Hello from Big Pine Key!

As everyone but me already knew, I couldn't connect the stupid phone to the laptop. After another couple of hours on the phone with AT&T tech support, I said the hell with it and had the tethering removed. $30 less that way. I'm using the Crack to email and post on Facebook, but I can't blog from it. We're sitting in a Winn Dixie parking lot which is flooded; we just had a downpour, and it's already wet here. There must be at least 6-8" of water on the lot.

We're having a wonderful time here in the Keys. The condo is very nice; after paying only $136 to a plumber, both toilets are now working properly. Zippy is a very good little boy; he's not this well-behaved at home. If we can't take him with us, he stays in the condo in his crate. He's been very quiet, except when the plumber came in.

We've talked to a real estate agent on Big Pine Key and have been riding around looking at places for sale. There are a good number in our price range. In a few days or so we'll contact the agent and set up appointments to tour some houses.

Key deer, oddly enough, are everywhere on Big Pine Key. Yesterday we saw a tiny (adult) male with an impressive set of antlers. I got out of the car to photograph him, and he ran (or rather, quickly limped; he was hit by a car and one back leg doesn't work; they call him Tripod.) to me and licked my fingers. I think he might have gotten in the car, if I'd invited him in.

We've seen a couple of this season's fawns. They're about Zippy's size! The adults are smaller than our yearling deer at home. They all seem to be pretty tame; the Key is a sanctuary for them. They are an endangered species. I tell you, it feels like home!

I'll post some photos later. Just wanted to say hi for now. I'm reading a lot (we got a library card at the Marathon library) and knitting very little. Maybe later.

And my sisters will be here in just two more days for our Sisters' Week in Paradise!

Key deer

I forgot to mention one of the highlights of the Keys trip. We finally saw some Key deer. I think that they live mostly on Big Pine Key; they're federally protected as an endangered species and there's a huge fine for killing one. Many are hit by cars. They appear to be tamer than our bunch of deer.

We went to No Name Key looking for No Name Pub, an establishment that figures in a lot of Florida noir novels, especially Tim Dorsey's. It was a seedy place, not quite safe for non-serial killers to visit. I've wanted to see it since I first read about it in James W. Hall, Tim Corcoran, and Tim Dorsey's books.

Evidentally MANY people have discovered the place. I was so disappointed. Families were milling around outside while the place was full of families eating pizza and other non-pub fare. It's gone respectable. I'm sure that the owners are happy, but I was terribly let down.

On the way back to the main road, we saw a Key deer trotting down a side street. We circled around and stopped to take photos. It was about the size of our baby deer (yearlings); it was starting to grow little antlers. It meandered through a yard nibbling on the trees and grass. Just across the street was a little female. She was browsing the neighbor's yard. James walked up to within 6 feet of her to take photos and she didn't even blink. It's illegal to feed them, but I bet that one could casually toss some corn to the birds and they'd find it.

Seeing the two deer was more than enough for us to decide that we want to live on Big Pine Key. We hate leaving our little herd behind, but maybe there's another awaiting us. We can't afford one of the nice big houses there, but there are some smaller, less expensive homes in the area.

Little Marie, the kitten, has taken over the house. She's convinced that she owns it. The other cats hiss and stay away, although she and Chester and she and Lily have bumped noses without one taking the other out. Beghera is very disturbed that she's in HIS house. I brought Zippy home last night (he spent his vacation at my sister's house where he got lots of treats and was walked every day) and he hasn't even noticed (or reacted) that there's an addition. Marie is still shy, but she follows me around and talks to me. She's so very soft that I want to hold her all the time.

Photos will come after I get them transferred to dvds. It may take a while.

White doe

My brother-in-law saw these deer in a field this weekend. The albino is much whiter than our Bambi was; he was half-white, half-brown.

Thanks, Scott! I'm glad you got a photo of her.

Huntin' season again

Here it is again, already. This time of year, the boy deer leave the herds and band together to hunt for girl deer, with the bigger, stronger boy deer getting the prettiest girls. Molly disappeared about a month ago; he was bigger than Shorty and either left to join the boys or otherwise left us. I hope he joined the big boys.

Last night the big girls and the babies came for dinner without Shorty, who's usually the first one in line, along with little Kelly. I happened to glance out the side window and saw this:

He doesn't look real, does he? I swear he looks like one of those fake deer that hunters put in their yards for target practice. He's been glimpsed by us before, but we never got a good look at him. I doubted that I'd actually seen him at all, just dreamed him.

