As days go, this was a pretty good one

Any time you get a sub-70 degree day in September (in South Carolina) it's hard to complain.  If you can spend in it a dove field, all the better.  This is almost like getting a foot of snow in these parts and we took full advantage.  Beautiful day to be outside.

Oh, and there was this:

He's two months shy of his fourth birthday and this was his first hunt.  No, he didn't shoot it.  That gun is a Daisy that doesn't load, just cocks and kicks and makes a pop.  But he went after it like he did, complete with the universal kids arm-extended-tip-of-the-wing hold.  I showed him how to fold the wings against the body and carry it and he was fine with that right up until the next bird went down.  Then it was back to the wing tip.  A couple of them got poked with the butt of his gun. Kids are funny.

I'll admit I was a bit worried how he would handle the noise given his aversion to vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers and the like.  A pair of orange ("No! Not the yellow ones, Dad") plugs coaxed into those tiny ears and he never flinched. Small victories.

There's a lot that can go wrong in a kid's lifetime.  As a parent you do everything you can to put the odds in their favor, but there's still so much beyond your control.  I know how I'd like him to turn out.  I'd like to be sitting in a field forty years from now watching him watch his son do the same thing, but there are no guarantees.  So you take days like today and enjoy the hell out of them.