Ten Point Buck

Last night, driving home from musical practice, we came upon three deer at the entrance to our driveway. First we saw a doe. She was startled and quickly jumped over the fence and disappeared into the lower hay field. After a few more feet of driving, a ten point buck burst onto the drive and after giving the vehicle an annoyed glare (long enough for me to get a good look at his antlers, obviously!)  he followed the doe with a light hop over the fence. A few seconds later, illuminated faintly by the headlights, I spied an 8 point buck grazing on the side of the board fence that the previous two deer had jumped to. He looked up at us in a bored way and continued munching, just feet from our noisy bright car, so we got an especially good look at him.

I imagine that the ten point buck was the one that I saw on Friday. During lunch we saw him walk very purposefully across the upper hay field and slip into a thicket at the edge of the woods by the head of the lake. These are the pictures I quickly snapped as he did so.

It always tickles us to see bucks this time of year. Most of the year we only see herds of does. It's in the fall that the males usually turn up. And it seems to coincides with the start of hunting season (firearms). 

Every morning of the first week or so of the season, the hunters drive or walk down the logging road behind our house to hunt in the classified forrest behind us. Never have they bagged a deer that we have seen. Perhaps the deer migrate to our land... the only homestead for miles without a dog and where no one hunts. (My oldest boy has hit one with a sling shot, but the startled deer trotted off a few paces, and then got back to the business of grazing.)

This reminds me of the new twists in the hunting saga that occurred this year (refer to the following post for the back-story: Deer Season). I have yet to write about the most recent developments with the hunters/caretakers of the classified forrest behind us. I should soon. (If you want to read a few of my other previous deer posts, refer to the following: Deer Antics, Deer Sanctuary, Coyote Chase, Look at the Deer, Dear!)

Fall Color

The twisters that tore through the midwest this Sunday bypassed us. We got strong winds and lots of limbs down, but didn't even lose power! (Considering our recent 30 hour power outage, we were surprised.) We did lose all the fall color though. The only leaves remaining now are the dry, brown leaves of marcescent trees like the blue beech and ironwood, the red, white and pin oaks. This reminded me that I had not posted any pics of the aforementioned fall foliage. So although they are a bit belated, here are a few...

This is a view of the last stretch of our driveway before it wraps around the house. These are tulip trees/yellow poplars mixed with a few shorter maple trees.

Here's one of the aforementioned maple trees, a red one.

And this maple is yellow.

Aren't these pretty? I can see all of these trees from the windows of my house. I am so lucky!

Rural Sundays

On the way down our long drive today as we headed to the "early" Mass, we startled three deer. The horses across the road were out grazing amongst our neighbor's machinery and vehicles. The goats around the corner were playing "king of the round bale", as usual. The donkey was nuzzling the bull in the pen on the other side of the drive from the goats. The cows were foraging across the road from them.  Shortly thereafter, we passed an owl that was dead on the road. Who has ever seen owl road-kill?! Then I spied a coyote, aglow with early morning light, standing in a freshly harvested soybean field. All this in less than 5 minutes! That's how it is here. 

On the way back from Mass, we passed a tractor pulling a hay wagon. Some cows had been turned out into a recently harvested field of corn. The draft horses were near the road. The buffalos were out. And across from the buffalo farm, there were some new "oreo/pig cows"(otherwise known as belted Galloways.) 

This afternoon when my husband took the three middle kids out for a hike in the woods and a paddle on the lake, there were deer bedded down in the hay field near the house. Shortly thereafter, my oldest son came to tell me that there was a possum next to the house. I went to look out the window, and sure enough, there was an opossum munching away on something next to the patio. My boy tapped on the glass, but it didn't flinch. Later I learned that he had some fun trying to get its attention and generally messing with it. He said that it pretty much ignored him, even when he stood near it and threw things at it. (He had asked to go out on the screen porch to snap a photo, which I okayed. I didn't know at the time that instead he decided to go stand next to the thing to get a better shot, etc.) 

If we had turned the other way at the end of our road this morning, instead of heading toward town, we would have seen the donkeys. I snapped this picture of them last Sunday. Everyone was still sick and we were all recovering from the big storm that blew through and left us without standard power for 30 hours. So I took the early rising baby out of the house so that his noise wouldn't bother anyone and we went to the "late Mass".

It was a particularly striking morning  because it was foggy. It was a freezing fog in places, and gave everything an otherworldly tinge. Ordinary cows were shrouded in clouds. 

The rolling hills and dales wore wisps of fog too. And if you look closely at the picture on the right, you will see a young buck and a doe who were frolicking in the pasture when I snapped this shot. Shortly before this the buck intermittently stood in the road in front of my vehicle looking at me in an annoyed way or sauntered down the road until finally he jumped the fence.