Nothing unusual about setting up decor in one’s house, a month after their wedding. It’s part of moving in and creating a home, right? I was to learn that sometimes, it is the ordinary routines which carry the most surprise.

I was standing on a chair in my upstair’s landing, when a sudden loud thump on the side of the house startled me. I turned on my precarious perch, only to see a large cock pheasant lying face down in the snow on my house eaves, 6 feet out from the window. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Did a game bird just die on the other side of this glass?!’

I tried to focus on the toole flower in my hand. The strong winter winds rushed against the house, like the thoughts swirling in my mind. It was -20 degrees outside, and my plans for the day did not include being outdoors more than I had to be. ‘Wonder if he’ll come to again and fly away? Maybe he was just injured.’

I didn’t need Wikipedia to inform me of the use for pheasant. I live in a hunting community, where many farmers and youth harvest the area’s natural meat resources. My family members have bagged pheasant, rabbit, and deer. However, Wikipedia’s description of this bird is, “The common pheasant is one of the world’s most hunted birds; it has been introduced for that purpose to many regions, and is also common on game farms where it is commercially bred. Generally they are shot by hunters employing gun dogs to help find, flush and retrieve shot birds.“

Its like this. Imagine God had offered you 4 pounds of free meat, and then stopped to see if you were industrious enough to claim it. Wouldn’t you want to pass that test??

Thirty minutes later, I had made up my mind. The bird hadn’t moved again. Wind tugged at his gorgeous glossy feathers. ‘What a shame that something so pretty had to have an abrupt, senseless end. However, I will make use of his untimely demise. He’s going to take a ride to my mom’s house, and I will butcher him and claim his meat. It would be good for me to learn how to butcher a bird!’

Prying open the window and screen, I saddled the windowsill. He was just out of reach of the scoop shovel in my hand, so I broke up the 4 inches of snow in front of him. With as much energy as I could muster, I pushed my scoop shovel! Bird and shovel slid off the roof and down to the ground. ‘Yeah! I feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder would be proud of me!’

I picked him up down below, put him in a cardboard box, and took him 8 minutes to my mom’s house. Thanks to my mom and YouTube, I learned all I need to know about butchering a pheasant! The meat soaked in salt water for a few days before I made my pheasant meal.

Steve and Annie Chapman’s Wild Game Cookbook has a great recipe for Slow-Cooker Pheasant over Rice. I found pheasant meat to be a little tougher than chicken, but very flavorful. My husband of four weeks was super proud of me for seeing an opportunity to learn and develop skills. “I wouldn’t have ever thought of butchering it! Way to go!”

As for myself, I learned how to enjoy an interruption to my ordinary day, maximize it, and recognize a story in the making when I saw it. That’s not a bad trade at all for a bird on your roof!