This time of year, makes most of us full of outdoor project ideas and Spring delight.  We spend hours (and loads of money) on planning out our landscapes and garden designs.  We carefully select which veggies to plant and which flowers to grow.  Has the following scenario ever happened to you?

After back-breaking work in the warm sunshine, you stand up and stretch your sweat-soaked body.  You step back and enjoy the spoils of your work.  After a long day, it’s time for rest and you head to bed and dream of all the delicious vegetables growing steadily outside your window, and the handfuls of fresh cut flowers you will soon have.

As you awake to the streams of morning sunlight, you run to the window to take in an eyeful of beautiful landscaping and what do you see?

Half eaten flowers here, uprooted veggies there, trampled plants and crushed bushes.

While in your fury you may be brainstorming about deer torture devices-save yourself from an animal cruelty charge and keep reading.

This scenario happens all too often.  As we quickly invade the earth, the deer and other garden loving critters are running out of room.  They have quickly learned what delicious delights are left unattended in the gardens at night and make good use of  this all you can eat buffet.  Why not make this year, the year that the buffet closes down for good.

Short of wearing camo and stalking out the deer when they are mid-munch with your rifle (which is great when it’s hunting season!), there are few totally foolproof ways to keep critters (mostly focusing on deer) away, but join me as we explore some fantastic options.

Human Hair 

This is an age old remedy for keeping unwanted critters out of your gardens.  Take your shed hair out of your hair brush and spread it around in the trees and on the ground surrounding your garden.  The strong scent of humans is said to deter critters.  This is a free option-if you have hair to spare!

   

(Photo Credit) 

This is a store bought remedy.  This is harvested coyote urine that you spray around (not on) your garden.  The scent is supposed to deter deer.  I have not personally tried this one.

  

Store Bought 

There are endless sprays on the markets to deter unwanted critters.  Some of these are chemically created, but most are elements of garlic, putrescent eggs, and fish oils.  I would be very hesitant, despite the company’s claims of being safe for edible gardens, to spray on actual edibles.  I have tried the Liquid Fence and sprayed it on the ground surrounding the gardens.  These have been moderately successful.  I have found that most dogs love the scents that are supposed to repel deer.

The one product I have had great success with is Sweeney’s 6-Pack All Season Deer Repellent.  These are little cartridges you hang or stake into the ground.  They are filled with a scent powder that is spread throughout the air that supposedly makes deer flee. I used these religiously last year and had great success.  They are around $20 and last all season.  I have heard some not so great reports from other people’s experiences, but mine was positive.  One downside to this product is my dogs loved it.  They would find the cartridges, chew through the plastic and eat the scent powder.  Good at repelling deer-not good at repelling dogs!

   

Hot pepper spray is also a remedy some gardeners swear by.  You can purchase this, but I recommend making your own.  Here is one recipe I found: Homemade Pepper Deer Repellent Spray. 

Defensive Planting 

You can also plant in a way that hides the most delicious plants.  You can plant large bushes around the desired area, but the downside to this is it is not as aesthetically pleasing.

You can also utilize plants with strong odors to cover up the scents of the other plants the critters are after.  These include Rosemary, Parsley, Garlic, Basil, Chives, Chrysanthemum, Sage, and Elderberry-to name a few.

Dogs 

These are a good method for alerting you when deer are on your property.  Particularly if your dogs stay outside, their scent and bark will likely deter all critters.

Noise-makers and Movers 

This is a remedy I use in my gardens.  Stealthily and strategically place things that will rustle, bang, move or shake.  Last year, I put plastic bags tied to the fence posts to rustle in the evening breeze.  Many people use tin foil pie plates.  One of the reasons I have ribbon on my fence posts currently, is to create movement-and it looks very whimsical!  Deer are flight animals and will flee at any sign of danger or disturbance.

Fencing 

This is about the only nearly guaranteed method of keeping critters away from your beloved gardens.  This method is typically the most expensive, but a great investment.  Raised bed gardens are a good option for creating Fort Knox inspired areas.  The following is a picture of one of my raised beds-they have one section of the fencing that is on hooks for human access:

  

This has been totally critter proof in the years I have used it.  There is initial cost that can be pricey, but it lasts for a few years.  The area is small enough that deer won’t jump into the fenced area and secure enough rabbits can’t hop up and under.  Full instructions HERE. 

Along with fencing, is the use of netting.  I recommend using this in conjunction with your fencing, but some lower cost alternatives can be made.  For our blueberry bushes, we like to ensure that they are safe from our chickens, the local birds and deer.  We constructed a portable PVC pipe plant protector that is easily removed by a human, but safe from all critters.

We spent about $15 on each plant protector.  We measured to ensure the plant had growing room, cut the PVC pipe to make a box or rectangle shape, attached with pipe with PVC joint connectors, applied netting and secured with zip ties.  This was a fairly inexpensive and easy project.  You could even spray paint the PVC pipe to make it blend in better.

  

   

Just make sure the netting holes are big enough for bees to move in and out.

I hope some of these methods help protect your gardens and veggies this year! I would love to hear what methods you have tried in the past or are currently using.

Don’t miss any Homestead Redhead adventures, check out the full blog HERE, and like ourFacebook Page! 

Our neck 'o the woods, however rural, holds a shocking regional lack of Xmas spirit. I'm talkin' the glaring lack of reindeer - who evidently reside a LOT further North than California.

My Dad attempted to explain this fact to me; but once I espied my first stag at the tender age of five, all thoughts of "Reindeer R North' went right out the window (or, to my way of thinking - up the chimney...).

What was lacking in antler points was MORE thqan made up by the embodiment of Rudolph himself, apparently oblivious to his celebrity status, munching grass right in the San Francisco city limits out by the golf club's priced expanse of lawns.

I've been 'hooked' on deer ever since; somehow convinced that a sleighful of gifts waits just around the corner from every deer sighting.

  

Study has revealed

1. Deer are on all continents 'cept Antarctica and Australia: a fact which lends enthusiasm to the ritual opening of Deer Season on all but two continents (...and those have likely handily substituted Opening of Penguin Season and Opening of 'Roo Season, though the sleigh issue remains a special challenge at Xmas).

2. Deer can enjoy a range of habitats from tundra to rainforest.  While "clearing open areas with forests may benefit deer populations", listen and learn from my small hamlet when a new urban land buyer decided to clear two acres of scrub, trees and decades of overgrowth - and Rudolph and his marauding gang rampaged through town gardens hitherto untouched in a wanton thirst for revenge (see: the sleigh doesn't ALWAYS contain gifts!)

3. Also be warned: a deer's nose is 100 times more sensitive than ours.  Translation: adding "Deer-B-Gone" as a parameter defense to one's local garden will ONLY result in midnight revenge; NOT deer poisoning.

4. A deer's four-chambered stomach allows them to digest tough plants. As Carlos found when he bragged to the town that NO DEER would dare touch his prickly cactus plant collection - only to find a wanton midnight Rudolph Raider had struck down the LOT.

