End of February Weekend

I got out Saturday afternoon and came home Sunday.  Dave, Grant and Graham were planning to join me for some chores and shed hunting.  Unfortunately Dave made it most of the way out before Grant threw up - they had to turnaround and I lost all my farm help.

I did find a few shed antlers.

 This one appears to be a match for one that I found a couple of weeks ago.

 And I think this might be the guy who was wearing them earlier in the year.

I also found this one.  It was not broken but appears to have been damaged when forming.  I think the buck in the picture below is this guy.

I dragged alot of the pricker trees up to the fire pit.  I had cut them down a couple of weeks ago.  I now keep the tractor on hand in case things get away from me.   I can always dig a fire break if necessary.  Learned that one the hard way.

I spread some cracked corn around in front of the cameras - it tends to attract some interesting subjects.

I saw these tracks on my walk today.  I'm guessing that it's raccoon.

There were numerous rubs and rub lines out in the woods.  These were notable because they were pretty large trees and therefore were probably large racks that did it.

A couple of "poops of the week".  Above is a fresh deer pile and I suspect that the one on the left is raccoon.

Foxes showed up alot on camera this week.  There are actually two in this shot.

This one has an itch.

And this one is walking away from us.

This is a nice buck that still has it's headgear in mid-February. 

A crowd attracted by the corn.

Do you think the batteries are still good?

Weekend Walkabout & Stuff

 I covered a lot of ground this weekend but only found this one small shed antler.  As you can see on another post, it seems that most of the bucks haven't started to shed their antlers yet.

This gray fox was sneaking up into the field near the barn stand.

Probably the same guy over by the driveway stand.

The raccoons found the corn beside the ridge stand.

A little bit of corn in the winter sure attracts a crowd.  This is below the driveway stand.

These black labs have been showing up everywhere and more frequently.

During my walk today, I went to the cliff past the ridge stand and looked down at the neighbor's house in the valley.  Two dogs started barking at me and the owner came out and called them into the house.  Guess I know whose dogs they are.

It looks like the labs have been crossing the ice on the pond.

 One doe as sentry up on the field edge while the rest wait in safety in the woods.

I am amazed at the amount of acorns still available on the forest floor.  I don't know if it's because they've been covered by snow and ice.  In general, it seems that the deer have not been desperate for food yet this year.  The pine buds haven't been nibbled.  There's acorns around.  And even the turnips haven't been cleaned out yet.

Some turnips have been nibbled and others are untouched.

On the walk, there were plenty of rubs and rub lines out in the woods.  They don't just pick on my pine trees.

The neighbors have been doing some logging this winter.  So far, it looks like they've stayed on their side of the boundaries.

And, the ever popular picture of me approaching the camera.

Also, the popular "poop of the week".  This one appears to be a coyote who has been feasting on something with fur - possibly the deer carcass that I found in the field a couple of weeks ago.

Another treasure found on my walk - a stylish hat.  I don't remember seeing it on any of my guests.

Two weeks ago, I left a deer skull in the middle of the barn field.  I figured that I'd let nature clean it up a little before I put it on my board of treasures.  This week, there was no sign of the skull but I did find this jawbone.

I started to prepare for an elk hunting trip out west in September.  I figured that I better get a 300 yard shooting range so that I can practice.  So I spent most of two days doing battle with black locust trees (with thorns), raspberry bushes (with thorns), and greenbrier (with thorns).  Finally, I had cut a shooting lane from near the barn field to the target stand at the pond.  I got out the laser and measured - it was only 250 yards.  In frustration, I just started looking for an open area where I might have that long a shot.  I could get 300 yards from the barn to the main field.  Figures.

Will they live?

This is what the bucks do to the pine trees every year.  At least so far this year, they haven't started eating the buds off the trees.  Of course, there's still a couple months until "green-up" when there will be better altenatives for them to eat.