Deer Season 2010

As most of you probably realize rifle season began bright and early yesterday morning.  Steve, Mike and Kyle hit the woods pretty early.  They left the house around 5:30 am.  This put the in their spots around 6:00.  Steve was in his tree stand, and Mike and Kyle were in the ground blind.  It is my understanding that Kyle had issues with the chair.  It was a cheap Downstream giveaway and apparently couldn't handle the hunting scene.  They stayed out in the woods until about 9:30 or so.  They did not see any, but on the way out of the woods they saw some.  This sounds like a hunting story to me.  Isn't that the way it always is.  Tom T. told me a similar tale about his son and elk.  Killing a good one but as soon as they were leaving, the best one was there.  Bummer.

After hunting, they came home.  Steve and I went out for breakfast.  Hunting works up an appetite.   Steve filled the truck up with gas and was out the rest of the afternoon.  He woke up at 2:30 and left to go back out to the woods at 3:00.

This time they went to a different place where scouting reports said there were "monster bucks".  They were just ground hunting this time.  Kyle got the short end of the stick again and had to sit on a tub instead of a chair.  It was a hunting trip from hell.  The others that they were sharing the woods with were not very courteous.  That makes for a long cold deerless afternoon.  They came home without even firing a shot.  Oh, well, if you always got one they would call it killing and not hunting  :).

They are not going out this morning.  We are going to go to church and lunch at Grandma's.  Steve thought he better go to church this week since, if he has treatment on Thursday, he might not make it back for a few weeks.  He is such a good guy.

All this time you are probably wondering why I am up so early on a weekend.  Well, I originally got up to take a hot tub.  We know that sometimes the best made plans fail.  As I was getting back in from taking Samurai out, there was the patter of little feet and the faint calling of "Oma" coming from the stairs.  You guessed it.  Aubree was up.  Most times I take her out, but I simply did not feel like messing with it this morning.  I wanted a quiet restful tub.  Soooooo, I fixed breakfast and settled down to several episodes of "Sponge Bob".  Got to love the yellow, square, absorbent guy.  We are on show 4 now.  That guy can sure get into trouble.

I am also watching my birds.  It is opening weekend of Project Feeder Watch.  This is a bird watch program sponsored by Cornell University.  I have been a participant for over 10 years. Every week, I watch the birds for two consecutive days.  This is usually Sat and Sun for me.  I report what kind and how many I see of each bird.  This is tabulated nationally, and it is used to research trends, migration and population numbers.  It is all done through the computer, which is nice. Since we moved, I don't have the numbers that I had at the farm.  Steve did make me a bird tree here and that helps a lot.  I only have 5 feeders out now.  It is still early in the season and don't have all my other feeders out.  My numbers are not big enough yet to have all that seed sitting there.  I won't bore you with my reports each week, but I will tell you about the exciting stuff.  I want to give you an idea of how the numbers change throughout the season.  Yesterday and today, so far, I have seen 1 gold finch, 2 Carolina chickadees, 1 white crowned sparrow, 1 female cardinal, 5 house sparrows, 5 juncos, 3 titmice, 1 downey woodpecker, and 3 nuthatch.  All the birds do not appear at the feeder at once.  They are just counted when I see them.  For example, if I see 2 male cardinals at my feeder one time and the next time I see 1, I don't say 3.  I have to report the highest number at one time.  It is a family deal at my house.  Steven and I have a good time with it.  He even watches for them when I am not around.  I taught Koleen while she was little and she can identify a large number of the birds.  I am in the process of training Aubree.  She can identify some, but she is still learning.  I'll keep you posted on the progress and my numbers.