What it all boils down to is: Xmas lives in our small hamlet year-round, in the form of Raidin' Rudolph and his Merry Gang.

Our neck 'o the woods may hold no actual Reindeer - but that's simply a matter of semantics.

If you're a gardener here in Cow Country, the deer WILL not only rain on your parade: they will REIGN.

Doesn't it just SLEIGH you?

Happy holidays from The Back 40!

 

Fortunately members of the deer family now roam about everywhere in the United States. One of the down sides to the deer population is that the deer are sometimes hit on the back roads and highways.  I can speak from experience that even a small
deer can cause significant auto damage and sadly most deer that are hit die.

In my area, mule deer, white tailed deer and antelope are all residents. Traveling to the mountains means the white tail deer and
antelope are not present but even larger elk or moose can be encountered. How can we enjoy the wildlife and not have these encounters?

One of the best strategies is to keep wildlife in mind and be particularly watchful in wooded areas, near streams and where deer crossing signs are posted. Of course the deer could care less about the signage but such signs are often posted where many car and animal collisions and near collisions have occurred.  Mornings and evenings are prime times for collisions because the animals are active and the vision is less clear.

Besides considering the surroundings there are some strategies to use for avoiding collision with wildlife. Many people describe
collisions with deer as, “the deer jumped in front of me”. Recently when driving at night, I saw a doe and two half grown fawns. True to their character, they took a long time to decide which side of the road and then which side of the fence they wanted to escape to. I slowed down and let them make their decision without pressure. Usually a group of deer will stay together but it is hard to predict what their plan is. The expression, “like a deer in the headlights” may have some validity. Some deer seem to panic whether because of the lights or the motion.

Many times antelope are more wary than deer. Certainly they are less likely to use cover and are as likely to be encountered along a wide open stretch of highway as anywhere. Like deer, they will usually stay in a group. Unlike deer, they rarely seem to be about during the night, although it is not unknown. The dangers with antelope on a road are due to their habit of crawling under fences as opposed to leaping over them. A fence that would appear to be an easy leap for them to make, may seem like an obstacle and they
will stop and mill around or crawl under it. Another habit that is dangerous is their tendency to determine their course and stick with it. While it sounds easier to avoid collision than when dealing with the flighty deer, antelope may determine that their path is across the road and even the presence of traffic doesn’t always deter them. If you see them on the road or even running toward the road, stop. Their definition of right away only applies to them! Elk and moose on the highway are definitely something to be aware of when driving in the mountains. These are very large animals and their long legs may put the bulk of their weight at windshield height with a potential for disastrous accident.  

 As homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and breeders of livestock, we have a “thing” about animals deep inside us. For some of us it’s our passion. My mother has always told me my first word was “horse” and with my father raised on a farm, it’s a safe guess that this is the reason I have this passion.  

 

 

    

Faylene as a newborn 

Back in 1999 I had a call from a frantic woman. She had watched a doe (White Tail) give birth in the woods beside her house. Boy, what I wouldn’t give to see that! The problem was, she had a set of triplets and the doe left with 2 of them in tow. She went out to see a little-bit-of-a-thing trying to stand up but was having a hard time. She remembered I had dairy goats and gave me a call. As I was hanging the phone up, I was telling the kids to get in the truck, I had a surprise! With a dog create in the back we were looking at the little fawn within minutes. She was so small that she walked right through the 4” square horse panels. Oh my, this was going to be very interesting. Of course teaching my son & daughter that she was not going to be a pet was another thing.

  

Sarabi & Faylene at 6 months old 

From the first time I saw the movie, “Born Free”, I wanted to grow up to be Joy Adams. To this day, it’s my favorite movie of all time & yes, I still cry at the end. Ok, I know I really don’t want to deal with lions but what better than a baby deer, who wouldn’t see me as lunch?

  

Faylene, 6 months old 

I wanted to give her the start she needed in her life but not have an adult deer eating my roses and garden. Good thing she took the
bottle right away and even though it was goat colostrums it was not an issue for her. I figured if she was not bottle fed, it would be better for her when it was time to leave and be the magnificent deer that God intended her to be. I didn’t want to be her “mamma”. Ok, I did, but knew it would be best for her if I wasn’t. 

  

Faylene sneaking feed 

This brought on a new thought, I have the Alpine’s, they give milk, I have a fawn, she needs milk, soooo, why can’t she just nurse the goat and the bottle issue would be solved? One of my doe’s (goat) had been a nurse goat to many kids that were not hers. After a night in the house, in the dog crate, and me feeding Faylene (say it with a Southern accent) every 1.5 hours through the night, oh, yes, she needs to nurse a goat on demand.

  

Sarabi & adopted ''kids''. Yes, with kitten under foot. 

Sarabi was the doe of choice and never had a problem letting Faylene nurse her. They were adopted mom & daughter from the start and if you didn’t know that was a fawn out in the barnyard, you’d think Sarabi gave birth to her. No one would ever think of being mean to Faylene as her “mom” was the lead doe after all. It warmed my heart every day to see this little family develop. There were daughters of Sarabi in the herd and they all slept together at night with Faylene tucked beside her “mom”.  

A few days later when it looked like she was going to survive, I called the Humane Society here in town. I knew the manager well and told her I had the fawn. She was happy as there were not many wild life rehabilitators for deer in our county. She would tell the game warden for me. I was hoping he wouldn’t take her but as it turned out he was thrilled that I wasn’t bottle feeding her. There are classes for rehabbers that each state conducts and I’d have to go through that if I wanted to continue doing this. Of course I did! 

So, we were all set to raise Faylene and she was thriving. By the time she was 6 months old her spots had faded and she did blend in well with the goat herd. When she decided to start jumping fences, I figured she had good instincts. There are woods across the road from us and many times I’d see her head there for the night.

One day while I was out in the front yard weeding the flower beds and the water sprinkler was on, something caught my eye and there she was, standing so still, looking like a statue in the front yard. What a moment to enjoy, then a split second later I was laughing so hard at the deer that was trying her best to stomp the water coming from the sprinkler.  

She had also become the leader of the herd when it came to going out to the pastures. She would tell the goats to stay back while she went out to see if it was Ok to go. I remembered Bambi’s mom doing it and to see it in real life was amazing. They must have had a way of communicating as the goats trusted her.

By this time it was getting close to kidding season again and Sarabi was always the first one to kid. Faylene was weaned and I have no idea when that happened as I sure didn’t try putting her in the weaning pen. As Sarabi never kidded without me there, the day came and we were in the barnyard waiting but she was acting odd. She didn’t want to lye down and kept looking across the road toward the woods. Yup, she was waiting for Faylene and called for her. Within minutes I heard the sound I had come to know as her screech and over the fence she bounded and a second later over the barnyard fence and she was beside mom. Sarabi was content now and went to working on giving birth to her twins. Faylene helped her clean them off.

