Well, it’s almost that time again—when baseball, football, and hunting season all merge together and manage to take a lot of Texas men captive either to TVs or out to the deer lease for weekends. I have to admit that for many years, I never got the “Me man. You woman. Me gatherer of food. You preparer. Me provider, you go sweep the cave.” I have been known to say that if deer hunting were truly a sport, they would outfit both teams and give the deer a gun, a thermos of coffee, and a warm cammo outfit, oh, and a peep hole out of a metal box 20 feet in the air to hang out and wait in front of the feeder that he’d been luring the man to.

I finally do appreciate my man as provider and that he truly enjoys his job, especially when he is in a white shirt and tie most days. He needs friends just like I need them and let’s face it—men just don’t bond like sisters. They can hoot and holler at a box where a bunch of men chase a pigskin, but it is doubtful they would ask another man’s opinion if their behind looks too big in the cute capris, or chat about why in heaven’s name there is no place to get a good manicure. Men just save those moments for their own personal reflection, I assume. But give them a gun and a mission, and they’ll talk for hours around the campfire later that evening. Therein lies the joy, and I finally get it. Well, almost.

Mike has spent the last few months gathering all his stuff from the house to move in to his own hunter’s paradise, taking hunting gear, jackets he had personalized with his company’s name, boxes of clay pigeons for skeet shoots, and just setting up and organizing for a season of pure male bonding at our ranch, though it is still not quite ready to have overnight guests. He had his eye on a monster 15 point buck last year, but didn’t want to take it out because “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Truly if no one is there to witness this event, Mike would rather not have him, as it is only a story. Life is meant to be shared, and since men have so few ways of really bonding and feeling close, my guy wouldn’t miss that moment to relish with his best buddies. So, sharing season will start soon, and there will be many stories. I guess there are some things women just aren’t meant to fully grasp. And if Mike were writing this post, I am sure he would write about such mysteries only women understand. Yesterday, a friend of mine said it best: Isn’t it amazing how differently men and women are wired! Don’t you know when God put man and woman together, He had a little chuckle as to how it might all work out.