1,2,3,4 Does

That's probably the largest number of does I've seen moving together around here. They came walking down the south road in single file. It was still pretty dark so they were hard to see. This is the same area where I spooked a deer yesterday morning at about the same time. This has been a good road to watch this year as it's over my left shoulder.

6:45 came and the feeder went off. All 4 were startled but only took a step or two to get out from under the feeder. It was interesting to see they all faced different directions looking for danger. Once the motor stopped they all turned back toward the feeder and began eating again.

By 7:30 they had pretty well cleaned up all the feed and began to gradually move away. In general they were heading down the new shot lane I cleared a month ago behind the feeder. As they meandered down the lane they all took an opportunity to urinate in the lane. It's late enough in the season that I probably won't see any outcome from this but it gives me hope for closing weekend next week.

So 2 more days of the season logged and nothing but Does. That's about par for the time of the season I guess. By now the does are feeling less pressure as their season ended after Thanksgiving while the bucks are still being shot at. The rut seems to have quieted down as well. With 5 mature does seen this weekend you'd expect to see/hear at least a young buck. Nope! I think hot deer love in the woods will have to wait until next year.

a new bike for Christmas?

So being an instructor at a Harley dealership can be interesting especially when you don't ride a Harley.

Last week the dealership got in a nice black and yellow Vrod. The yellow perl skulls painted into the black stripe are really cool. It would match my yellow GSX-R nicely.

The Vrod seems to really appeal to my wife but now she tells me she doesn't like the seat and the mid controls are too rear set for her but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last night she stopped by the dealership to visit Tanya, and see the bike. She runs into her uncle and cousins who were looking at glooves to wear in the cold. One thing leads to another and I get this pic sent to my phone. A little later I get a call asking if I've looked at my phone. I see the pic and call her back. Reagan tells me she's bought the Vrod and that I need to bring up her helmet and gear.

- ok this is the first signs of a prank.
1. She has yet to ride her Savage up to the dealership because of traffic
2. It was sort of nasty outside and they would have graciously loaded it up in the truck for her

So I'm just hanging out at the house waiting to see what happens. Oh if she has bought a Vrod I can almost hear the hum of my new Concourse14 in the next few months when it gets to the showroom floor.

Meanwhile the whole dealership is getting into this joke. They get her the welcome letter that all buyers get. She gets an accessory catalog. They even offer to make up a sales receipt all in the name of this joke on me.

Our buddy Ron calls Reagan to see what we are up to for the night. Thinking I put him up to finding out if she really bought the bike, she tells him she bought a Vrod. Now Ron is a serious fan of the Harley. He's got the bike, the Ford Harley edition truck, the pool table, the christmas tree, the clock. I'll bet if you cut him he'd bleed orange. He's a big fan of HD. So telling him she bought an HD got him excited. He in turn called our other friends Chris and Erica. Erica calls Reagan offering words of congratulations and they decide that we are all meeting up at Kona Grill for drinks.

Back to the dealership happenings, Reagan even got one of the sales guys to call and ask me for my address so he could deliver the bike today. It's a mighty sneaky group up there.

So Reagan gets home with catalog in hand and starts looking through it. She shows me the welcome letter that tells about the HOG chapter meeting stuff. So then I tell her to check on insurance for the bike. See how much to add it to our existing policy. She gets the number and I asked how that compared with what she could get through HD since I was pretty sure they had insurance with their fianance program. Uuuuuuuh. She couldn't tell me how it compared. Well how much does the bike cost? She said 35K

- now my suspicions were confirmed.
1. She would not by a $35K at her current riding level.
2. the Vrod lists for 15-19K depending on which model you get. The screaming eagle is more but this wasn't one.

So the joke is foiled. But wait! Our dear friend Ron thinks it's for real.

We get to the bar and meet up with Chris & Erica. He's a little suspicious for many of the same reasons I was. And there was the fact that I wasn't all excite. She fesses up and they get a laugh out of the story. Chris calls Ron to add a little fuel to story and get him to come there.

Ron and Cathy show up and you can tell he's suspicios but hopeful. Finally she fesses up and explains how he got accidentally pulled into the joke.

