Flora and Fauna (mostly Fauna)

Friday was my birthday. I'm 33 now. For my birthday, we had planned to drive to Boise and go see Danzig. That plan sort of fell apart, so we decided to go soak at Lehman, a local hot springs resort. On the drive up there, we watched for wildlife but saw none. Except, I think I saw a wild boar through the trees. The air at the resort was cold and a little breezy, and the water was hot and perfectly satisfying. We soaked in the large warm pool and the smaller hot pool, just basking in the warmth. I can't wait to go back.

Later on Friday, we had some closer encounters with wildlife. In the town of Ukiah, there were three young does posed like lawn sculpture in a yard. How startling when they actually moved! We should have taken that as an omen...

There is a herd of about 20 antelope (properly called pronghorn) that I have often seen at the entrance of the J Dot Ranch, which is between Monument and John Day. We didn't see them on Friday, but we did see another group about 15 miles farther north. It always seems like a lucky day to me when I get to see antelope. Maybe because they are so elusive. They are exactly the same color as the grass, so you can look right at them and not realize that you are seeing them.

By the time we got to the J Dot ranch, the sunset was lighting up the sky. The sunsets here are just incredible. We were closely watching the orange and blue patterns of light and shadow on the clouds, and maybe not so closely watching the road. We came upon a group of about 12 deer, some on each side of the road. We slowed down quite a bit to watch them. I guess we assumed that deer have enough sense not to jump right out in front of your vehicle. Well, we were wrong. One little doe was bounding away from the road, then abruptly changed directions and launched herself right into the grille of our truck. I yelped, Gavin stomped on the brakes, but there was no way to stop in time. We heard and felt the thump-thump-crunch as she went under the bumper. We stopped the truck to check out the damages. At first we didn't see any damage to the truck, so we walked back to check out the doe. She had collapsed on the far shoulder of the road, with one badly mangled leg and an obvious head wound. We are pretty sure that she gasped her last breath just as we walked up to her. At least she didn't have to suffer for long. We walked back to the truck and checked out the front again. Well, no dents in the bumper, but the finally notice that the big plastic grille is pretty well broken. Fortunately the radiator is intact and the grille sections popped back into place with only a hairline to show where they broke. They say that out here it's not "if" you hit a deer, it's "when" you hit a deer. So, this was our first. It seems like we got off pretty easy. We drove the rest of the way home a little more slowly and carefully. I cried a little, thinking of the little doe's big brown eyes, and what a senseless waste of life it was, for her to die on the side of the road for no reason. I think I would feel better if it was legal to take home roadkill, so at least we could make use of her, instead of leaving her at the side of the road. I suppose she is going to be food for the coyotes and the vultures.

After we got back home, we went to a friend's house for dinner. We dodged at least four more deer on the way to their house- less than half a mile. Dinner was barbequed venison ribs and bacon-wrapped venison steaks. It was delicious, but I could hardly eat it. The guys checked out Gavin's truck. All agreed that we had gotten off easy. The suggestion was made that we should have chucked her into the back of the truck for a late-night clandestine butchering. They traded stories about poaching and evading (or not) the long arm of Fish & Game.

Most people here think of deer as something between a nuisance and a convenience. There's so many of them, they eat people's gardens, they eat the alfalfa, and they are always jumping out in front of cars. They draw the arrogant city-boy hunters out here, who trespass on private property, cut locks, leave gates open, and endanger residents and their livestock. On the other hand, those hunters bring a fair amount of dough into the local economy, and deer are pretty good eating. Not as good as elk, but just about everyone can get a license to hunt deer; there's only so many elk tags to go around.

There's more animals out here than people, by a lot. We are currently overrun with cats... We have our two indoor cats, two more indoor kittens, the outdoor cat who came with the place, and about four other cats who steal his food. One of them is a mama cat with four kittens. There is also a big orange tiger cat, and a gray manx. There's a lot of manx cats here. The ranch up the road breeds and sells manxes. Perhaps the feral ones here are their rejects, since they all seem to have some manx-related defects. They're staying outside!

An addition to this entry: My dog just woke me up at 5:00 am, barking his head off, because someone or something is in the yard. At first I didn't see anything, then I could make out a vague black blocky shape. COW! The dog was eager to chase, so I let him out. Big mistake, he just barked the cow back farther onto our property. Sigh. I got out the million-candlepower flashlight, and headed out the back door. But wait, there's more. It's actually seven "cows". Let me revise my terminology. Seven head of cattle.
[A digression:
This happened before, about a month ago. Except they were in our neighbor's yard, happily munching on the greenest lawn in town. We had no idea what to do, so we phoned her and woke her up. At 3 am. I don't think she was pleased with us. The next day, I ran into one of the local ranchers, and asked him if he thought the wanderers were his. He asked me if I'd seen their ear tags. Well, no.]
I headed out with my big flashlight, to see if I can see their tags and maybe scare them off. It looks like exactly the same group who were here last month. I can see solid yellow tags on all but one cow and her calf. The cow looks completely wild, with her shaggy coat and little horns. Is she baring her teeth at me? Her calf is a little guy, but still too big for me to push out of the yard... There's no scaring them off unless I go right up to them. They have found ungrazed land and they're determined to graze it. And the dog won't bark at them anymore. I suppose if they are not visible from our windows, they are out of his territory or something... If they're still here in a few hours I'll ask around and see if I can find out whose they are.

More about animals- We have been trying to spot more variety in wildlife, but mostly just see deer and kangaroo rats. The variety comes in the roadkill. So far we have seen roadkill red fox, coyote, raccoon, opossum, jackrabbit, bunny, and porcupine, as well as deer and household pets. The porcupine definitely makes a dramatic roadkill, quills side up. Looking at him reminded me of Indian crafted porcupine quill baskets. I was almost tempted to go back and harvest his quills for some such adventure. But we were on the way to a vet appointment, and I don't usually carry pliers and tin-snips in the car with me.