Big buck sighted

Running:
First off congrats to my friend Jerry who completed the North Face endurance challenge 50k race on Saturday. I'm looking forward to his race report to hear details on how it went. I made it out Saturday morning to see the race start. Ottawa lake where the race start/finish was, is only 6 minutes from my house.

After I returned home I got out for my own run. I did 8.5 miles in 1:05:21. This leaves me with only 11 miles to go for my first earth lap. I'll likely hit it on my Tuesday lunch break run.

Hunting:
Hunting was a lot of fun this weekend. I ended up not going on Saturday morning. It was rather nasty with drizzle still coming down and a stiff breeze. Saturday afternoon I went out to a property I have permission to hunt about 5 miles from my house. At about 5:45 a large deer was approaching from behind me. I could see it was a big buck, but had no shot back there where it was. Soon the deer stomped it's feet and snorted loudly. I thought it must have heard/smelled me. Turned out it saw a black barn cat that was wondering through the woods. I wouldn't have thought such a big animal would be so bothered by such a small one. Anyway it ended up not coming any closer and never gave me a shot. Sunday morning I got out before light. About 7:15 the big guy came back. He approached right down the trail towards the scrape I'm hunting over. He stopped about 15 yards away behind some trees and brush. Only 5 feet from giving me a shot. He just stood there for what seemed like forever. Finally he turned and walked out the way he came, grunting while it walked away. Again no shot. Tonight I got out again and saw the same deer for the third time. This time it was very late, right at quitting time. Again it never came right in and just walked away not giving me a shot. It's encouraging to have seen it three times in a row. I hope over the next couple weeks as the rut gets in full swing he'll be a little less cautious and give me a chance.

Gardening:
I finally got caught up a bit over the last couple days. With the wind and rain over the previous days probably 50% of the leaves came down. I spent time yesterday and this morning raking them and piling them in the garden. After finishing that I mowed the entire lawn this afternoon. I also got the last of the potato's and sweet potato's dug as well as picked enough carrots for the week.