Crane spotting weekend

 We left Friday after work, and drove up to Jet, OK, in a very gloomy rain.

We were able to use the trailer house that belongs to the family of my friend Ty, so we got to have free lodging this year, again.  That happened in 2020, as well.

We'd hoped to get up there earlier, but Dave was slow to get ready, and we ended up leaving an hour later than *I* had planned for us to leave.  

As a result, we didn't get there until dark, and we never made it out to the wildlife refuge that evening.

So, Saturday, we got up and out an hour or so later than *I* had planned (haha), and when we got to the refuge, we found that the usual trail to the observation deck was "temporarily closed."  

There was no one at the visitor center when we went past the first time.... so we decided to go to the "auto tour" route, only to find it was closed as well.

We drove around to every other access point, and all were closed.  When we came back by the visitor center, there were people there, and there was a sign that said "HUNTER SIGN IN."

Hunters?? In a wildlife refuge....???

But we didn't stop because the ranger, and the other people who he was with, appeared to be leaving.

Disheartened, we went back to the trailer, and took a hike from there into the adjacent state park.  

We found that the lake across from the trailer was so low, due to our ongoing sever drought, that it was a desolate, horrible-smelling wasteland, littered with hundreds of dead fish.

In the mean time, I had posted on Facebook that the refuge was inexplicably closed.  

After arguing with a couple of friends who posted that they knew that the refuge always closes for the winter in October, and telling them that, no, it does not, because we go Crane Spotting every NOVEMBER, because that's when the cranes gather in their largest numbers.... another friend, who had more free time that we did yesterday, discovered that the refuge had closed on Friday to allow DEER HUNTING.

They're doing a deer cull, because the population within the refuge has gotten too large, and human encroachment and removal of apex predators, has created this.  

This was not on the refuge's Facebook page, or listed anywhere else that we could find, so we had no way of knowing in advance that we would not be able to access the waterfowl observation desk.

UGH!!!

Plus.... it's a deer cull.... and I am, well, a Deer Witch...(hard to explain--just take my word for it). 

The cull is being done in phases, and this weekend was the first phase.  

So... SHIT..... 

Heartbroken, we went back out to the refuge, briefly, so that I could do a blessing, and appeal to the God of the Hunt, and the antlered Goddess of the Deer, asking for the aim of the hunters to be true, and the deaths swift, ensuring as little suffering as possible for the murdered deer.

We went back to the trailer, and hiked the other direction at the state park, as dusk fell, and the cranes started coming back from their daily foraging sites.

As it turned out, hundreds of them flew RIGHT over our heads!  SO many flocks, one after another.

This is usually what we watch come in from a distance from the observation deck at the refuge!  It was SO COOL!

Dave got tired of it, and went in, but I stayed outside, in the cold and growing dark, by the light of the almost full Blood Moon.... feeling wave after wave of emotion wash over me with the cries of the cranes.

Crane was believed to be a messenger of the spirit world, and was also seen as a psychopomp, so I said some prayers to Crane spirit as well, asking that the spirits of the deer being culled be carried to peace and light, immediately and without fear.

So.  All in all, it was a good trip.  I got to do important spiritual work that I had NO idea I would need to be doing.  

I've also had a shift in my perspective about the annual Blood Moon, which is the 13th moon of the year.  This was the time when our ancestors would cull their flocks to prepare for winter.  It was a time of death to ensure life through the cold, harsh months. 

The fields were already harvested, and so, at this time, the meat was harvested....Thus the Blood Moon. 

(This is the original meaning of the phrase Blood Moon, before the internet decided that the red phase of an eclipse is called the blood moon.)

It's not like I was directly involved in the cull, but I knew it was happening all around me, and it was my duty to be there, to intervene, spiritually, on behalf of the deer.

ANYWAY...we are home now, and the laundry is going, and I am working on the menu and shopping list.  Office day tomorrow for me, and cold weather is coming later in the week.  

Have a good week!