Never underestimate the impossible

So pheasant season opened up yesterday. As I said before...it's a really hard time for Zach. The day before he started talking about it and how much he wished he could hunt.

He had traded his buddy Jake's brother some stuff for some of his pheasants (he raises them) so that I could practice some before we went out...because I am a hunter and all. So Friday afternoon we went out with Jake and his brother Shawn to shoot them. Some of them were great but others didn't want to fly much but we had fun. I did pretty good...granted it wasn't like the real deal and they weren't trying to get away too fast.

Shawn, Jake, Hunter, and Me with all our birds

Me and the hubby...so proud!

When Saturday rolled around all Zach could talk about was pheasants. We have some awesome fields right behind are house where we see some and Zach hunts every year. So we started talking bout going out there but weren't sure how to do it with Dakota. We finally decided to have sweet Shaylee (who babysat Dakota before his accident and who still helps me with Dakotas therapy every Saturday) come over while Dakota napped since we would be close enough if anything happened. We went and picked up Zach's parents dog Sophie to help us get some birds up. She is so old now and is probably on her last hunt but she did pretty good.

She started getting pretty excited so Zach said get ready I think she is going to get one up. So we keep following her a little more and next thing you know out pops a pheasant. I shoot boom, boom, then next thing you here is Zach...boom, boom and the bird comes down. I was like...no way...Zach you got it! We run over to where it came down and sure enough...he got it!

The AMAZING hunter...carrying the bird in his hoodie...gross!

There is the bird!

When he grabbed a gun for him before we went out I joked with him...what you gonna back me up?! Sure enough he did and it is official...my blind husband is a better shot then me! :) To try and describe what Zach can see is hard but in one eye he sees nothing at all. The other eye is just shadows and outlines on the outer part of his eye. So the center of his eye is completely black. So if he looks directly at something he cant see it, so he has to look to the side of it. So he watched the bird from the side and shot at it when he couldn't see it anymore (cuz that is when he knew it was right in front of him). It was seriously so amazing and I couldn't be more proud of him. He was all smiles the rest of the night and couldn't have had more fun! That's gotta be a record or something...first blind man to shoot a pheasant!

Now all he can talk about is getting a new dog since Sophie won't be around much longer. So if anyone knows of any good springers with a good hunting background...Zach is on the prowl. :)

Funny/Sweet Moment:

1. Before Dakota's accident he LOVED Sophie dog. When we got home and let Sophie out of the car and showed her to Dakota...he got a huge smile on his face and strained his head to see her. When we brought him inside and kept talking bout Sophie he just kept smiling...like...I can't believe Sophie is at OUR house. Too cute!