I don’t know if this was a lesson for her when she was to have her first baby but that’s how I see it. It was obvious that Faylene was
rather plump and it was 2 months later when she showed up at the kitchen door. She had been gone for a few weeks and I had looked for her a few times.  The homework I had done about deer taught me that their gestation is 7 months while a goat has 5. It was obvious that she had had her baby. I looked at her udder and it was wonderful. I was surprised deer have 4 teats like cows do.

Then, I had a Lassie moment. She didn’t want me to go back to the house. I was to follow her and she kept making sure I was. The fence that she floated over was not so easy for me but I did get through it with only 2 scratches from the barbed wire. She was bringing me to her fawn. OH, I wanted to touch it so bad. Tears were rolling down my face. “Born Free” came to mind and I really knew I couldn’t touch it. This was a wild animal and so was her mom now. I hugged Faylene and she licked my neck, not kidding. She was what God wanted her to be and I had a part in it.

  

Faylene & her fawn 

As the years passed she would return every year on Father’s Day, not kidding here either, and have her fawns with her. She’d come to the barnyard and show Sarabi her “kids”. They would play with the goat kids for a short time. She never left without letting us see her babies and every time I watched her leave a part of me went with her.

In the fall of 2010 I was watching a deer that was in the 80 acres behind my house. She had been standing in the same spot for 2 hours looking toward the barnyard. I kept checking every half hour to see if she was still there. I grabbed the camera and went out to see if I could get closer to get a picture of her. I never thought it would be the deer that loved to stomp water & took me to see her first baby. There was a fence between us and she would not come to me. By this time we had added 3 Great Pyrenees to protect the herd so she wouldn’t come closer. When I focused the camera, I noticed her right ear had been torn. The same as Faylene had when she was learning to jump fences years back. Her age was really showing but she had made it past eleven years of
hunting seasons and produced many offspring to her credit. I also understood I’d never see her again but I smiled for this gift she had given me. She is also on my web site with Sarabi, www.milkmaidranch.com.

  

Sarabi isn't the only goat that would adopt fawns. 

I have to add here that even though this is a remarkable thing in a person’s life, it’s not for someone that doesn’t respect animals.
Wild animals are wild animals. Faylene needed help, as have all the baby deer I’ve helped over the years. Some did not grow up and leave and that’s what was meant to be. Yes, some did die as babies. They are not ever penned up but with the herd and went out and came in with the herd. They leave when they want to and when that time is near, it’s what’s best for them. They don’t belong to me but to God, if He uses me to give them a start in life, then its fine with me.

Please, if you ever come across a baby deer, keep in mind that the mother does know where it is. Don’t disturb it, mom will be back. If you don’t see a doe dead near the road, you don’t know she was killed. I can’t say how many of them I’ve had that the person thought it was abandoned and mom was not around. YES, she was, you just didn’t see her. They are the color they are for a reason, so you don’t see them & it works. The doe usually will keep twins away from each other so if one is caught by a predator, the other one has a better chance to make it. She will spend her time going between them so they can nurse. She can stash one up to a mile away from the other. In time, when they get some speed to them, is when she’ll bring them together. BUT, if you do see one for a couple days & it’s weak, call the local Humane Society as they know how to handle them and will contact a rehabilitator. 

When we bought our country home we were warned about The Wildlife. Town legends had arisen about their powers. I.e.: the deer will EAT ALL OF YOUR 2.5 ACRES, the possums HAD TEETH , loved to invade garages, and WOULD EAT YOU, and ALL the raccoons were Rabid. Just a few of the un-urban legends around our small hamlet, Bloomfield.

So when Bambi first made her appearance, tentatively discovering that our house was the ONLY one in the neighborhood without a huge ‘Barkeybark’ (dog, in my lingo), she in turn was Very Polite. Bill pointed out that deer are browsers. They take generous nibbles and move on. In no way was his prized rosebushes in danger (unlike that underground denizen the Pocket Gopher, who took pride in sucking a 5-year-old fig tree into its Hole of Doom).
 

Bambi, Bill's Other Woman 

My husband Bill (a.k.a. The Peanut Gallery) spoke Bambi’s language. (Indeed, he is the quintessential Wild Animal Whisperer.) They all listened – and all the deer moved on. We had Daily Deer, all of which seemed intent on just appetizer-sized nibbles as they flicked ears to Bill's gentle mantra “Hello – umm - thou shalt NOT eat ALL” (…I’d never heard the traditional ‘om’ convert so easily to ‘Ummm’ before)

One day Buck the Buck came by for a visit. BuckyBuck. He was large. He was majestic in size and antlers. And like many a large, majestic male – he was also RUDE.

BuckyBuck The Rude One 

Shrubbery began to vanish.

Rosebushes featuring their first blushing rose of the season were later found headless. (….I was repeatedly accused of harvesting petals for my salads until Bill personally observed BuckyBuck decimating one of his favorite bushes whilst staring defiantly in the living room window, displaying an obvious middle finger on the deer’s part.)

Rude Eating at Table 

What could we do?

The Deer Patrol took care of it for us. Or maybe Bill did. When Bambi came by for her usual visit later, Bill began a dialogue with her.

Bill (siigh): LOOK at this! (waving to  Headless Rose [nee Prize of Season])

Bambi looked. I could swear she too sighed.

Bill (admonishing): I know you had nothing to do with this…but I simply can’t have this. (pause) I shall have to buy a LARGE BARKEYBARK if this continues.

I swear, Bambi’s eyes widened. Her ears stopped flicking and she stood stock still, stunned by the specter of her best human friend turning on her. She appeared to contemplate the possibilities for a moment, then turned and elegantly walked away, tiptoeing carefully among Bill’s prized garden flowers.

A few hours later, I had to call Bill to the back window.

BuckyBuck was out there in all his pompous rude glory. Surrounded by 5 female deer.

Bill (authoritatively): It must be Rutting Season, and he’s there with His Women.

Me: But, look: they’re moving as a unit towards the driveway!

And we watched, open-mouthed, as five female deer and a majestic, rude male clip-clopped down our driveway to our property’s boundary line and continued moving into the sunset.

Rut?? NOT - Escort Service! 

It wasn’t Rutting Season. It was an escort service.

The perp had been apprehended, lectured in Deer, and summarily escorted off our property.

Buckybuck never returned. We saw him around town and I have no idea what was threatened (“no sex” always works, with rude males), but whatever it was…Buckybuck never again showed antlers on our property and life returned to normal.

Never under estimate the power of a woman to get her way.

The knives come out again, and handy hubby begins the sharpening ritual. This time the beast to butcher is not an ugly feral pig but a spectacularly graceful deer, maybe the very same one I gaze at often from my office window. I am forced to deal anew with my own hypocrisy and those attitudes and habits born of convenience.

The “cute” animals, why is it so much harder to eat them? Why don’t we consider dogs or horses to be fair game at the table while other cultures do? Why do so many more people eat and enjoy turkey, than say, rabbit? Rabbit meat is delicious, taste kind of like ... chicken.

