Happy Birthday Kristi! Friday September 28, 2007

Here is wishing you a very happy birthday. I hope your day will be filled with happiness.

Sam's Bevo

Here is another picture of Sam Syring's Bevo. I'm guessing his horn width at seven feet. How would you ever get this guy in a trailer to move him?

Dusk and Dawn

Wild Turkeys back having marching practice

The "Boys" all pretty well cleaned up...

Bruto

Sid

Ace

"Ace" pictured in the middle of scraping off his velvet.

I'm betting he had all of this rubbed off within three hours after this picture was taken.

Big deer starting to rub off "velvet"

The bigger bucks are just starting to scrape off their velvet on the brush. I expect this deer, "Sid", to be clean the next time I check my pictures.

Fawns learn to do what "Mom" does...

Sausage!

Here is a good candidate for sausage. I'm looking at the deer herd and deciding how many and which deer to take out so as to keep a healthy herd with the proper numbers.

Cardinal

Twins

Here is a native doe with twin fawns. One of them is a buck fawn. You ask, "How can he tell"? Well, if you look at the fawn on the left, there are three indicators..........right, one is he has a smile on his face. Surely you can see the other two.

Sneaking up on the javelina herd

And, look who is having a birthday Sunday, September 9.

Happy Birthday Lex! Here he is in his best "Fishing Texas" pose of which he has many. I can't remember the last time I caught more fish than he did. One time on a Saturday morning after he had been out until the wee hours I drove to the ranch and had been fishing about an hour when he phoned me and asked where I was, I told him that I was catching bass and that he was already six fish behind. He jumped in his truck came out and still beat me. Ouch! Here is hoping you have a great day.

Twilight

When I see a good deer I always wonder if there is another better one about to step out.

The scraping off of the "velvet" has started.

As you can see this buck has started rubbing his antlers on brush. It is a bloody mess at first.

This is two mornings later and it is well under way.

Even three and a half hours later it looks much better.

By the next morning he doesn't have much left to scrape off. This buck with his first set of antlers is the son of doe #7. His sire is \ was in the Shiner Ranch where his "Mom" came from. He is the only one I've seen on my pictures that has done this so far. I checked my pictures from last year and most of the bucks rubbed their velvet off during a four day period from September 17 until Setember 20. It is really amazing what all I am learning about deer now that I have the time.

Fawns...

These fawns were probably born from late June to early August although they sometimes come earlier and later. It doesn't take long before they are doing what their mothers do. Later on in the early winter I will be able to tell what sex they are. I am just starting to note which does have singles and which ones have twins.

Putting swivel chairs in the blinds.

I spent the morning assembling swivel chairs I'd gotten yesterday at Sam's. It was at about this point I started wondering if I would have enough room to get them inside.

I did finally figure a way to get this chair in then as you can see I sat and got sweat on the chair from my huffing and puffing to get it inside.

These are some of the views looking out the windows...

This food plot where I plant winter oats grew up completely with sunflowers. Only the dried remains of them are left now. Soon I will have it plowed and planted for the fall and winter.

More Deer........

The fawns are growing...

Late evening.... sneaking in for a bite...

Bruto and Sid...

I call this young buck "Double Spots" because of his unusual double white patches on his neck...

Ace, pictured with the "boys"...

Deer Blind Crew

Darryl and Uncle Gus Swierc came to the ranch Sunday to help me unload and set up deer blinds. Everything went well and I really appreciate their help.