Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Things That Are Not Fair

Tate was hunting today with Grandpa Grasshopper.  His property backs onto DNR land, so they can just hike right off the property onto public land, where hunting is permitted.

As opposed to our neighborhood, inside the city limits, where it is not.

They saw three deer.  One was a buck.  He was 750 feet away (too far for Tate to shoot) and bolted as soon as they saw him.  Deer season closes tomorrow.

Grandpa brought Tate home around four.

At which time, there was a spike (buck with one-point antlers)

standing insolently in the intersection in front of our house.

They slowed to look at him.  I think he sneered at them.

They pulled into the driveway, in a large Dodge diesel pick-up.

The little buck wandered up through the yard, and

crossed the driveway just a few feet away from the still-running truck,

and passed into the neighbor's yard.  I watched him out my window, sparring with another spike for the next several minutes before they both wandered off.

6 comments:

Ruby said...

Wow! Fascinating to us but I guess we often see or hear of kangaroos doing similar. Actually, roos are in plague proportions here with widespread draught.

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Yes, Ruby, in some ways their behaviors are similar. And they're definitely a plague in an urban/suburban setting. A friend who works at the university told me they're ravaging the landscaping. In our area it's nearly impossible to do any gardening without a ten-foot deer-proof fence. But the liberals - who run on emotion - don't want any culling of the OH-THEY'RE-SO-CUTE-HOW-COULD-YOU-HURT-BAMBI deer in town, where they can see it.

(Can you see my eyes rolling?)

sara said...

LOL. The property we just bought had been vacant for some time before we bought it and is apparently well known for good hunting - rolling hills, water features, gullies, etc. We put up a lot of signs with our contact info and a few people have asked us if they can hunt it. Our biggest concerns are making sure our boys stay safe and that we don't get sued (we have other concerns, such as not wasting a doe just because a hunter prefers a trophy buck, but it's secondary). Anyway, bow season just started here and we gave one guy permission to hunt with his brother. Hope we get some meat! :)

Herding Grasshoppers said...

If you let people hunt on your land, do they share the meat with you? Or do you hunt yourself?

I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of venison, but we eat it. I get most of it ground and use it with seasoned things - tacos, spaghetti, meatballs, etc.

How do you like yours?

sara said...

I grew up in NYC and in order to hunt, you had to travel and it just wasn't something I was familiar with. My husband is from Long Island and grew up ocean fishing, but he doesn't know hunting either. We hope to learn and to have our children grow up with it, but so far are at a loss as to where to begin.

I have only had venison in stews at church potlucks and it is very tasty. I only tried it for the first time last year and I had heard so many weird things about it - depends how you cook it, how you field dress it, if it's tenderized, yada yada - so we were pleasantly surprised.

We have asked the person we gave permission to to share with us, so we'll see.

The dB family said...

That sure isn't fair! We have a beautiful bush behind us, but it's risky to hike it during hunting season as the farmer who owns it lets hunters use it during the season. We have yet to see any deer, (alive. There was a dead one in the field one year. Must have been hit on the road.)but they're in there!

Hopefully next year fir your men!

Blessings!
Deborah