Posts Tagged ‘deer’
Vacation Disorientation
It’s a bit dizzying to compound my vacation escape from routine by also burying myself in a memoir while simultaneously binge-watching a spy thriller 6-episode series. What day is it today? Where am I again? Who am I?
I’m certainly not at Wintervale anymore.
We are up in the woods of northwest Wisconsin. Yesterday morning, as I was comfortably lingering in bed after waking up, I spotted a deer moving through the trees outside our window. Then there was another, moving slowly across my view, pawing and sniffing at the ground as they went.
As I watched, the first one suddenly laid down for a rest. A while later, more deer moved into view, and one by one, they curled up in the snow by the first deer. Eventually there were five of them, and they ended up spending most of the day there, despite a small bit of activity in and out of the front door of the cabin as the hours passed.
I like that our little nook is a spot they find to be comfortable for spending their day.
Meanwhile, I’m reading Robbie Robertson’s “Testimony” and finding my mind ensconced in the 1960s music scene that he describes. Between chapters, Cyndie’s parents have us watching the short series, “The Night Manager,” which involves lavish views of exotic places where thrilling intrigue is at play.
Of course, I submerge myself in the identity of each leading character, so by the end of the day, I have lost myself to being a mixed up compilation of people who are definitely not me.
It feels a little bit like being on vacation.
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Days Happen
Despite our lofty plans and petty concerns, time marches on. Days happen, one right after the other. The present moment unfurls and that quickly becomes history. Last night, I was struck by a reference in a PBS Frontline story to research done in the archives for information from 1977. Was that really that long ago?
I guess so.
Today I am struck anew by the amazing place where I now reside. As the year 2016 nears the twelfth month, we have become ever more normalized with our rolling hills and areas of hardwood forest. We have slowly developed new trails and arranged sections of fenced pasture. It is becoming a reflection of us and the animals now living here.
In the relatively short time we have been here, the neighborhood has changed noticeably. We are currently in the final weekend of the annual deer hunting season, an event that has quieted significantly compared to our first years on the property.
I’m not sure why there is less activity visible this year on the properties adjacent to us, but it’s been nice to have fewer sights and sounds to trigger Delilah into the fits of unnecessary outbursts she feels called to deliver. I wish I could attribute her good behavior to a continued maturation, but evidence hints otherwise.
It’s quite possible that her presence alone is a factor in relocating local hunters to more distant acres, although she isn’t chasing all the deer off. We still see them around with regularity. More likely, what has moved the hunters away is the combined activity of the horses and humans roving around here along with her on a daily basis.
Life is happening here everyday. And as soon as I chronicle it, the stories become archived in the “Previous Somethings.”
Time marches on.
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Goal Achieved
I was wearing a short-sleeve tee-shirt and mowing grass in the warm afternoon sunshine on November 1st. Whaaaaat?
It’s for real. Of course, I also then went inside and watched some baseball on television afterward. It’s like a summer with no end. Something tells me it might make winter’s inevitable arrival come on with an abrupt switch when it finally hits.
So, my main motivation to get out on the lawn tractor was to test out my latest landscaping efforts and see how navigable the path around the southern fence lines is.
It worked! Not flawlessly, but it did work. I have wanted to accomplish this goal for a long time, so this was very satisfying.
There are two spots in particular where I needed to get off the tractor to lift it over a too-steep hazard where there are runoff trenches across the path. If I want to be able to drive across these, I’m going to need to modify them to create much more gradual sloping edges.
That can be done, but it’s not imperative that it happen right away. I’m kinda hoping our grass will stop growing and the snow season will arrive soon enough that I won’t need to be driving around there again until next spring.
After I completed a return trip along that fence line, I turned the corner and was headed toward the labyrinth garden. There, I discovered two deer casually grazing the variety of growing treats within. They looked up at me with mild curiosity, surveying my approach. It surprised me a bit that they didn’t act alarmed or run off.
So I just kept rolling toward them, pulling out my phone to see if I could capture them in a picture to share with Cyndie.
They’re there, but the natural concealment of their coloring is very noticeable, because they are mostly not!
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Autumn Ambiance
I stepped outside to search for some fall scenery to photograph after I got home from work yesterday and was rewarded well beyond my expectations. It helps to never grow too accustomed to the beautiful surroundings we enjoy here.
It would be a shame to ever take this gorgeous place for granted.
The key factor yesterday was that it wasn’t raining. There was actually some blue sky visible. With a high pressure system moving in, we are hoping to for several dry days in a row. It is likely to deliver a dose of our best of autumn weather.
Many of our trails are developing a carpet of fallen leaves that provide a crunch when you walk. More importantly, they are filling the air with the unmistakable scent of the season. When I walk toward the pastures and pop out of the trees, the horses show signs of wondering what huge creature is making all that racket.
Just this huge creature, is all.
When I got down to our Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth, the sunlight was getting low. Cyndie had recently mowed and weeded the labyrinth, which gave it a well-tended glow anyway.
I walked to the far side and paused to stare at the beauty all around me. I was looking away from the entrance for the shortest of moments, and when I turned back around I was startled by the sudden silent presence of a lone young deer happily standing nearby.
