Deer!

This post is all about the deer. Boy deer, girl deer, big deer, little deer. Oh, how I dearly love to see the lovely deer. 

Some think I should become a writer for Dr. Suess, others think I should keep my day job. Oh wait, I do not have a day job. 

Lately, my day job has been deer hunting, or deer photography might be a more accurate description as I spend the first two hours after sunrise and the two hours before sunset out in the forest photographing deer while waiting for The One. The One who will fill the freezer and maybe be forever immortalized and honored on our wall. There are no dead deer in this post, if I do get one and post a picture, I will give you fair warning. 

The color pictures were taken with my Lumix FZ300, while the B&W pictures were taken with one of the many trail cameras scattered throughout the property. If you were to ask me last week, I would have told you this guy was The One. But after seeing him up close and in person, I am having second thoughts. He is a beautiful deer but maybe not The One. 

I enjoy just sitting out in the woods, watching nature, with the anticipation of what might walk by.  I am seeing plenty of deer. Even the does and fawns are fun to watch. Some of the fawns get the zoomies much like Zoey. They zoom around the forest just like Zoey zooms around the living room. The only difference is that the fawns do not have couches to bounce off of. Videoing them is nearly impossible though so here are a few pictures. 

Momma, ever watchful for danger

There are bucks of all sizes in the area, I will start with the smallest and work my way up. 

Spikey

The pose below is called Flehmen response. Deer (and other animals such as horses, elk, sheep....) make this face just after smelling where a doe peed. They are using all their olfactory senses to determine is a doe is in heat and ready for breeding. You will see this pose in another picture below as well. You can click on the link above if you want to learn more about it.  

Small 8 point

Bigger 8 point

Another Fleming pose

Most of these pictures were taken from my ground blind. I had set it up before season so the deer got used this new structure in the woods. 

The new ladder stands are working as well. At 18' high the deer don't even know I am there as they walk by. See the deer right below me?

There was one deer I was very tempted to harvest. He had a really nice rack on one side and the other side was really screwed up due to an injury. 

As you can see, he is a perfect 5 point on the one side while the other side is funked up with only 3 points as far as I can tell. Perhaps he and I will meet again in the near future. 

The deer are not the only ones who have been making appearances around the homestead. The turkeys are visiting more often, sometimes walking right up to the window to see what we are up to! 

Zoey and Dakota pay little attention to the wildlife outside, instead they just cuddle up near the fire to stay toasty warm!

Last Sunday was a big day when the Vikings played the Packers! We had quite the house full with Jim and Carmen, Kevin and Cheryl, Dan and Bonnie and Barb and me. 

The gang watching the game in the living room.

 Barb, Kevin and Zoey were the lone Packer fans and were in mourning by the end of the game as the Packers lost. But then again, the rest of us were in mourning as well, having lost our quarterback to a season ending injury.

Tuesday was of course Halloween. Zoey wanted to dress up as a ghost. So spooky!

Speaking of spooky, I got this letter in the mail this week. It was like winning the lottery! I mean, not everyone qualifies for a $20,000 TAX FREE benefit! To be fair, it did say that I may qualify. I have to send in the postage-paid card by the deadline to know for sure. Do people really send these things in?!?!?

But I am not dead yet, so we did go to a couple of day jobs! We did two concrete pours this week. One on Wednesday and one on Thursday. Both were at the same job site as last week's pour. The temps were in the 30's when we started but it warmed up to mid 50's during the day giving the concrete a chance to harden. With these two complete, we should be done with concrete pours for the foreseeable future. 

Ready for the first pour!

Kevin floating, while Barb works the edges. I sit back, drink beer and watch them work. Life is good!

Thursday's pour was adjacent to Wednesday's and a little smaller.

The big news of the week is that my sister Carol arrived for a visit! She did not make it out last year, so we were excited to have her and show her everything that we have done since our last visit. She enjoys reading and visiting. The weather warmed up enough that she could sit out in the gazebo for a few hours in the afternoon. 

We did get out for one adventure so far when we crossed one more peak off our Quest for 100. Carol is not a hiker, so we selected one of the two remaining "drive up" peaks when we went to Bear Mountain outside Custer. 

At 7,166' it is the 4th highest peak in the Black Hills. 

We finished the afternoon with lunch at the Alpine Inn in Hill City. Carol is not good at letting me take pictures of her, but I did sneak this one while she was looking at the menu. 

She will be here through the weekend, so we are hoping to get out and about a bit to do some more adventuring!