the Scheune. Now he has more space for his motorcycles, sweeper, and other motorized equipment for yard work and attachments for his tractor, und und und.

 The neighbours who have watched the progress, from their patio, decorated the hut, Richtfest, a German must do when the roof is complete. They were wanting to put flowerboxes outside the windows, and nice curtains inside and many other ideas that they shared as he worked.

 The local hunters came to inspect. Not their size, the rifle support shelf was too high for them.
I put the patio chairs out as a little progress celebration, a spot for me, when I come to visit. Yeah, right.

Chair for the hunter, bench for the dog and each their own lookout window with mesh curtain.

 Tochterchen too inspected the hut.

A spot for everything.

All done, complete with collapsible stairway.

Off he goes to park his hunting hut.

I told him it was so nice, he is going to have to be part of the Thanksgiving parade.

When I think about it, he should. After all the hunters have a lot do with the success of the harvest.
Farmers and hunters work close together. When the farmers seed the hunters are asked to hunt the wild boar that  are eating the seeds.It is a give and take, when the farmers harvest the crops, the hunters are asked to come and shoot the wildboar that run out of the cleared fields.

The landowners, farmers and hunters hold an annual meeting. This year my Schatz attended and was officially announced as approved hunter in the big D village hunting grounds. Seems odd but true, he has not been a registered hunter here. He started hunting when he lived away from home and since his return has hunting rights elsewhere. Now I guess he has "arrived" home.  Oh I think his mother would have been proud and the news would have spread like wildfire.  Papers were registered and signed off. He is going to give up his rights to his other hunting ground next year when it expires, so he can fully concentrate on hunting in the big D.

It isn't all about killing animals. They count the wildlife each year and keep a careful control of under and over population. They have strict regulations about what can be shot and how many. Deer for example have to be a certain age and weight. If you violate these rules, you are banned for a period of time as punishment. One local hunter that comes here on weekends from city of Hannover, already reached his buck quota, so he has to wait till next hunting season before he can shoot anymore.

On Saturday the hunters went out to rescue little bambis. One farmer asked my Schatz and his dog to come with other hunters to help him. The farmer says last year he killed too many fawns while clearing his field. So he wants the hunters to chase away any fawns lying in the field today before he clears it tomorrow. They unfortunately did not find any fawns, but they spread stinky human sweat scents here, there and everywhere in hopes that the mama will now come and remove her young ones.

Yesterday I was shown where the hunting hut is parked.

here it is in the corner of this field and wooded area

here's a hut at the end of a field

der Geheimkanzel

Yesterday I was shown the secret hunting lookout, in the middle of a wooded area. Now this is how I picture hunting lookouts, not in the middle of some farmer's field.

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