Finally, Snow. But Still No Deer.

Yesterday was the end of firearm deer season.  But first, we finally got snow to cover the ground.

And cover the ground it did. 

It started as rain Monday evening.  Rained all day Tuesday.  Around 5 p.m. it turned to sleet, then snow.  By 8 p.m. we had a good inch of snow covering every thing. And the power went out.  (It didn't come back on until a little after 3 p.m. on Wednesday, by which time the house had cooled to about 58 in the basement, 55 on the main floor and a balmy 60-something upstairs.)

Wednesday morning, we had a good three inches of snow on the ground.  It was heavy, and bent over small trees and branches.  The north entrance to the woods was impassable.  You can't even tell where the 'road' is in this picture.

The south end was better, at least the road was visible. I went out deer hunting in the afternoon, and took the pictures that follow.  Beautiful blue sky, and temps warm enough that everything was dripping.

At the edge of the field, the woods road was a little bit submerged. 

A little further in, the road was a lot submerged.  Good thing I was wearing my waterproof boots!  It was running too, about 3" deep and moving fast!  About 1/3 the length of the south road was underwater.  This picture is just a small section of that.

I had to duck under several small trees that were bent down to the ground with the weight of the snow.

But, I finally made it back to the stand in the SE.  I noticed along the way, however, that there were no animal tracks of any kind.  Not deer, not turkey, not squirrel, not even birds.  Not good.  What were the chances that things taking shelter elsewhere during the storm of the night before would return now?

Apparently nil. Because I saw nothing last night.  Nothing but snow, and trees. 

All in all, a pretty disappointing sixteen days of deer hunting.  Not a deer seen in about a week, and very spotty for the nine days prior to that. 

Time to switch gears to Christmas prep mode.  With a little muzzle loading thrown in on the days DH isn't home from work in time to go out looking to see if the deer have returned.  One deer in the freezer won't last past March, even with rationing.  We need at least one more, preferably two.  If we're lucky enough to get three more, we'll have the last one turned into summer sausage.