It was as if it had magically materialized in the spot. I realized right away that it was totally unaware of me standing there. When it stepped through our fence and walked into the pasture to graze, I stealthily moved to a rock nearby and lifted my camera to capture the scene in video…
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Deer Crossing
Our latest positioning of the trail cam has proved successful in capturing some deer traffic on —or across— one of our pathways. Snapped ’em coming and going. Based on the hoof prints we have seen, it was obvious there are some youngsters hanging around. While this spot appears to be a crossing point, the little one had altered course toward the camera in the wee hours of the morning.
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Not Much
I moved the trail cam over the weekend and am not happy with the results. I wanted to try a more open area so there would be less branch clutter in the foreground of the view.
I chose the labyrinth garden.
I’m not sure why, but the result was picture after picture with no discernible activity. Over a hundred in two days.
Birds, maybe?
There were surprisingly few images during darkness. However, we did get a tiny glimpse of one animal that was conspicuously absent from all the images captured when we had the camera stationed on the trail in the woods…
Shy little bugger, she. That was all the further she moved into the field of view at 4:30 in the morning.
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Deer Season
It is quiet this morning, meaning, there have been few gunshots echoing around us. Yesterday was the opening day of the deer hunting season and shots were heard with regularity.
Even though the majority of land around us is cultivated for crops, there remain a fair amount of forested lanes and steep slopes where deer herds tend to travel. The farming neighbors who surround us on every side all don the blaze orange head-to-toe uniform and ply the hunt.
It’s a bit nerve-wracking.
I don’t mind them thinning the herds. The other main predator of deer seems to be cars and trucks, as the sight of dead deer by the side of the road is a daily spectacle. I recall that there was one in the road ditch of this property years ago when we came to visit in the weeks after our purchase offer was accepted.
The previous owners told us that one doe came up to the house and gave birth to her fawns in the nook by the front door. We did see a pair of deer in our yard frequently that first year after we moved in. Not so much anymore.
I figure it is a combination of our getting Delilah and the horses. We did add a trail through our woods, which actually opened up a new path for deer, but we subsequently began using it regularly for walking the perimeter with Delilah. The deer traffic became less conspicuous.
I’m sure they are still passing through. We just don’t see them as often.
The neighbors must still see them. They found a lot of reasons to shoot yesterday. Across the road from us, as I was returning up our driveway from the mailbox with Delilah, the neighbor-hunter group shouted a greeting, waved, and showed me they were successful on opening day.
For us, it means the horses are edgy, the dog is on high alert, and the nearby woods are alive with scanning eyes and booming firesticks, sunup to sundown. It is a brief anomaly in the sedate ambiance that usually prevails.
It is deer hunting season, and the hunt is on.
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Decidedly Different
From balmy Sunday to blustery Monday we experienced an almost 40° (F) temperature swing, factoring in the “windchill” reading that resulted from the strong northwest gusting wind. Nothing says October like a cold, cloudy, windy day.
I took Delilah out for a short trek around the property when I got home from work, during which we fed the horses and then wandered a few trails in the woods to check for downed branches.
At one point, even though I didn’t feel as though I was seeing anything, I sensed there was motion occurring through the trees, and I kept my eyes glued in that direction in hopes of picking up some confirmation.
Was it a bird? Likely possibilities included grouse, pheasant, or even wild turkey. Something led me to believe it was big. Something else gave me the impression it was right in front of my eyes, but I was not seeing it. Honestly, what came to mind was the movie effect of “Predator” in camouflage mode.
All these mental gymnastics happened in a fraction of a second. Putting it all together, I discerned the white I thought I had seen was, in fact, the tail of a deer.
We had just come down that hill a short time before, and ended up circling back on our path in a way that may have surprised the keen senses of the shy animal. I was energized to find it had stopped its movement at a place that gave me a clear view of the head and face, as the deer looked directly back at me from an incredibly short distance away.
It was probably the closest I have been to a live, wild deer in years. I glanced down at Delilah, who was nose-to-the-ground busy, following the myriad smells that surely exist on our well-used trails, but she showed no evidence of detecting how close we were to something that would no-doubt thrill her to the extreme to pursue.
When I looked back for the deer, I realized how difficult it was to detect it through the trees while it stood motionless. I started to walk again, coming around the corner to climb the hill where Cyndie and I had just been working on the fence, hoping to get a better perspective on where the deer was standing. I was also scanning in hopes of finding others, under the assumption deer are usually in a herd.
What I discovered was that my movement was enough to drive the deer off and I had been unable to detect its departure. Delilah didn’t show any sign of sensing the scent of immediately fresh traffic across our trail. I wondered if the deer had been surprised by the recent appearance of the fence we just put up over the weekend.
There were no other deer in sight as we climbed the hill toward the house, and toward the respite from the wind it would provide. Had I not picked up the fleeting images of that whiteness and the almost imperceptible motion of the body through the trees, I would have missed it altogether.