We don’t have many deer around here, not nearly as many as you would think, and I wonder why that is. I’ve seen more deer grazing in the suburbs of the east coast than I have ever witnessed on the vast acreage and sprawling countryside of all East Texas. Is that because we are over-hunting them? Or because they don’t appreciate sharing their wilderness space with cattle? Or because the coyote take down too many of their young? Or are there just as many of them hidden from sight – necessarily more wary of humans out here than those in the east coast suburbs who know they won’t get shot?

Hours, days, yes, ok, an entire lifetime could go by ruminating over such questions, which always take me back again to why I consider these issues over the plight of the cute deer, but not of the ugly pig?

Once I’ve had enough of such mental flagellation, I relate these thoughts to handy hubby: I know he will put it all into perspective for me. His eyes screw up after my five minute soliloquy where I again repeat maybe I should not eat animals, I am not willing to kill many of them or even see them killed. It is terribly hypocritical, and I should be ashamed that I can live my life in such a way! There’s no logic to eating the ugly animals only, so evidently the only logic is to eat none of them.

The vultures and crows are squawking “die, die, die” as they circle over the deer’s entrails. Handy Hubby listens absent-mindedly while carrying in parts of the carcass. When I am at last done and leave a space for his reply, he cocks his head back over his shoulder, a hind quarter balanced on the other one, and he says, “So because I have no interest, aptitude, will, or sense for growing cucumbers, I better stop eatin’ ’em, it sounds like, and by your kind of logic I have to give up veggies in general?” He LOVES a good broccoli almost as much as he loves a good steak.

Hmmm? Moral issue aside, he does have a point there. Doesn’t he? Well, he at least presented a whole new side to the argument I had never before considered.

Ah, handy hubby, thank God there’s men like you to keep women like me from analyzing ourselves to death.

I have to get this story over with. I never dislike writing, however, I dislike thinking about the 11-point whitetail deer I shot late last Thursday evening and never recovered, at least not yet.

At least I think it was an 11-point. The previous Sunday I’d been out sitting in a platform stand at GRIT Editor Hank Will’s house, a windy day for that platform stand, when just before the sun went down I heard footsteps coming out of the forest behind me on my right side.

Hiding my face, I turned and eyed a 6-pointer lazily grazing towards my tree. I’d just made up my mind to take him and was thinking about how to get a shot, when he lowered his head and started making a scrape in the earth to lay scent. That noise triggered another noise, slow, deliberate footsteps coming out of the timber. When a large buck caught my eye, I buried my face, tried to turn and prayed for enough daylight.

Once the larger, older, 11-point buck got to about 20 yards, he met the younger buck. They postured for about 3 seconds, and the smaller buck slowly backed off and headed to the timber, no doubt sure about whose area he was on.

If I’d have been a lefty, I’d have had a shot, but by the time the big buck made his own scrape and grazed his way behind me, now swinging to my left, there was not enough light left to see his vitals. I sat back and waited for the deer to leave before crawling out of my stand. It took about an hour, as more does and, judging by sound and the faint white of antlers I could make out, the 6-point came back near my stand. It was an awesome display of wildlife, and I was very thankful to get to observe it. Once it was clear, I stood, gathered my things and climbed down, completely psyched that this place was crawling with deer. It was a great hunt.

Which brings me to Thursday. I’d just finished “Nature’s Hidden Language” (a signs-of-wildlife article for the January/February issue of GRIT) and was headed back out to the woods at about 3:30 in the evening. Once in stand, I had one of those “Nowhere I’d rather be moments” and began glassing the land with my binoculars.

At about 4:30 (sun goes down around 6 now here in Kansas), a single fawn made its way from the timber behind me and walked right under me, emerging in the clearing out in front of where I sit (and most times stand).

Once out in the open, I saw a large doe (presumably the fawn’s mother) jump a fence and head towards it. They had probably 5 seconds alone together when the big buck – I think that same 11-point – jumped over the same fence and headed in towards the doe and fawn, trying to shoo away the fawn. After doing so he took to the trail that heads under my stand, grazing at a pace that seemed rather careless. At 10 yards and heading away, I drew back, praying that the arrow flew true and the deer would die quickly.

At about 20 yards, I steadied on the vitals, the deer was quartered away – a dream shot for a bowhunter – and released the arrow. It thumped him, halfway (up-to-down) on his body and a good three to four inches behind the shoulder, right in the bread basket (it would go forward once inside because of the angle) and, to this day, I still think a good shot.

I’ve never felt a better feeling, a great deer, good shot, now I just had to wait and go get him. After climbing down 30 minutes later and inspecting the impact site, I dialed my brother and other friends and began walking for the truck. “Let him stay the night” seemed to be the consensus, so after talking to Hank I headed home. The reason for not going after him right away was to avoid jumping him up and making him run for miles on adrenaline out of panic. I hoped he’d just go bed down and die a quick death.

At 6 the next morning on not much sleep, at daylight here, I was back out at the site, seeing no arrow but good blood. I’d seen the buck run off with the arrow still lodged, so I figured he would internally bleed until the hemorrhaging from the lung wound would end his life.

Good blood, no deer. I trailed it as far as I could, about 125 yards from impact, and lost blood. Hank has about 125 acres at his place, and I walked each and every one that I could that day, and then looked on some of the neighboring property.

My brother and one of his buddies from back home, both knowing what I was going through, brought up a hunting dog to cover the 60 acres of 6-feet-tall CRP on Hank’s land. They drove 4 hours, roundtrip, to help me recover this deer, which tells you how much they knew this deer meant to me and what awesome friends they are.

I searched Friday sunup to sundown, and never found my buck. Hank said he heard two gun shots at 3 a.m. My only explanation is that he never died or was poached.

And that’s the worst part about the sport I love so much; that’s bowhunting. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I may yet shoot a big buck this season, but I sure did love that buck. I’d seen him a total of three times, each time closer, and in the back of my mind I hope to see him again. I’m still sick over that deer. It sounds awfully romantic, but no creature on God’s green earth loved that deer as much as I did.

I hunted again Saturday morning, which helped, but I’m eager to get back in that same stand, with that same set of woods around me, sort of my way of getting back in the saddle.

On a positive note, my brother who I mentioned earlier – one of my best friends and one of the people who drove four hours for me and my deer – made me feel proud and altogether happy about bowhunting last night when he shot this tall 8-point, which green-scored 132.

Photo second from top: iStockphoto.com/Bruce MacQueen – This is not the deer I saw or shot, it's just to give you an idea.

Bottom photo: courtesy Josh Regan, taken by Adam LaRoche

Every morning when I wake up, I do some mental sorting out – usually along the lines of remembering that I am alone now in the house, thinking of things I have to do like grocery shop and work related duties. Before I could not do this because the minute my eyes would fly open, my dogs would be awake and to prevent having to clean up accidents, I would have jump into some clothes of any description, find shoes, tear down the stairs, snap leashes on their necks and then open the door barely in time to keep Ms. Manchester from piddling on the floor in the hallway. About a year ago I started putting all three dogs into crates at night, not sharing my bed with them, and we have ALL been sleeping better. I have time to get properly dressed (if you count striped pj bottoms and a sweatshirt) and control the stampede down the stairs. There have been LOTS fewer accidents.

