Merry Christmas to everyone.
May you find
some quiet
moments of gentle
joy to blanket
your Christmas
season with peace.
Running:
Running continues to just be on a maintenance path. I did manage 35.5 miles last week on 6 days running. As has been the case recently half my runs were on the treadmill and half outside. Everything is primarily in the 8 minute range. I did get outside on Sunday morning for 8.5 miles in 1:8:22. This was my longest run in over a month. It was quite cold, but calm and made for a nice run. The roads are as snow and ice covered as at any time since 2004 that I can recall. On Sunday morning things are pretty quiet so I can run right in the middle of the road for the most part. The other thing is that the cold temperatures actually make the snow less slippery. I’m closing in on 2100 YTD miles. I think I should be able to make it. That new GPS watch has made it to my Christmas list. Maybe Santa will be good to me. Through today:
WTD 16
MTD 101
YTD 2067
ODO 27,233
Hunting:
With the snow that has been around it’s real easy to see how hard the deer have been hitting on my food plot. Multiple deer have been coming in daily from all different directions. They have been pawing through the snow to get at the turnips and clover and continue to chew on the few remaining corn cobs that are left. This past weekend I just hunted in the back yard and only the last hour of each day. Saturday there was a few inches of fresh snow, but the deer didn’t come in. Sunday was a different story. The first half hour there was nothing. Soon two small deer came in and started to eat. I just sit and watched them. Pretty soon two large does came in to join them. I thought about taking one of them for a while, but decided to pass. I had the bow up and went through the motions for practice, but never let the arrow fly. The shooting time then quickly passed, but I was stuck in the stand. I didn’t want to get out and scare them away. I knew if I did that my chances of seeing them again would diminish. With the upcoming special “holiday hunt” where we can use a gun I hope we can get another chance. So I sat there. On most nights when I see them out there from the house they don’t hang around long. Not this night. Pretty soon the four deer got a little skittish and ran to the far corner. It was soon apparent why. The biggest buck I have seen so far this year made its appearance. Just a beautiful tall racked 8 to 10 pointer. It was all of 15 to 20 yards away from me at one point. The moon was up and almost full making the deer really easy to see against the white snow background. Pretty soon they were all out there again in the field together. It was so neat to just watch them, but I was starting to get cold and had to think about finding a way to get out of there. At about 5:45 someone let the dogs out to do their business and that was just what I needed. The dogs noticed the deer in the back and started barking at them. They didn’t run back there, but it was enough to scare the deer away. Normally this would not have made me very happy but it sure did this night. When the deer were all out of view I quickly scampered down and back to the house. Judging by the tracks the last few days I would say they didn’t get that scared. I recognize the buck track now and I definitely still see that he is coming in too. Should be an exciting last couple weeks.
Gardening:
So far I’ve held off on getting a snow blower. My driveway is quite long and wide near the house and certainly could warrant having one. I really don’t mind shoveling and in all the years at the current house have really only faced a couple snowfalls where I wish I wasn’t as stubborn. Maybe someday physically I will have to, but for now I’ll continue to hold out unless the right one at the right price falls into my lap. Despite not having one I take pride in knowing my driveway is cleaner than all of my neighbors that snow blow or have a service take care of it for them.
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