In reality, if she had told him what was up and got him in on pranking me I probably would have bought into it. Who knows I might have even rushed up to the dealership.

It's a pretty bike and it'll make someone really happy. I'll try to get some photos of it next week.

The bike that almost had a home in our garage.

cops, high water and deer. Oh my!

That sums up everything I encountered on my way up to the deer camp this morning. One of Cleveland's finest decided he wanted to welcome me to his fine city instead of chatting with one of his fellow city emplyees.. "I clocked you at 78 in a 65, where ya heading to in such a hurry?" he asked. I didn't think it was prudent to tell him I was ONLY doing 77 according to the GPS which I glanced at when I saw him. I handed him my id and stuff and waited patiently. A few minutes later he came back and asked for my autograph and then presented me with a nice yellow slip of paper and told me to contact the court before July 17th, correction January 17th. Guess he's anxious for the summer already.

Learned something about my Garmin Zumo 550 during this. If you turn if off it stops your trip timer altogether, both the overall time and the stopped time. Interesting. Have to remember that when travelling. Want to leave it on during fuel stops so I get more accurate times.

Next came the high water. Even with my early morning visit I still made it to Corrigan by 5:30. Cruising down HWY 352 (according to the GPS, actually it's FM352 though) I notice what looks like a puddle of water up ahead. The closer I get the bigger the puddle gets. I then realize there's a creek in the area of the puddle and I quickly begin stopping. I figured if I locked up the tires it would be better than hitting the high water at 60mph. The tires never lost traction and I managed to come to a stop about 20 feet into the puddle. Good thing too because when I started moving forward again the water got up to the axles. Once through the high water things were back to normal and I was on my way.

Driving down Purvis Rd while marvelling at my GPS's map detail I saw 3 does crossing the road just past the house on the right with the pond next to it. According to the GPS I had just passed Kyle's road. So much for the deer moving later in the morning. They were already moving and it was a good hour before daylight still.

I turned onto Palmerly Parrish road and gosh the GPS still knew where I was. Wow, technology is great. Guess what I found at the creek? If you guessed water you are correct. The bridge itself was high and dry but on the other side there was standind water. I down shifted to 1st and just eased in to it. The further I went the deeper it got so finally I opened the door to check. Water was just under my nerf bars. Thank goodness for the Spring Over Axle conversion I did a few years ago. So when I got to the gate there was still a good foot of water standing so I got out and stayed on the outside of the Jeep. Those nerf bars came in handy as they gave me something to stand on as I crawled onto the hood of the Jeep to get to the gate. I managed to get the gate unlocked and opened without getting into the water. Bravo! Closing the gate was trickier but I stayed dry. I'll go back down later and lock it.

Once on the propety the gps could do nothing except tell me what direction I was going. Maybe I'll drive the whole road around the property to see if I can create a crumb trail that I can convert into a road for the map.

Hunting later in the season is nice because it gets light later. I was on the stand by 6:15. About 5 minutes later moving around in my seat I made a farting sound with the seat cushion (honest it was the cushion). Well apaerently that was enough to spook a deer probably 30' south of my stand because I heard it snort and hussle through the bushes.

The feeder went off promptly @ 6:45 but it was still too dark to see. Just a little after 7 I saw a doe and fawn coming up my right shot lane. They got half way up before she decided she didn't like the situation and turned around. The fawn followed with it's tail up high. It was quite a site as it's tail looked like it was 2 sizes too big for the little fawn. A few minutes later I got a brief glimpse of a deer to the left of my feeder. Just a brief glimpse at best.

So it's now 8:15 and I haven't seen any more deer. There's been an amazing amount of shooting. Almost sounds like opening weekend, of course some of it is waterfowl hunting I reckon. Either that or you've got 10 hunters shooting at the same deer and missing.

More to come...

coldest morning this season

Those are the words I heard on the local news as I left the camp house this morning, the outside thermometer reading 28 and falling.. The predicted low in Lufkin was a chilly 22 degrees. My best guess is we got to 25 here.

No deer this morning but it's only 7