The winter of 1992 was another banner year for snow. The shack log has multiple entries by many of us who snowmobiled or cross-country skied in to Blue Heaven to keep the roof shoveled and have a weekend party or two. The following fall, it was once again time to level the shack and cut wood for the upcoming deer season. The shack had been built on wood and concrete block piers without any footings, and each spring it would become unleveled because of the heavy clay soil, which caused several of the piers to either sink or rise with the spring thaw. It was a constant battle but a chore that had to be undertaken or else the doors and windows wouldn’t function properly. We had to crawl under the shack, which sat only about a foot off the ground, and raise or lower certain areas with hydraulic jacks in our attempt to level it. My mother often quipped that we had the only self-cleaning table she had ever seen, because if someone accidently spilled a drink on it, the liquid would quickly run off the tabletop and onto the floor.
There were eight of us in attendance for that deer season. Although the deer in Wisconsin were reported as being plentiful, we saw very little deer sign in our area. The only deer we shot was a six-point buck, even though we possessed several hunter’s choice and bonus-deer permits. Ollie finally grew impatient and went north to hunt with some friends in the Eau Claire Lakes area, bringing back a doe for camp meat. After the season ended, the reports stated that the deer harvest in our area was down 50 percent from the previous year.
Merle didn’t attend deer camp with us that year. He was beginning to spend less and less time up at the shack during deer season, choosing instead to go to another deer camp north of us with Adder’s oldest son, Peter. Peter loved to hunt but had multiple allergies. One of those allergies was smoke from cigars and cigarettes, and the other was deer hair. Adder’s youngest son, Philip, had married a woman who also liked to hunt, so Philip opted to hunt with her and her family in the Phillips, Wisconsin, area. We knew Merle still loved Blue Heaven, but he frequently felt more relaxed hunting at a camp with only two or three other hunters and where things were more peaceful.
The following year provided no either-sex permits for hunters in our area during the deer season. Due to the low deer herd, the season was buck-only, and we all speculated that the heavy snows of the 1991–1992 winter had taken their toll on the deer and fawn population. We had very little snow on the ground for the 1993 season until Thanksgiving Day, when we finally received five inches of new snow. We hunted hard for the last weekend of the season, but we observed no deer and very few deer tracks. It was a disappointing season because we didn’t get any venison for our table, but we all still thoroughly enjoyed Blue Heaven.
One person who wasn’t having such a good time was Adder. He was beginning to show his eighty-three years that season. He no longer had any desire to leave the shack to hunt, but would instead stay behind doing a few odd kitchen chores, sitting at the table reading, or taking frequent naps. He had developed a sleep problem. He would pace around the shack in the dead of night when the rest of us were in our bunks and end up in his bunk for most of the daylight hours. We finally took him into town to his doctor to see if something could be done to correct his sleep patterns.