Message board topic:

Last night after Cheri went to bed, I went out and sat on the porch swing for a few minutes.  It was just getting dark and the street light had barely come on.  Directly ahead of me is a thick line of trees and brush with a big hayfield on the other side.  To my left is the street.  As I looked left I saw a beautiful doe and the smallest fawn.  The doe looked at me a minute then headed back toward town.  The fawn looked confused for a minute but then took off following.  They were maybe 30 feet away from me.  John

Bet it was cool to see that so close.

 

David and the CoolCyberCats

Forever in my heart





Cats Nap. Only Humans Put Them "To Sleep": Sterilize, Don't Euthanize!

 

Last night we played down on the Lake about an hour away, much closer than the built up tourist traps.  I could take a 4 lane highway most of the way but about 16 miles of it was twisting, sharply winding, hilly road where the fastest I could drive was between 40 and 50 miles an hour, because the hills and curves were so sharp.  On the way down, about 2 hours before sundown, we saw 2 different deer.  Beautiful, but not a good sign.

About 1:00 AM on the way back, we counted 10 different deer, spread over the 16 miles.  Trees lined the road the entire distance meaning they could pop out anywhere.  There was one group of 4 crossing the road.  The other 6 were about evenly spread along the 16 miles.  I didn't dare drive over 40 miles an hour.

They liked us pretty well down there and booked us back a few more times, meaning more of those winding roads and deer.  One guy who had seen us before, tipped me $100 to play a song where I make the guitar talk.  He had to know we'd do it anyway.  It's our most popular song.

The weather turned sharply cooler last night which seems to signal the deer to move around more.  November will be deer hunting season and that does even more to drive them out onto the highways.  Adds a little more stress to driving around late nights in the middle of nowhere.  Just have to keep a sharp eye out.  John

There are a lot of deer on the roads here too. I have noticed that the majority on the roads seem to the be white-tailed not mule deer. I think the mule deer stay away from roads for some reason. Sort of like ANtelope, you rarely see them hit.

Yeah, hunting season is in swing here too. You can hear the "pop pop" from time to time echoing off the mountains. I used to be a lot more against hunting, but my time here has shown that a lot ofthem actually do care about the animals and eat what they hunt and not just brag about the kills over beers. And if anything bad ever happens like an emp, the hunters and ranchers will be the only ones able to feed themselves. *shrug* I would have no clue how to properly shoot and clean an animal. Guess I would be one of the ones who starve.

Weather-wise, we were like 70 yesterday, but today only will be 47. THe rest of the next 10 days hover between 47 and 41 daytime highs and down to 23 at night. When the temps turn I struggle because if I using my winter clothes I know it will warm up. Right now I have a half and half mix in the closet. Today is a corduroy buttondown shirt day, but still using summer undershirts.

 

David and the CoolCyberCats

Forever in my heart





Cats Nap. Only Humans Put Them "To Sleep": Sterilize, Don't Euthanize!

 

Not yet hunting season here but it will be shortly.  With all the farms around, deer never lack for food and I can see how the population could quickly get out of hand, like seeing 10 deer along the highway Friday night.  Saturday, there were few trees along the highways so you weren't so likely to be surprised.  Most of the hunters around here take their kill in to process centers and would never begin to know how to "dress" their own kills.  I wouldn't begin to know how either but I suppose you could figure it out.

I'm not old enough to remember, of course, but during the great depression in 1929, farmers had more food than they knew what to do with, but no way to transport it anywhere.  When the dust bowl hit, a lot of farmers had no food at all.  In heavily populated Illinois, so many hunters left the cities to hunt, the deer population was decimated, and deer had to be imported from less populated Missouri to keep the deer numbers going.

All the animals are doing great.  Trying a new guinea pig food as the store didn't have enough of the right kind of hay.  He went right into it yesterday.  The outdoor cats are doing fine but I've yet to fix them a place for the winter.  John