This morning was no different – a little sniffling about the alone situation, happy dogs excited about another day here in heaven, and out the door to greet the day. It’s been raining for days but this morning the grass was lush and green, the sky was bright, and, all in all, it was a good way to wake up.

Because of some construction, we (me and the dog-tourage) go out the front door – Big American Bull Dog on a pink leash, Little Manchester on a blue leash, Old Jack Russell NOT on a leash. The control of the dogs on the leashes is a fanciful ballet of high kicks and slipped discs. OJR can not be on a leash because of his terrible accident as a puppy when he was kicked by one of the horses and survived a head injury, which left him with short term memory loss and small seizures. Don’t feel bad for him – he wakes up every day in this Dog Heaven and says to himself HEY WE HAVE A BARN! and it’s all gravy from there. But he can not wear a leash because even if we put the thinnest gossamer thread of a leash on him, the minute we attach it to his collar he falls over. We don’t know why, but it’s not funny any more so we just try to keep track of him. The other two – well, they have bad habits that involve chasing livestock or attacking animals larger than themselves and need the control til they get to the fenced dog play yard.

As I have said, this morning we leave the front door without incident (by the time you get to the bottom of this post you will be wondering WHY at that very minute I did not KNOW something was WRONG – having Three Very Active Noses working) and head to the dog play yard. The goats are in their adjacent play yard, and there is some fence jousting and threats and intimidation on both sides but it never goes anywhere. Big Yellow Horse and Big Brown Horse give a glance and head for the pasture. Ripper and the grandkids usually arrive to catch the bus before I get out, and they let the chickens out (again, you are going to wonder why THEY didn’t alert us). The Ugly White Rooster is on top of the chicken house crowing. An idyllic morning. Picture Perfect. Quiet.

Daughter-In-Law is out on the lawn with Youngest Grandson ready for the bus. He does his chicken count, DIL and I exchange bleary good mornings and lean over the fence watching the dogs and the goats and the horses and the chickens, and in general, accessing the very good life that God has given us. We go back in THE FRONT DOOR (again, completely clueless as to what is around us) and sit on the sofa and start to wonder why the traffic is going past the house sooooo sllllooowwwly.

In fact, I remark on it. “Look, that car is going past the house realllllly sloooowly.”

DIL says, “Of course it is. Our house looks like crazy people live here – with all the construction, with the bucket truck stuck in the porch like a permanent fixture, I am sure there are people for whom a highlight of any given weekday morning is checking out the latest crazy crap that is going on here blah blah blah ...“ My attention is momentarily diverted to the TV where they have just announced that the average woman eats an 450 extra calories between Friday evening and Sunday night. 450? That’s like ten calories an hour. Big deal.

I am pulled back into conversation with DIL when she says something about having to pick up a trumpet for Youngest Grandson. I say, I thought he played the violin. She says, NOW he wants to play the trumpet so she has to go to Reading to pick this trumpet up, and she wants to know if I can go with her because she doesn’t know where she is going.

I say, Use your GPS. She says, Well, somehow a penny got down the cigarette lighter thingie and shorted it out, and she can’t plug the GPS I gave her for her birthday in.

I said, I thought My Son Your Husband fixed that. She says, He did. But it happened again. Sigh.

I have a business appointment at 11 am, so I can’t go to Reading to pick up a trumpet, but I suggest that she go to my car (parked next to the front door because it was raining so hard when I got home the day before I just pulled it up on the lawn), plug my GPS in, and then it will be charged and she can take it with her when she leaves.

Another car crawls by the front of the house.

DIL says that is a great idea and goes out the front door. I go to get a cuppa tea. Seconds later, she is back in and says ...

“I don’t know how to say this. Get your shoes on and come outside.”

Through the window I can see another car slowing down and then speeding up, and the driver shaking his head.

I say, “No.”

She says, “Get your camera, get your shoes on and come outside.”

She sees me hesitating and knows I am going to need to know something, anything, that will help me walk the twenty four feet from my kitchen to the front door and out to see the thing that requires shoes and a camera.

She says, “There is a dead deer stuck under your car.”

Well, now. It’s not a horse, it’s not a dog. Thank God it’s not a child. Not pleasant. But not a tragedy. (For those of you NOT from this area, deer are like rats with antlers, wandering around roadways, killing innocent drivers, causing untold millions of dollars worth of property damage, spreading lyme disease, ruining crops. Our native deer are three times the size of the ones our forefathers found when they came to this country, because most of them are cornfed scavengers.)

We walk out together and sure enough, there is a deer stuck under my car. Not just any deer. The BIGGEST, HUGEST, MALE DEER I have ever seen. In perfect condition. With one, two, three, OH MY GOD seven points! (How you measure antlers.) A spread of about eighteen inches. She says, “This wasn’t here when you parked last night, was it?” Just the first of many questions I will be asked about this situation which will give me insight into what people think I am capable of.

No. It was not there when I parked my car last night. And, NO, even though the bedroom where I sleep is under thirty feet from this scene, I didn’t hear anything. And furthermore, doesn’t she think I would have MENTIONED it?

Best guess, someone ELSE hit the poor thing and it was thrown or projected off the roadway into my car. And even though like most things in life there are no answers, and since neither of us are really sure what we are supposed to do at this moment, we wander around it, look at it from a lot of different angles, talk a lot of speculation and take a lot of pictures. We make our best guesses regarding the bloating of the corpse and turgidity and the time of death (DIL practically grew up in a funeral parlor and I watch a lot of court tv so we both can make pretty educated hunches). We look for drag or hoof prints in my soggy lawn. We count those antler points. We wonder WHY the dogs didn’t react to several hundred pounds of fresh roadkill virtually beneath their noses. And then we start making the phone calls and sending the pictures.

DIL calls My Son, sends him a picture to prove she’s not hallucinating, and he says he is on his way. (As wife, she trumps mother when it comes to giving news.) She calls her brother-in-law, Hunter/Gatherer and sends him a picture. She calls her father, also Hunter/Gatherer. He doesn’t have a phone that will accept pictures, but he runs around his workplace finding someone who can get an email – because you just can’t have this happen without sending pictures. So we send him a picture. All these Hunter/Gatherers have been sitting in tree blinds freezing their asses off for years to bag a specimen like this, and I have one thrown on to my lawn. The irony escapes no one.

I call my appointment and leave a long, confusing and absurdly neurotic message about deer and my car and I can’t move it and not being able to put time constraints on this situation so I will have to call them later to reschedule. Patient And Amused Male Business Partner calls coincidentally to discuss something entirely different, and when I explain I can’t move the car because of the dead deer stuck under it, he says, “Well, it’s already dead. Just back up. You can’t really hurt it now.” This makes me gag for about three minutes, and he hangs up, saying he will call back later – I told him I would send him the pictures so he can understand the situation better.

