Sometimes they are crossing the road from the creek into the woods. Sometimes they are in a field, grazing. They are big healthy deer. We've had a mild winter. They are well-fed. I told Farmer H they were all does, but he said this time of year, the bucks have lost their antlers. I don't quite believe that. Otherwise, how do you get a big buck with 12-point antlers? Do they grow all at once like that? I don't know, and am not curious enough to look it up. It would be just like Farmer H to spout out something that he knows I am ignorant of, and claim it to be the truth!
Anyhoo... these deer are a welcome sight, leaping and flipping the white fluffy underside of their tails. That act is called "flagging." I DO know that! I am glad they have avoided hitting me, and I them. I've had to stop several times to let them cross.
Not so lucky was a critter The Pony spied on his way home from our casino trip last week. He wasn't even out of the driveway yet.
"Dead? Raccoon?"
It didn't look like a raccoon to me. But definitely dead! Farmer H verified it as a raccoon. He got an up-close look at the tail. That's all I was asking about, whether it was a raccoon. But Farmer H blurted out:
"It's gone now. I took care of it."
Do I think Farmer H got a shovel and dug a hole and buried that dead raccoon? Not-Heaven NO! I'm 99.9 percent sure Farmer H grabbed it by the tail and tossed it into the sinkhole! He considered the sinkhole to be nature's wastebasket.
I'm guessing maybe that raccoon was guilty of coming up on the porch and eating out of the dogs' food dishes. He would be no match for three dogs. Especially my little Jack, the baby-mole killer. And Copper Jack. Scarlett... not so much except for the chasing.
Scarlett barely knows how to eat a half-slice of bread spread with bacon grease! She picks it up, chews, spits it out, picks it up again, spits it out, licks it, then starts chewing. Just when I thought she was learning that she's a dog.
4 comments:
"Nature's Wastebasket" I love that! We had company last week, with children who seemed to think my ravine was a wastebasket until I ordered them to crawl down and pick up the stuff they tossed!
Kathy,
I wish I could order Farmer H to crawl down in that sinkhole and retrieve all the carcasses and old kitchen cabinets and blacktop slabs!
I like hearing about your deer while being glad there aren't any around my area. It's in the city for a start, also I don't want them eating my garden. I'm sure half of the plants are poisonours for them.
River,
When we had a garden, the deer DID nibble at it. The rabbits were worse, and ate almost everything except a couple of carrots, one tiny watermelon, and the tomatoes. While our FIVE CATS lay around watching them! Seriously! It's like those cats were watching TV, stationed around the garden, twitching their tails. Every time they CAUGHT a rabbit, it was over in the BARn field, not near the garden, which was behind the Mansion.
Post a Comment