Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Death Collection

 This past summer was a rough one for east Texas.  It was hot and dry for a long time.  The effect of this summer has burdened alot of the wildlife in the area.  This year the young buck deer were all over the highways and moving alot in the fall.  They were moving around looking for new water sources and food was scarce.  Just a reference point, hay usually costs about 40 dollars for one of those giant rolls (that is the street price not the contract price), during the summer the price of hay was 100 dollars a roll.  The above photo stinks I know, it was supposed to be of the deer head resting on a brick next to the fire.  The picture looks more like a random test photo when you take the lens off of a camera.
 My son and his buddy this weekend were out exploring our ranch this past weekend and came back with this nice looking deer skull.  This was tangled in a creek and had the back skin and fur still on it.  The nice thing was that the small rodents had only eaten around the nose area and the rack was intact.  I like the tuft of fur between the antlers.  Looks like he just died the other day.
My wife we all know is a middle school science teacher.  The thing she loves the most is dead things and skeletons.  When she was young she used to tear legs off of insects and try to sew them back on.  So now she has what I describe as a "Death collection" of animal bones and skulls.  She says they are for her classroom but who knows why she loves this stuff but she does.  Maybe when I die she can put my skull in her collection to be the centerpiece of the entire collection.  So just a simple hike in the woods found this neat treasure.  That is why I say get outside every now and then.  You never know what you might come across.  You can't find a deer skull in the xbox or the internet.

This also reminds me of that classic joke:  What is the difference between deer nuts and beer nuts?  Beer nuts cost a dollar forty nine and deer nuts are found under a buck.  Get it, under a buck.  That joke gets me every time.

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