Rainy Morning

Quite the morning. As it gets closer to deer season here in NEPA, I tend to go down the driveway a little slower & start looking for the deer. Start taking notice of where they are at, what time they are there, which path they seem to be travelling. While I am not a hunter, I like to think these little rituals are my part in helping my husband (the hunter) with his quest.

I noticed this morning was a little bit warmer & just attributed it to the rainy morning. Hopped in the car & started my path down the drive.

I looked in the open field to my right & was pleasantly surprised to see 2 doe & a spiker. That right there made for a good morning for me. I love to see them in the open field. They were skiddish and so I travelled on down a little slower.

Low and behold out my front window is this massive buck travelling the path of our driveway. Come to think of it, he was taking the same path as the black bear I saw last year. This buck's rack was gorgeous. I quickly tried to set up the camera phone for a pic but decided he was too far away to get a good picture (darn me for not grabbing the camera this morning). So I slowly proceed down the driveway not wanting to spook him. This old buck is a hoot. He hops off into the swampy area & proceeds to eat some foliage. I creep up towards him--with the camera phone ready--he is playing with me. He knows I want his picture & comes closer but ducks away just as I snap the picture. This goes on for several minutes. Than he puts on a show for me (guess he likes the perfume I chose today)..he goes over to the newly fallen trees in the swamp & proceeds to do a rub. This is a sound that I don't recall ever hearing before but it was pretty cool. Cool enough that it made me consider sitting in the woods just to listen to this sound again (just not during hunting season).

Once the buck was done "rubbing", he came around to give me another view & than back up on to the driveway behind my car. At this point I was darning the rain. If it wasn't raining I'd have an awesome pic, via my side mirror, to show you. But the rain drops were not allowing the pic to happen. Often, I take my camera and do random shots. I tried this with the camera phone & it just was not happening. So sorry but you'll just have to take my word for it that this boy was a beauty!

The sound of him rubbing and the sight of his beautiful rack is something I will cherish for some time to come. While I hope his rack will soon be hanging in our house, I must admit...he seemed like one pretty smart cookie & I don't think he'll be getting caught.