Monday - first day of March - first day of the last full month we'll be Montana residents - at least for this go around. Could you possibly guess what will happen 3 weeks and 1 day from tomorrow? I'm thinking that no one would guess in a million years.
JW has been very concerned about the timing of this move. Is he concerned about the weather, messing up my plans for week in AZ in April, not being ready to go by the end of March. If you guessed any of these you don't know JW at all. He is concerned that he is moving to Alaska a few months too late to apply for a non-resident hunting license. He is concerned that he cannot be a resident hunter in Alaska for one year. He is even concerned that he won't be a resident of Montana for hunting and its too late to apply for non-resident hunting here. He's a hunting addict and is absolutely going through withdrawal at the thought of not being able to hunt anywhere in 2010.
His rationalizing over the past several weeks is "How can a US citizen not be a resident somewhere to go hunting - that is just totally unconstitutional". I kept telling him - call Fish, Wildlife and Parks and see what they have to say. Finally last Friday, he did call and the lady who answered told him, "As long as you are a resident of MT when the resident licenses go on sale, you can purchase one. If you have a license when the applications for permits become available, you can apply for all hunts as a resident."
So, when do Montana hunting licenses go on sale - March 22 and you can be assurred that JW will be on line as soon as he gets up that morning to purchase his license. He is already planning when he will come down to Montana to go hunting with his nephew - I'm thinking that if he doesn't get drawn for any special hunts, he is definitely planning on spending Thanksgiving day with a rifle in hand looking for the big one that has alluded him the past twenty-ish years.
For at least the last 30 years, our lives have kind of revolved around the hunting season. You have four weeks of vacation a year - 2 of them have to be saved for hunting. We tentatively planned vacations but rarely committed to anything until after the application results came out mid-June. With all the hunting JW and I have done forever, we are both partial to wild meat. So I guess there are actually two of us who are happy that he will be hunting this year.
Now, if we can just figure out how to get all the meat in our freezer moved to Alaska - life will be good.
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