And then my phone rings and it’s Wonderful Neighborwoman. She says, “Rodeo, Did you shoot that thing?”

I say, “Noooooo.” We have a very intense conversation about when she went by she thought I shot it or that I hit it or that I something’d it. That maybe the Crazy Cat Lady next door put it there. That makes us both laugh.

Meanwhile DIL is arranging to have the deer taken away, which is something I haven’t even thought of. I tell her I want the antlers. I want them mounted. I explain that God gave me the deer, and I want those antlers over my fireplace, right above my rifle (which I have never used to shoot anything), and I want to be able to point at them and tell the story over and over for years.

She says, “You are not keeping that deer. You know what will happen. That head will just go in the freezer and never come out.”

Meanwhile, My Son Her Husband arrives at the very second that a flatbed truck with an earthmover pulls off the road just feet from the deer. A skinny young man in a John Deere (!) hat asks, Hey, can I have that deer?

My Son says, Yes. I say, No.

My Son says, You don’t want that deer. No one will take it away if they can’t have the head. And you know what will happen, that head will go in the freezer and never come out.

You leave a couple of animal bodies in the freezer for a couple of months and your family never lets you forget it.

I feel genuinely sad as my son and this stranger drag the deer out from under the car and put it on the flat bed. The stranger is beyond excited. That cheers me a little. I hope he makes up a huge hunter’s lie about how he got this magnificent beast’s head.

All the excitement is over, and DIL and I adjourn to the kitchen table and are astounded at how two hours have past. Not only past, but we know this is not how most people have spent their morning. As My Son was leaving he shook his head and said, “You have to stop doing this. Things like this keep happening. Really.” He wasn’t blaming us, but the thought was not lost on us. We start trying to figure out why we have one domestic episode after another. We worry about what will happen tomorrow. DIL distances herself a little by reminding me that until she and My Son took what is now approaching custodial care of me, they lived a very tame life. She swears months would go by without anything happening. I need to come clean with you all and tell you that I don’t put one TENTH of the daily, unusual, crazy, unpredictable, bizarre things that happen here down in writing because frankly a lot of the times I am embarrassed because if I did, it would speak to the out of control, random direction my life takes ninety percent of the time, and no one would let me hug their children or pet their dogs for fear of some cosmic intervention that would wreak havoc on the innocents in proximity to me. I say to DIL, “While everyone is laughing, I am thinking I need some kind of chi-cleaning or something. Like an exorcism.”

She says, “We need a Priest.”

I say, “I was thinking of something more like an Asian spiritual monk, someone who would smudge smoke over me and waft away the evil spirits.”

DIL says, “Oh, no Rodeo. You need a Priest. They scare the crap out of Demons. You don’t want some Asian spiritual monk that just makes friends with it.”

Oh, Heck NO! We wouldn’t want THAT! Or maybe I would. Or maybe, this is the last time something like this will happen, as Karma or God or whoever moves on to amuse themselves with someone else.

The garden project has moved a couple of steps forward. I worked pond muck, composted wood and leaves into the soil and we have built to first box for the raised beds. Our neighbors think we are nuts to assume that we’re going to keep the deer out. But at the same time, we have no shortage of advice on how to do it. And the solutions range from building a fortress to relying on scent alone.

The first person we talked to insisted that we need welded wire fencing to 4 feet, then 3 strands of electrical wire above, to a total height of 8 feet. He also told us to install 5-post corners. Wait a minute! We’re starting this year with about 600 square feet of garden! If we put in 5-post corners, plus a gate, all of the space would be filled with wire and wood, and that’s not what I was planning to eat this summer.

A friend of ours has a garden every year, and he lives pretty close. The difference in our parcels is that he is surrounded by cornfields and we are in a natural area, so deer already have some pretty good stuff to eat to keep them away from his garden. He just uses regular 5-foot metal posts and a 2-wire electrical fence and it works well for him. Actually, he has another line of defense as well. He lets his garden go “au natural”. I remember him trying to find me a zucchini and he couldn’t even find the plant in the midst of all the weeds, so it’s possible that deer get so tangled in the garden underbrush that they just give up trying to find the vegetables.

I was looking over a farm supply catalogue, and they were advertising the bright orange plastic mesh as deer fencing. Seems to me that if you wanted to protect some trees that this might be a deterrent, but it would surprise me if that would keep out any deer that really wanted to get into a garden. The other thing I’ve heard it if you use high test fishing line, it makes an invisible barrier, and since the deer can't see it but can feel it, it spooks them and they stay away.

Talking about invisible barriers, our neighbor just two lots away claims that all you have to do is mix a couple of eggs in water each week and pour it around the perimeter. According to him, this creates a scent barrier that will keep deer away. All I can say, is that I’ve spent a ton on bloodmeal in the past and it never stopped anything from munching on what was supposed to be the fruits of my labor.

Unless I hear differently from someone else, I’m going with the 2-wire electrical. If I have to let the weeds grow and just stay in my hammock all summer, well, it would be a sacrifice but I’m sure I’d be up to the task.

Venison Chili Trial One went over well last night. It’s hard to say if it was more the quality of the meat or the mixture of ingredients I used, but the combination of the two made some dang-good chili. I do know this: Even though I didn’t shoot a big, old buck this year, last night’s meal – and today’s lunch, actually – made me very thankful for doe meat in the freezer.

I’d planned on using a Southern Venison Chili recipe, but once I got into the grocery store, the amount of green pepper – it calls for one large green bell pepper, cut in strips – and the inclusion of 2 tablespoons of sugar kind of turned me off to it.

So I kind of combined that recipe with another one to arrive at the one below. The only problem is, I estimate and add a little of this, a little of that when I cook – no matter my intention – taste as I go and make adjustments, so this is only my best guess as to what was in that chili.

The Amateur’s Venison Chili

1 ½ pounds ground venison
½ large white onion, diced
½ large green bell pepper, diced
2 tablespoons cumin seed spice
3 tablespoons chili powder
8 ounces tomato sauce (I went with the Kroger brand, inexpensive, and already peeled and in juice – “Chili Ready”)
8 ounces water
½ cup light-red kidney beans
½ cup ketchup

Now bear with me.

First, you obviously brown the meat.

You can sauté the onion and green pepper while you do this, but mine turned out tender and cooked enough in the end without doing so. The reason I didn’t is because I forgot – kind of a shaky start – and was in too big of a hurry to see how much grease the meat would make. It was very lean ground meat … just what I’d hoped for. After I diced the onion and green pepper – I didn’t have a knife for dicing so I was using my skinning knife that I hadn’t used since the GRIT sharpening experience – I added it to the halfway-browned venison.

Sometimes I feel like I get into some intense situations when I’m cooking.

