Remember a couple blogs ago I mentioned not getting things done because I was playing Legos with boy-child? Behold the fruits of our labor!!

We left Wednesday night to make the trek across Michigan to my parent's place on the other side of the state. Four people, luggage for several days, two dogs and all their paraphernalia--which included Dash's medication called "Calming Moments" to help him with the car ride.

ADDICTED TO COFFEE?  You know you are addicted to coffee if ...

You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.

You sleep with your eyes open.

You have to watch videos in fast-forward.

The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.

You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.

You've worn out your third pair of tennis shoes this week.

Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.

You chew on other people's fingernails.

The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.

You're so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas.

You can type sixty words per minute with your feet.

You can jump-start your car without cables.

You don't sweat, you percolate.

You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.

You forget to unwrap candy bars before eating them.

You've built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.

People get dizzy just watching you.

Instant coffee takes too long.

You channel surf faster without a remote.

You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.

You can outlast the Energizer bunny.

You short out motion detectors.

You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore.

Your nervous twitch registers on the Richter scale.

You help your dog chase its tail.

You soak your dentures in coffee overnight.

Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.

You ski uphill.

You get a speeding ticket even when you're parked.

You answer the door before people knock.

You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.

[no hunters in this one, just stupid people ]

Darwin Personal Account
"Stag Party"
An EMT in southern Georgia was part of the unit that responded to a call from Coffee County late one night. They arrived on the scene and found a severely injured man lying at the edge of a field. His stomach had been completely torn open, and he was covered with lacerations and bruises. He also had a prominent tire tread across his chest.

The injured man's companion showed up in a racing model ATV vehicle, clearly intoxicated, and gave the following account. Imagine this tale being recited in a deep Georgian accent.

He and his injured friend had been drinkin' and ridin' around the field on the three-wheeled ATV, when they sighted a stand of deer in their headlights. The friend, riding the back as a passenger, was struck with a great idea. "Hey man," he said, "If you quarter off one a those deer, betcha I can bulldog 'im." The driver thought this was an entertaining idea, so he proceeded to isolate a buck and race him down.

His intoxicated passenger proceeded to leap from the ATV, grab the buck by the antlers, and perform an excellent example of this rodeo sport. He pinned the animal's head to the ground, but that's when things went wrong. The buck, less docile than a steer, simply got up, threw his head back, and tore his assailant's belly open. The deer then proceeded to stomp, kick, and butt him for good measure.

The EMTs noticed that this information accounted all of the injuries except one. When they asked the driver about the tire track across his injured friend's chest, he responded: "Well how else was I s'posed to git the deer off 'im?"

I don't know which is worse: a drunk moron trying wrestle a grown male deer like a steer, or a drunk moron who runs over his injured friend to scare away the righteously angered animal.
 

Yeah, I know, I know... TWO blogs in one day? This was suppose to be up yesterday, but I didn't get the camera downloaded. I got busy building a Lego castle with boy-child and lost track of time 

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[WARNING: CONTAINS BRIEF MENTION OF VENISON AND
THE MEANS BY WITH IT IS ACQUIRED!!]

It's deer season in Michigan. With it comes Deer Hunting Widow sales--stores have sales targeted (a pun! ha!) toward women whose husband/boyfriend is our for the annual deer harvest, woot!--lots of guys sporting beards, lots of camo wearing and discussions about "racks" that are not part of the female anatomy   Deer Season also spurs a lot of tales telling and, with today's modern technology, a campfire is no longer necessary. Just huddle round the warm glow of the computer instead

Below is a tale that's been circulating for a couple years. Nobody has been able to confirm if it's an urban(?) myth or not (not even Snopes!), but I can totally see some guys I know trying this, and it is how a deer would react soooooo....

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(I know this is a little long, but worth the read for a good laugh )

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, sweet feed it on corn for a few weeks, then butcher it and eat it. Yum! Corn-fed venison. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer.

Since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not have much fear of me (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck four feet away) it should not be difficult to rope one, toss a bag over its head to calm it down, then hog-tie it and transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder and hid behind it with my rope. The cattle, having seen a roping or two before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it.

After 20 minutes, my deer showed up, 3 of them. I picked a likely looking one, stepped out, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell she was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.

I took a step toward it. It took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope, and received an education. The first thing I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, it is spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that, pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range, I could fight down with some dignity. A deer? No chance.

That thing ran and bucked, it twisted and pulled. There was no controlling that deer, and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer firmly attached to a rope was not such a good idea. The only upside is that they do not have much stamina.

A brief ten minutes later it was tired, and not as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point, I had lost my appetite for corn-fed venison. I hated the thing, and would hazard a guess that the feeling was mutual. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. But if I let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painful somewhere.

Despite the gash in my head, and several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's pell-mell flight by bracing my head against large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn't want the deer to suffer a slow death.

I managed to get it lined up between my truck and the feeder, a little trap I had set beforehand, like a squeeze chute. I backed it in there, and I started moving forward to get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do!

I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab hold of that rope, and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like a horse, it does not just bite and let go. A deer bites and shakes its head, like a pit bull. They bite HARD and won't let go. It hurts!

The proper reaction when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and wrenching away. My method was ineffective. It felt like that deer bit and shook me for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.

I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I learned my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.

Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up and strike at head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned long ago that when a horse strikes at you with its hooves and you can't get away, the best thing to do is make a loud noise and move aggressively towards the animal. This will cause it to back down a bit, so you can make your escape.

This was not a horse. This was a deer. Obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and turned to run.

The reason we have been taught NOT to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer are not so different from horses after all, other than being twice as strong and three times as evil. The second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.

When a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately depart. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What it does instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you, while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.

I finally managed to crawl under the truck, and the deer went away. Now I know why people go deer hunting with a rifle and a scope. It's so they can be somewhat equal to the prey.