Just spend the weekend out on the farm doing the annual deer hunt, and what an
adventurous weekend I had.  Saturday morning, my brother and I were going to
join in on a hunting party to help hunt the southern half of the timber. 
Afterwards, he and I would hunt the northern half by ourselves, since the
owner's of the property were not going to allow others to hunt that property. 
Well, the Saturday morning hunting drive flopped, big time.  Too many new guys
who didn't know where to go or what to do ended up not blocking or pushing
were they should have.  No deer harvested as most of them got out in the
gaping holes in the firing lines.  I saw a nice 6 pt buck along with a doe
that hooked back in after the pushers went through.  I never got a shot
though.  My brother was steamed with the idiocy of the drive.  So, he and I
took off to the other half of the timber.

On the first drive, I did the pushing, and my brother blocked.  He passed up a
couple of doe because he thought a buck would be coming (and never did).  So,
next drive, he would push, and I would block.  Well, as I was going to my
blocking spot, I kicked up 4 doe, a couple of shots, no hits.  Then, several
minutes later, as I was getting to my spot, there were a half dozen deer
milling about my blocking spot.  Several more shots later (1 hit for certain
on a doe, and another on a buck), no confirmed kills.  My brother drove
through several more, but nothing I could get a bead on as they were flying
along through the timber.  Well, my brother wanted to drive again on another
line, so I stayed in the same area I blocked in.  So, I sat down, and figured
it would take 20 min. for my brother to get to his starting spot, I turned off
my battery powered shotgun scope to conserve.  Of course, 2 minutes later, my
wounded buck comes back around behind me, and I had to blind-sight shot at
him.  I ended up hitting him again, and ran through the timber after him, but
lost him in heavy brush.  No snow on the ground this year, so tracking was
nearly impossible.  8(  By 11 am, my brother and I were tired out, so we
hopped into his old brown truck and went driving around the outskirts of the
timber to see what deer were hanging out in the CRP acres.  We ended up at the
back 40 acres, and come upon 3 doe and a buck holding up in a small shallow
spot along the fence line.  We stopped to get out our guns, but the deer broke
out of there and headed to the timber.  My brother yelled, hang on, we're
going after them!  And with that, he revved up the truck for a cross-country
ride of 40-50 mph. to chase down the deer.  One doe split off from the group,
and my brother tore after it.  We never got to catch up completely, but we
sure made that doe run hard.  It managed to get to the fence line, and it
jumped off across the ditch to hit the road hard.  It got back up, and barely
could get across the next ditch.  But what a ride!  My brother
 was laughing all the way home.

On Sunday morn, my brother and I along with 2 other guys from our old hunting
group went out on a bitterly cold morning.  It was single digit temps with -10
F wind chills.  One guy and I blocked, while my brother and the other guy
pushed.  Well, I saw one yearling doe, and that was it.  The next 2 drives, I
pushed along with my brother, and all anyone saw was the same yearling doe. 
The deer had apparently stayed out in the open overnight and did not go back
into the timber.  So, the 2 guys took off to go to another area.  My brother
and I came up with a plan, I would block down by the old dump, while he drove
around the CRP acres around it with the truck to move along any deer that were
still holding out.  Sure enough, he managed to kick out a nice doe that came
to me.  I was half-way up the hillside, and it hooked towards me, since it was
running with the wind, it didn't smell me.  By the time it saw me, it was too
late, I had a good bead on it, and managed a spine shot to drop it.  Of
course, the sucker had to tumble down to the bottom of the ravine before I
could get a killing shot on her.  Dad and my brother stopped down, and after
gutting it, we drug it out of the bottom for our lone kill for the year. 
Which is alright, we only wanted one deer for the meat this year due to
processing costs.  By 11, Dad and I were off to deliver the deer to the
locker.  

Now, I forgot to mention 2 other truck incidents involving deer.  The first,
was my brother this morning chased another deer across our corn field, as my
parents and I watched on.  Mom wanted to know what it was like, and after
watching my brother's rodeo drive, she now knows.  The second incident was my
screw-up last evening.  I was driving out to check on my brother, and a nice
10 point buck came through the CRP acres.  Well, I wanted to follow behind to
see he would bed down at and then get my brother.  Of course, watching the
deer instead of where I was going, I hit a massive ravine with my truck. 
Fortunately, I was going slow enough that I didn't set off the air bag. 
Unfortunately, I managed to bust my turn signal lever, evidently my hand
slipped off and hit it on the sudden stop.  Of course, I didn't realize that
till this evening as I was driving home.  8(  So, looks like deer hunting for
me this year is going to get a bit more expensive as I have to get this fixed.
 *sigh*  Oh well, live and learn.  So that's my deer hunting adventures for
the year.

So far, my walks to and from work have been interesting.  One evening, it was
a walk in a warm November rain.  Another was a frosty walk in the dark.  So
far, I seem to meet a few dog walkers, and that is about all.  I can't wait
for warmer weather again however.  I still get to look forward to a walk in
the falling snow sometime soon.  Nothing so quiet as a light snow fall.  The
closest thing so far today was the falling of the frost from the trees with
that cold NW wind blowing around the woods.  It was so nice with the tiny snow
crystals dropping about like snow.  

Well, I forgot to mention that I was at 170 last week as I predicted.  I'm
hoping to have dropped a pound from all of the running in the woods this
weekend.  However, I ate well a couple of the meals, so odds are, I'm still at
170 come tomorrow night.  8(  It is amazing how fat 3-4 extra pounds makes you
feel.  Certain jeans now feel tight again.  Gah, I hate losing ground like
this.  I half-hoped that my metabolism could have carried me for a week of
light exercise, but that doesn't appear to be the case.  And I still have
X-mas meals ahead as well.  *gulp*  Tonight's blog entry brought to you by
"C.O.D." AC-DC