Allows me to imagine how often I have probably done just that on these trails in the last few years, and been within similarly close proximity to wildlife, while being entirely unaware.
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Uncanny Perception
While I was cleaning up a monumental amount of manure in the area nearest the overhang of the barn yesterday, the temperature was so warm that I needed to shed my hat and every layer down to my base shirt, and then considered tossing that, too. It was really nice out. Our barn is positioned perfectly to receive maximum solar energy, and is located in a spot that is usually sheltered from wind. Whenever it is even moderately nice outside, it is always even nicer on the sunny side of that barn.
The horses were grouped downhill from me, inside the back pasture. They looked like they were in a precise formation, lined up facing west and standing still as statues while bathing in the bright sunshine. I think it was nap time.
Next time I looked up from what I was doing, my suspicion was confirmed. It was nap time, and two of them were now laying down. I rolled the wheelbarrow filled with heavy, wet manure and snow through the barn to get out of the paddock and over to the compost area. In that amount of time, a third horse had laid down, leaving Dezirea the lone mare standing.
They looked awesome. I wanted to capture a picture of the scene, but from where I was standing, there were branches and a fence in the way, so I headed back up and through the barn. I kept an eye on them as I stepped out from the overhang and prepared to dig out my camera.
As happens all too often, that’s when the opportunity was lost. Hunter and Legacy picked up their heads and put their front hooves on the ground in the classic prelim to the magnificent effort of getting back on their feet again. Cayenne was right behind them. I immediately noticed that all four of them had reversed focus and were now facing east.
I looked that direction and spotted movement in the trees across the road. A herd of deer was coming our way. I was impressed at having watched the horse’s uncanny perception in action. Long before I was aware, the horses sensed the activity and rose to their feet to see what was coming.
Five deer, followed by three more, crossed the road and bounced through our neighbor’s field, leaping high in artful succession to clear a high-tensile wire fence that I don’t know how they can see. There were some young ones in the group, and it looked like a lesson in ‘follow-me; do what I do.’ From my vantage point, it looked like they had jumped too early, but all eight made their way across without incident. The little ones were pretty cute.
I looked back in the direction they had come from to see if there were any more, or for a possible reason why they were moving in the middle of broad daylight. There was an eagle circling above those woods, but nothing else. The horses had followed the action and were now facing west again, looking toward where the deer had gone.
About the time I was thinking about getting the blankets off the horses, clouds moved in and blocked the sun. Almost immediately I wanted my shirt back on, and shortly thereafter, my hat. What a difference direct sunlight makes. I ended up leaving the blankets on for one more day.
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Will They?
One of our current spring dramas is whether our pine trees will recover from the stress they have endured from our dry fall that was followed by the most extreme winter we’ve had in 35 years. I’ve not consulted with an arborist yet, but our trees are definitely browning from the bottom up and the inside out. This doesn’t match the descriptions I find of how winter injury or pine wilt symptoms appear. Whatever it is that is causing the problem, it’s not affecting every single pine, but it is widespread throughout our property and not confined to one spot. We are hoping for the best, but I’m inclined to believe the prognosis is not good. The die-back on many of them is over half the tree.
That isn’t our only drama this spring. We are also anxious to learn whether the maple tree we transplanted to the labyrinth last fall survived the obvious shock it endured from its being uprooted and relocated. If we witness signs of life from that tree in the days ahead, my spirit will soar and we will have much cause for celebration.
There is also concern for the number of plants Cyndie worked so hard to get established in the rest of the labyrinth. This winter was hard on everything, so even if the plants survived the onslaught of snow and long periods of extreme cold, they will now face risks from animals that are trying to eat anything and everything available to recover from their own season-long deprivation. I don’t intend to erect a 10-foot-high fence around the garden to keep deer away, but I fear that is about what it would take to dissuade them from bellying up to our conveniently situated buffet down there.
We could ask Delilah to patrol the area for us, as she would be thrilled at an invitation to chase deer, but she would likely wreak her own havoc on plants, as she demonstrates amazing reckless disregard for all living things in her excitement to chase and dig.
One last drama we came face to face with yesterday is the question of whether we will be able to continue allowing Delilah to be both an indoor and an outdoor pet. This is the first spring that she has lived with us, so we haven’t previously needed to deal with managing both spring mud and a dog before.
When we step in the door, we can simply remove our muddy boots. I wish it were that simple for her. Yesterday, a day when the temperature was below freezing, but the sunshine was still melting exposed ground, she got legs and belly covered with mud and manure-cicles. When we came inside, Delilah was rubbed down with a towel in a cursory attempt to dry her off. Later, when we had time, she would get bathed to remove the residual grime.
So much for waiting. Soon we were seeing dark spots all over the floor. The mud and manure frozen to her underside, and which toweling did not remove, was now melting at a rapid pace. Everywhere she walked in our house was becoming a bio-hazard site. Poor dog was unceremoniously evicted and sent to her kennel outside do be dealt with later.
If I thought it stood a chance of working, I’d look into mud boots for her. I wonder if she’d let me wrap her torso with stretch-wrap to keep her belly fur dry.
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Relative Something 