The One!

There are pictures of several harvested animals at the end of this post. But you non-hunters can safely read the first two-thirds of this post. 

Anyone that is a hunter will probably know what the above picture represents. Those are the date notches from my hunting license you are required to notch out when you harvest a deer! But, this post is not a tale of one deer, it is a tale of two deer and a buffalo!

A buffalo, you say......Custer State Park has about 1,500 buffalo in the fall of the year. Each fall, they auction off enough to get them down to the carrying capacity they are looking for within the park. This year, they auctioned off about 500 animals to other ranches and processers. They also have 25 or so tags for a hunt draw. After 5 years of applying, Kevin finally pulled a buffalo hunt tag!

But first, sister Carol. She has come and gone, it is always good to see her, catch up and just talk. At 72, she is 12 years older than me. She is the oldest sibling, and I am 6th out of the 7 our parents had. What is interesting is when she talks about growing up in our household. Her memories are nothing like mine at all. Her memories of mom were that she was always pregnant. I never saw her pregnant. She and my other sisters were our primary care givers when my younger brother and I were babies and toddlers, I of course, was so young I have no memories of that at all. 

By the time I was 6, she was out of the house in college, so in many of my memories she is already out of the house. I do remember bits and pieces with her in the house, but many of those are aided by the movies my dad took. Silent movies of Christmases or birthdays. 

Even though we were basically raised in two different time periods, our life thoughts and political leanings are almost identical. I was always a little mischievous growing up and she was always the responsible one. 

One afternoon we were sitting on the couch, and she asked me "Does Dino really drink that much and does Harry really hate dogs?" I tell her "If you read it on the internet, it must be true". I would never, never exaggerate or make something entirely up, would I?

Talking to her got me thinking of all the things that have changed since we were kids. There are thousands, with technology being the biggest. But there are a few things that still surprise me. Like malls. Shopping malls were such a big thing for me growing up. Our primary malls were HarMar Mall and Rosedale Mall. As kids, my brother and I would bike to them and walk around the shops. As a young adult I worked security at J.C. Penney's catching shoplifters. I remember how busy the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas were. Elbow to elbow people hustling and bustling around. The mall was so full of life. Today, it is just sad to see how slow the malls are. 

Both Barb and I were big roller-skaters. Her, competitively, me to meet girls. Her in Oregon, me in Minnesota. We both spent hours skating. Those are now a thing of the past, who would have thought?

Then there were the paper routes. My dad had a paper route, I had a paper route. Is that even a thing anymore? I honestly do not know if there is home paper delivery anymore. So many things have changed. 

Sunday, Carol, Barb and I drove up to Spearfish to watch the Vikings along with my niece Alana and her husband Ryan. Zoey came along to play with Sophie and Loki. But mostly, she just terrorized the cats. 

The best part of the visit was seeing Ryan and Sophie decked out in Viking gear. Ryan made a bet with Alana when the Vikings played the 49'ers. Alana is a diehard Vikings fan and Ryan's team is the 49'ers. Ryan now has to wear a Vikings jersey every Sunday for the rest of the season! You ever seen a 42-year-old man pout? Well, you are about to! 

The first 20 minutes were pure chaos while everyone chased each other around. I tried videoing it but there was no way. 

After a bit, they all settled down. Sophie crashed on the floor, Loki on the couch and Zoey continued to terrorize the cats, but from a resting position. 

 

I can also unveil our latest project.  We have a spot in our bedroom where we were going to install a built-in bookcase. We have been working on this for a couple of weeks and we just finished it. 

First, I want to thank my friend, and fellow blogger, Jim for his help. He was a cabinet maker in a previous life, and I could not have done it without his help. 

Jim suggested that I rabbet the sides, top and bottom into the back. I have never rabbeted before but I did have a rabbet blade so I was willing to give it a try. After a couple of test pieces, I was able to get the rabbets done. 

Next up came gluing and screwing. I either had the start of a bookcase or a coffin, at this point, it could go either way. 

Next up where the shelves. After cutting them out I put iron on birch edging to hide the veneer from the plywood. 

Next up was the trim and Barbie to stain and varnish it. With everything else going on, it took us a little over two weeks from start to finish, but now we have a finished bookcase in the bedroom! Well, almost finished, I still need to put on the bottom trim piece.

Now for the most exciting part of my week! Don't worry non-hunters you are still safe for a few more paragraphs. One of the commentors from last week said that I was pretty brave to post about deer hunting. If I were to guess, I would say 80% of the readers are probably non-hunters. My response was that I am either brave or stupid, but I am who I am and assume that those who do not care for hunting just don't read it. This is my 10th year blogging and each year I have posted hunting pictures. The comments from readers have actually restored my faith in humanity. Even non-hunters talk about how my posts brought back memories of growing up with their dad or other relatives as they hunted. Thank you!

The rut really started to pick up this week with new bucks showing up every day. Bucks will travel for miles looking for does that are in estrous. I will start with the smallest buck I have seen all year. All of these bucks are different bucks than I showed last week. This guy has a few more years until he is grown up.

Deer do several things to attract each other during this time of the season. Bucks will make scrapes where they scrape the ground and pee in it. They do this under a low hanging branch, so they rub their antlers or orbital scent glands onto the branches. Smell is the main way they attract each other. It is so interesting to watch. Here is a video and a couple of pictures of bucks rubbing their antlers and orbital glands on a branch. 

I saw lots of bucks again this week, mostly small ones, a couple of nice ones. 

Those are some nice deer, but not the one. Then, through the trees I see what looks like a nice one rubbing his antlers on a tree in the distance. 

As I zoom in with my camera, I can see that he is nice but cannot tell how nice. I continue to watch him through my camera as he walked closer and closer. He jumps the fence onto our property and keeps on coming. The closer he gets the nicer he looks, and he keeps on a coming as I am clicking away with my camera.

As he gets to about this point, I decided he is "The One" and slowly take my bow down from the hanger and wait. This deer keeps on a coming and coming, and coming, to 12 yards! 

I made a good shot and harvested my biggest buck in 60 years! 

Harvested animal pictures below....

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Forrest got a really nice one with his bow as well. Jessica helped him get it out of the woods. While they were doing that, they talked about tracking deer and deer hunting with Barb and I while they were younger. To me, them having that experience of them talking about those memories, all these years later, is better than any deer I will ever get. We both got our deer on the same day!

But wait, we are not done! 

Buffalo hunting has been a dream of Kevin's for years. He has been applying for a Custer State Park buffalo hunt for 5 years and this year he got a tag!  He let me tag along to video and photograph. It was a very interesting hunt, a lot more challenging than I thought. These things that you see tourists practically pet, become very elusive when you are trying to get close to them with a bow! It took about 4 hours from start to finish. 

So with that, our hunting season is done for the year. We have plenty of food to get us through the winter, bring on the snow!

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!