Oh, Deer!

Well, it’s official.

It’s deer mating season.

October and November is the time of year when hormone-crazed deer are roaming the streets–and dirt roads—and pastures—and highways– looking for love… or the hoods of vehicles.

Apparently during their quest to be immortal, deer ignore simple safety precautions and vehicle headlights.

The Wichita television stations and area newspapers have done stories on taking precautions while driving during this time of the year.  Dawn and dusk are the two times to be especially vigilant while driving.

Major damage can be done to vehicles.

Oh, and it usually doesn’t turn out too well for the deer either.

Last year there were a couple of times when I was driving home from school at night and I’d see a deer on the shoulder of the road.  Luckily, both times the deer chose to cross the road after I passed them.

Unfortunantly, for one of my students, a deer decided to run right into the side of his truck while he was driving to school last year.

He was fine.

The truck on the other hand needed work.

His passenger side windows were busted out and his passenger side door was so crunched in that he couldn’t even open it. Apparently it was a hit and run, too.  The deer bounced off the truck and took off running.

He didn’t even exchange insurance information.

Son of a buck.

And it got worse.

The damage was so bad that my student had to ride the bus to school while his truck got fixed.

Son of a buck!

There are some positives to deer mating season though.

It allows my husband to revert to his hunting and gathering instincts which allows him to fill up the freezer.  It also allows him to keep up with my dad, brother, and brother-in-laws to see who will get the biggest buck of the year.

Adam will openly admit that before we started dating he was not a deer hunter.  That was until I took him out to my parents’ place in Southwest Missouri to participate in a Ray Family Deer Camp.

Ray Family Deer Camp would take place on the opening weekend of firearm season.  My sister, mom, sister-in-law and I would stay in the house and bake and make massive amounts of spaghetti while listening to the CB radios waiting for a call from one of the guys.  My brother, dad, brother-in-law and Adam went out and waited for their deer.

My parents have since sold their place and have relocated to Oklahoma.  Ray Family Deer Camp has been postponed.

But, it was during this deer camp when Adam got “the bug”.  I think he especially got “the bug” when everyone else got a deer that year except him.

That next year–when I was still living and teaching in Missouri–Adam went out and got himself a buck early one morning.  I remember it was in the morning because I was getting ready for school when I got a phone call from Adam.

He was breathing like he’d just ran a race.

You could tell that he was excited about his first buck.

So excited, in fact, that he forgot to take a picture of it out in the field.

And thus began my husband’s quest to gather his living room decorations.

Son of a buck.

I figured he could decorate his bachelor’s pad however he wanted.

Last year, I received a text message while at school with this picture attached:

Adam asked in the text, “Can I get it mounted?”

“You know you’ve already taken it in!!” I replied.

I was right, too!  I later found out that he had taken it in even before he texted me.

I had actually forgotten about this buck until I went into one of our guest rooms the other night.

When I turned on the lights, this is what I found…

Adam’s first two bucks were harvested during the regular firearm season.  In Kansas that’s in November and December, which is synonomous with it being COLD.

This year Adam decided to try getting his buck while it was still warm out.

This meant that he’d have to go out in September and early October during muzzleloader season.

This also meant he’d have to buy a muzzleloader–which is another blog for another day.

Over the last few years during fall harvests, Adam has spotted some bucks hanging out in some of our fields.  This fall he saw one in particular that has grown considerably in the last few years.

He thought muzzleloader season would be the best bet to get his buck this year.

Adam would go out religiously in the mornings and the evenings waiting for his buck.  He would come home and tell me that he’d seen some does or some little bucks, but not his buck.  It was getting close to the end of the season when I got a phone call from him one afternoon after I’d gotten home from school.  He had gotten his buck.

Dwight picked me up and we drove out to the field to help Adam.  And this time Adam got some pictures of his big buck still out in the field.

So now I have a freezer full of venison–which is great because we were getting low from last year–and Adam will have a big mount to put alongside his other “trophies” in his office.