After the meat had completely browned, I added the cumin spice and chili powder. Then I emptied tomato sauce and water in, added the kidney beans and hoped for the best (i.e., hoped the vegetables would cook to tender). On medium heat, I let the mixture simmer for 1 hour, tasted it, added some ketchup and somehow it turned out really good. Gwendolyn Marie did say she snuck in some more of the spices.

The whole thing was rather fun, despite my methods.

I’ve got plenty more meat, so the next venison-cooking experience for me will either be another chili recipe, or Lori’s homemade Summer Sausage recipe. Her recipe can be found at the bottom of this blog post. I’ll let you know how that one goes.

Anybody else this hectic in the kitchen? I feel like I’m in the weeds most times.

Bottom photo by Gwen Salmon.

Now that late doe season is over, and bow hunting season all together has effectively come to a close, stories pop up and hunters’ imaginations tend to run crazy. During the season, almost two months ago, I was emailed a photo of a man from Baldwin, Kansas, who by his own account was headed to pick up his son for an evening hunt when he happened upon one of the biggest and oldest-looking deer I’ve ever seen.

Since Baldwin is close to Lawrence, where I live – it’s true, I’m an urbanite trying to return to the country – this story was more than any of my friends could believe; even friends who’ve never hunted.

The story finally ran in the Lawrence Journal-World seemingly a good two weeks after word was out.

In two weeks, as is typical with hunting stories, Bambi could reach full maturity and be a Pope & Young buck.

In this case, the picture doesn’t lie and, depending on how the rack shrinks (or shrunk, by now), this deer could make the record books.

To me and my friends, though, it brought up age determination in whitetails.

Part of it is looks. Gray faces and the way a mature buck’s neck connects with the sternum – bucks at less than full maturity will have a noticeable bump where the neck hasn’t fully grown into the sternum; mature bucks will have no such bump – can give you an estimate that, for me, I trust about as good as a hunch. But spike bucks have never been on my radar, and once you’re in a stand the end-all, be-all is the size of the rack.

I have hunted on my cousin’s ground now for a few years, and since he's one of the Buckmen, of Buck Commander (Adam), he often describes deer that are off limits, either because they are still young despite the size of their rack, or because he wants the hunt on which those deer are taken to be recorded, possibly for a Buck Commander DVD.

That’s understandable, and I’m just always extremely thankful for the hunt.

Anyway, age determination in whitetail deer is one thing at which I’d like to improve. Finally, Wildlife Analytical Laboratories has formed www.DeerAge.com to help people determine the age of deer.

The only problem with this is their process offers little in the way of determining age before you put an arrow into the vitals.

Their method uses something called forensic cementum annuli aging, and they claim it is one of the most accurate ways to determine exact age. The process works a lot like determining the age of a tree by counting the rings in the trunk; wildlife teeth can be stained, and different layers of growth form annually, so these folks are able to determine exact age.

What that could do in the way of whitetail age determination is allow hunters to shoot a deer, send them the proper teeth – front two center incisors – have them age it, and learn by a sort of trial and error method. The cost of doing this is $19.95 for the kit you take into the field, and then anywhere from $19.95 to $49.95, depending on the package, for the test results. Also, when getting a deer mounted, I think it would be cool to have an age certificate hanging beside the mount. They’ll send you that for $15. All packages do take over a month to reach you.

Of course, I just need to get that mount first. In what limited time I did have on weekends this hunting season, I managed a doe, which I was thankful for. But I wouldn't classify my season as a success. Like others, I still want that huge, ancient buck that has roamed the forest and managed to survive for 4½ or more years. Or maybe I just want to be tested more than anything else, to have an old, experienced deer right on me, with the chance to screw it up.

A little over a month ago, the editorial team here at GRIT was engaged in a fairly spirited debate – they usually are spirited in my experience – regarding the proper manner in which knives are sharpened.

The discussion stemmed from one of the pieces in the January/February issue of GRIT, entitled, “How to Have the Sharpest Knife in Your Drawer,” written by Tom Larson.

Although a couple of us had sharpened knives before, the difficulty arose with trying to craft the words and sentences so people would know exactly what was being done, especially since being right and left-handed plays a big part in this skill.

This led us all to agree – after four of us editors spent a considerable amount of time sitting in a circle with props, sharpening plastic spoons and such on our personalized bench stones (our hands) – that the package for our online edition of the story should include a video.

The need to sharpen my skinning knife was imminent, so the timing couldn’t have been better for me, and I set about trying to acquire a bench stone that would sharpen a skinning knife.

I sprung for it last year and bought myself a new Gerber knife since I’d always used a grinder to sharpen knives. Come to find out, sharpening with a hand stone, and even a strop, is much better than grinding. Grinding your knives can overheat and damage the temper of the steel, and knives once able to shave hair off your arm are rendered dull. The worst thing that can happen to your knife through grinding is for the blade to become curved in places, making it completely ineffective. I was ready to try manually sharpening my blades.

First on my list in setting out to find a bench stone was www.sharpeningsupplies.com, and those folks didn’t disappoint. I was immediately attracted to a very cool-looking Hard Black Arkansas Stone (Model HB376). It came in a wooden box and is beautiful to look at, plus the stone is a hard black Arkansas stone so it’s for achieving the sharpest of edges.

But after talking with SharpeningSupplies.com Manager/Owner John Carmona, he urged me to also consider a combination stone, since he worried that the hard black stone was so fine it’d be tough to employ when dealing with extremely dull knives. He was absolutely right.

Within two business days, I not only had the Hard Black Arkansas Stone in Wooden Box but also the Norton Combination India Sharpening Kit, which includes a combination stone (this one was 8-by-2-by-1 inches), sharpening stone oil, and a black case (Norton IM50 Case-Black) that sits on four little rubber stoppers so you don’t have to hold the case in place when sharpening.

The case is more useful than one might think, since with it you’re allowed to sharpen without using a hand to hold the case in place – very important when trying to keep your extra hand out of the way and your fingers unharmed.

Come to find out, the hard black stone is great to use, but I could have gotten away with just the combination stone. I wouldn’t want to now though, since the hard black stone provides such fine, smooth sharpening that your knife truly will take hair off your arm like never before. I was sharpening last night to the point that I was out of knives and all my blades looked and cut perfectly, but I was so pleased with myself I couldn’t put the stones away.

In the future, after dealing with hides, I will turn to the coarse side of the combination stone (black side), then the finer side (red) before putting the finishing touches on my Gerber with the Hard Black Arkansas Stone. All three made my once-dull knife look and cut just like new once again.

I can only imagine how useful the stones will be when I resharpen blades for filleting fish, an experience that only goes as smoothly as your blade cuts.

Good things come to those who wait.

At least that’s been my experience in most of my hunting and fishing pursuits, and I’m banking on that same notion proving true this deer season.

Since opening day, I’ve been out in the woods a total of about 25 hours sitting in the woods. That doesn’t include work put in ahead of season in preparation for the season: scouting, hanging stands, making sure my bow was zeroed in and, honestly, just driving around with binoculars dreaming.

