That Ain't No Utah Deer

A few days ago me and Diane were getting ready to eat our morning fruit smoothie and settle in for our morning scripture study when Diane looked into the back yard and saw one of only two bucks we've seen in our yard this past year. I realize to you Utah guys this isn't exactly a trophy buck. I'm sure some rabid hunter here in Tennessee would love to have this baby hanging in his garage. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind if he were hanging in my garage. If he were hanging in my garage what would I do with him? I would have to clean it, skin it, find someone to cut it up, then put it in the freezer and eat the poor thing. I guess I'm glad I'm not the rabid hunter I once was. Off to the right of the deer is the vicious slope that gave me "one heck of a hematoma" on my left leg. I knew the deer could handle the slope so I didn't try to warn him. For now we'll just enjoy watching them when they come into the backyard.

On reflection, I still have the antler's from the last buck I shot while living in Utah. That three point was larger than this little feller. With all the green shrubbery here to munch on you would think the deer would grow larger than they do. I am seeing the difference between the mule deer in Utah and the white tail deer here. One thing about deer here, there are a lot of them. Hunter's who are really serious about hunting can take multiple deer throughout the season. Tonight we were on our way to do a few errands and we saw what we call the mythical albino deer. We have heard people talk about albino deer since moving to Tennessee. We thought it was somewhat of a fairy tale. Tonight we can tell it is true. We saw with our own eyes an albino deer. No we weren't stunned, but excited to see a part of nature one rarely sees. The fur on this doe was not white, white but somewhat a creme color. It was very pretty to see. We were grateful the car ahead of us didn't hit it when it ran across the road.

We do enjoy seeing the various wild life that frequents our backyard and the surrounding neighborhood. We see squirrels, occasionally wild turkey, frogs, lizards, spiders larger than any spider I've seen in my life prior to moving to Tennessee, cardinals, blue jays, buzzards eating road kill, and more birds than I could possible name. Some animals are a little more adventurous than others. The squirrels seem to come out of nowhere on the roads around here. So now I feel bad about the dumb squirrel that ran out in front of my car one early Sunday morning. They may be fast but they can't quite outrun the tires of the car doing 40 mph.

Occasionally we hear coyote howling at night when we're outside. They sound like a rather large pack when you hear them howling.

I hope that squirrel forgives me for ending his life earlier than it should have.

Fortunately for me, he was no where near the size of the giant opossum Diane collided with shortly after moving here. We've returned to the scene of the crime each time someone comes to visit. Fortunately there are no such things as opossum ghosts or this one would be roaming the road looking for the car that ended his/her life.