It's the Rut...BANG BANG

Last night, my husband

"took" another deer. Two deer in 48 hours and not only deer, but two mature bucks. That's pretty amazing. Truthfully though, I don't know whether to be awed, or disgusted. (Northern sensibility says to be disgusted, Southern sensibility says to be proud that my man is manly enough to fill our freezer for the winter! )

I know, it's gross. But, you know what? For those meat eaters of you out there, hunting is a more humane way to "harvest" meat than the way most commercial meat -- pork, beef -- is taken. Do you know how they kill cows?

As I understand it -- and remember that I am still, to some extent, a city girl -- there is a philosophy behind responsible hunting and a very strong link between hunting and conservation.

Responsible hunting is about preserving a healthy herd of animals, and the way you do that is to "thin" the herd so that all animals will have plenty of access to food and water in order to be able to flourish and grow. You see, in the wild, it's all about having access to food and water. If the deer start to proliferate and the herd becomes overpopulated, the deer will start to become weak, skinny, have deformed racks, and start to behave erratically. That's what you see in neighborhoods where housing has encroached upon the natural habitat of deer and they start running around your backyard, eating your impatients and other flowers and just standing on the side of the road.

Since you want a healthy herd of deer, you need to maintain the size of your herd and in hunting, you do that by "harvesting" the older, weaker animals. You only take those older, mature animals, the ones who soon would be pushed out of the herd, the ones who are at the end of their prime. That's why the hunters on this sporting plantation (yes, I live on a sporting plantation)...that's why they only shoot male deer, bucks, who have at least 8 points on each antler or rack, or who have at least a 15 inch spread between their antlers. They would never kill a young buck, especially a button buck, a young male whose antlers look like little buttons on top of their heads because they haven't poked through the skin yet.

Apparently, this is the time of year for "the rut" when the bucks and does get together for alittle "birds and bees" action.

Last night, when in his deer stand, my husband noticed that the girls, the does, in the field were "atwitter," which usually signals that a male deer, a dominant buck, is nearby and "ready for action." So, my husband made grunting noises to simulate another male deer in the area. Bucks are highly territorial and so when the dominant buck heard the sound, he came out of the woods to confront the intruder, which unfortunately wasn't another buck, but was my husband...and well, you know the rest. Normally, big bucks are very wary and become nocturnal, rarely coming out of the woods in the daylight or even dusk. Only during the rut when they want to get "sump'em sump'em" do they let their guard down. Watch out guys...