So far, it’s been an abnormally warm early bow season, and hopefully the warm weather won’t last much longer. Either way, people all over are taking huge deer, and each email that I get from my brother and friends just makes me that much more anxious for the weekends.

What I do feel good about is I’ve seen the buck I’m hunting. About three weeks back, walking into the woods, I saw both a scrape on the edge of a soybean field I’m hunting on, about 70 yards from my stand, and a bedding area just in the woods about 20 yards from the scrape – very encouraging. Weekend before last, I saw an old-looking, 8-point typical come out and check the scrape before going out on the beans.

With a rifle this deer is hanging on my wall right now. But, that’s why bow hunting is so much better. Before I have a shot at this buck, I’ll know if he has any stubs on his rack and I’ll know exactly how many years old he is. And hopefully he won’t know what I smell like.

Maybe the allure of the sport can best be described by a story involving three brothers unrelated to myself.

Three or four weeks ago, my brother emailed me this story. Here’s the picture of that buck.

The story of the brothers – from Marquette, Kansas – began in 2005, when they spotted him as a 2-year-old buck measuring around 120 inches. Since that time he grew to a 160-inch buck last year and this year he’s expected to be about a 185, after grossing at 200 7/8 before the mandatory 60-day antler drying period required by the bow hunting record club, Pope & Young.

Each year they scouted him with trail cams, never being able to get a good look at the monster since he was wise enough to avoid many of the game trails used by other deer and also because he was largely nocturnal. But hours spent in stands and blinds gave them glimpses, and sometime around October 29 of this year, Scott White rushed home from work, showered and went to his stand. That evening “Big Nine,” as they called him, came rustling through the branches and he got his shot, which he didn’t miss. Turns out he was “Big 11” by this date.

 My immediate reply to my brother expressed how awesome I thought it was that this set of brothers  hunted the same buck for about four years. They scouted it every year, watched it grow and knew every time they sat in the woods this deer was lingering. My brothers reply, parallel to mine, was something like, “Those are the kind of stories you like to hear about. They deserved it.”

Then, a couple of weeks later, an older brother of Scott’s shot another trophy. Simply put, time in the woods always pays off.

Or, something like my mom’s bad luck turning good last Thursday can get you there by way of accident. On her way to work, mom hit a doe, a common occurrence all over Kansas, given the deer population. Thank goodness she was alright first and foremost. Then in good, old-fashioned rural resourcefulness, the sheriff who showed up on the scene gave mom a tag, and she had the deer processed.

Her words to me? “Caleb, I got mine, where’s yours?!” I can’t wait to eat a portion of that 30 pounds of summer sausage, and maybe listen to how my hunting methods are flawed.

To any of you readers who may have already filled your tags, email me any pictures you have (cregan@ogdenpubs.com). It may make me long for the forest, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And I’d love to see the fruits of your labor.

For the first time of this early whitetail bow season, I was able to spend both morning and night sitting in the woods Sunday, awaiting that monster buck I’ve dreamt about since the end of last year’s season.

Even though the mosquitoes made it uncomfortable at times, my mind is now totally consumed with sitting in the timber and sticking him.

For October, it has been relatively warm this year. The high temperature of the day Sunday was 79 degrees F. According to the weather almanac, maximum temperatures for October 12 in 2007 and 2006 were 64.9 and 53.6, respectively. It’s been a warm, and wet, October.

That means two things. First of all, deer are still moving at night like they do in the summer. They bed down all day, moving only to feed once the sun is down. So your best chance at catching deer on the move is right before sundown. Secondly, mosquitoes are still in full effect.

I sat for about three and a half hours, Sunday morning. I was in the tree at about 6:05, plenty of time before the sun came up. I climbed down around 9:30, glad to have had the chance to get out and sit even though I didn’t see anything.

It was the first time I’d been out in the morning this year, and I felt grateful just to be sitting out in the timber while the sun came up.

However, all those pleasant feelings were tested once the sun was up in the morning, and were tested to the maximum that evening. On the positive side, walking in at around 4 p.m., I noticed a scrape on the ground, roughly a 2-yard circle (which bucks pee in pre-rut, and does add their scent to when heat arrives, allowing the buck to track her), that wasn’t there in the morning. It was about 50 yards from the tree I sit in, so I’m convinced there is a dominant buck right around me.

I knew before going out that the mosquitoes would be bad, so I donned a Wal-Mart bug suit, of the netted sort, and thought that would prevent my major mastication at the hands of those blood suckers.

They ate right through it. Monday morning, I counted 16 bites on the top of my right hand, which was ungloved for all of 30 minutes. Even though I tried to keep the netting fluffed up off the skin, I watched as skeeter after skeeter landed on the netting of my arms, stuck a proboscis through, and moved along until it found a point where the netting was directly on skin. And, after walking to my stand and making my way up the climber I use, I had a pretty good sweat going so the netting naturally clung to my body. The tops of my ears were another sweet spot, because the mask hangs off the hat and rests on the tops of the ears.

It was frustrating at times, but I came to the point about an hour before sundown, when I thought, I’m not going to let this ruin my hunt. Find a spot and enjoy the feast, bloodsuckers.

At that point, I used it as motivation and justification for my resiliency. My rationale for remaining out in the woods, which to some would border on stupidity, was that I was paying my dues, earning the right to kill a nice deer and the admiration of lady luck. Really, I know all that doesn’t matter, but it was more time I was logging in the woods, and I see that as an increase in chances of killing.

My hunting buddy, Bobby, also wore a bug suit and paid the same price. So, my suggestion after this experience is to not go cheap with your bug suit. You pay for what you get, and Cabela’s has a nice-looking, 100 percent polyester suit on their Web site that claims 26 out of 29 customers (90 percent) would recommend the product to a friend, a pretty high approval rating.

There’s no way around it, if you’re going to hunt that early in the season and don’t want to get eaten alive, spend the money to buy a bug suit mosquitoes can’t eat through. That way, come evening time, you’re not fidgeting in your stand and spooking that bruiser that’s out there.

If anyone has had good experience with any specific bug suits, I'm all ears. Also, does anyone know if there are any odorless sprays out there that would help?

On a side note, a couple of weeks ago I was able to make it back home and get some dove hunting done. It was especially nice for me because I was able to hunt on my family’s ground.

With bird hunting, you can coat down in insect repellent and remain comfortable.

On our crop fields, there’s a roost right by one of the fence lines which usually provides for steady shooting and everyone’s limit of birds. Although things didn’t go our way this time – my brother Andy and I took a few moon blasts to no avail – it was still introspectively rewarding to hunt my grandfather’s ground.

In these photos you can see a couple of the crop fields, the brush pile where dove roost and an old building that used to house a family farm restaurant. We still call this land the Chicken Shack today, and the business was sold long ago but still operates in Bronson, Kansas.

No animals were harmed in the creation of this blog – for the time being...

Tight lines and straight shooting,
Caleb