Oh Deer!

We live in "outer-suburbia" and have a 5 acre lot.  Every year, we notice that traffic in our little world has increased.  It has become apparent that we are a destination, even a rendezvous (depending on the time of year).  Until the snow gets deep, the critters just run up the bank by the road out front.  As the snow gets deeper, they just use our driveway, like any other visitor.

Now that I'm outside at night to take Gypsy out, I get to hear/see all kinds of critters.  Depending on the time of day, we can see deer, rabbits, skunks, possums, fox, hawks, owls and even coyotes.  Only once have I seen a coyote, but we hear them often...really spooky sounding, too!  Some mornings, after a fresh snow, it looks like there was some sort of party out there with the number of tracks criss-crossing the snow, mostly bunny and deer tracks.

Our larger visitors, white-tailed deer, can often been seen during the day and almost always hear them crunching through the snow at night.  One day there was a group of 6 grazing out back.  A few days later, this single buck was just behind the trailer, near our firewood storage.

Clearly, he still has both his antlers.  Just a few days prior to that, I found this rack, sticking out of the snow, near the turnaround in our driveway.  Deer naturally shed their antlers this time of year.  It's a good-sized one, 4 points and weighs almost 1-1/2 pounds.

I think I'll be figuring out how to make a basket out of it.