But there he was, watching the girls eat. He walked carefully around the front yard, which made the girls very nervous. He didn't seem uncomfortable at all, but he wouldn't come up to eat with the rest of the group.

He stood behind the tree and sniffed the air.

Then the smallest of the babies followed him away from the herd. This baby is very skittish all the time, so I couldn't believe that she'd leave her mommy to follow this big unknown daddy deer. Her mommy was perturbed, but not perturbed enough to stop eating, just stamped and snorted a bit.



A bit later, Shorty and another male (one we haven't seen before) showed up.


I hope they all stay close by.

Fat and sassy

No cracks about dinner, please. I get touchy about that.

Alex and Andy

Only unisex names for our baby deer this year!

Newest member of the herd

Kelly.

A decided that unisex names are a better bet, since we tend to give them names of the wrong sex.

There are two more babies around, but we've only seen them twice. Kelly hangs around with Molly and Shorty, the two yearling males that stayed here. It amazes me how early the moms send the babies off on their own. Kelly's about 2.5 months old.

And here's Kelly (in the trees to the left of our WV bathroom) and Zippy the Wonder Dog.

Last, Kelly and buddies.

They didn't eat the dianthus, either.

My goodness, Blogger is slow on the photo upload today. Or is it just because I'm trying this from home? Auuuugggggghhhhhhhhh!

I won't be trying this anymore today. Probably.

*sigh* I had to try one more. I just can't leave well enough alone. It wasn't any faster.



Molly and, um, Someone.

Baiting deer

We can't grow flowers in our yard. If it can be called a yard. It's a 46-acre pasture, mostly rocks and pine trees, mostly mountainside. Weeds grow well, along with ticks. Tiny wildflowers grow, and so do dandelions. The deer don't eat any of those things.

As far as I know.

But they do eat any and all flowers that I've planted. When Tom and I got married, we dug up and replanted my daisies and purple coneflowers and lilies that I'd planted at my apartment. Every year they sprout and even may grow a few inches before they're mowed down by the deer. Last year I planted a few cosmos and bachelors buttons which the deer promptly pulled completely out of the ground a few hours later.

So this year I'm testing the flowers on the deer before planting any.

First, pansies. I set a 6-pack of pansies on the ground in front of the porch then tossed out corn. Lily came to investigate and enjoy the sun.





Finally the deer showed up.



Nope, not interested.

Last night I set out a pack of marigolds. They weren't interested in that one, either.

But I bet that if I plant them, they'll eat 'em.

Photos

This is the best photo I've taken so far with my new camera:


Using the "super macro" button on the camera, I caught this (very sluggish, or otherwise I wouldn't have touched the doorknob) wasp in our garage.

Here's a view of the redbud and some white-flowering tree in our back yard; note our West Virginia storage shed:



Today has been chilly and wet in Spruce Pine, NC. I see that it's been in the upper 70s at home today. We didn't go to Biltmore; at $49 a person it wasn't worth it in the rain, and it was too foggy on the mountain to want to drive to any gem mines.

This is one of our adult female deer; one or more of the others have been beating the tar out of her and some of the others. She has boo boos all over from bites and flying hooves. I caught her in a rather unladylike position, but it tickles me, so here she is (we don't know her name; she hasn't shared it with us):



And, last, my favorite yarn photo so far:

FO

Got some knittin' to show you! Last night I finished one (black)hearted sock. I love it. See for yourself.

The only modification I'd make is to add 4 or 8 stitches. I didn't when I started knitting because my brain is too numb to figure out how to do it. Uh, duh, there are four hearts, add one or two stitches between each heart.

It's a little snug because I usually use 68 or 72 stitches for a sock, plus this one only has ribbing at the top, not all the way down the foot as usual. But it was so nice to knit, just mindless stockinette once I got past the hearts. I did drop a couple of stitches (which I managed to pick up a few rows later, one badly), because I was knitting in the dark, more or less, before two Last Train Home shows last weekend. In light (ha!) of that, these are now my (black)hearted aka Last Train Home socks.

Heart detail:

They aren't the best, but they're the first ones I've done. I'll probably knit more of this pattern because they're so cute. I might make them of my spring yarn, Red Wagon. I think I posted a photo of that down a few posts.

For you kitty people, here's our Miss Lily, aka Fat Cat, aka Will You Quit Clawing Me B*tch.

And our current deer herd, composed of Old Mommy, her baby Charlotte, Molly the boy deer, and several others that we can't tell apart, but they probably had names when they were babies.

There's hope

See thos tiny spots? They're geese. Flying north. And Bessie, the old mommy deer, has lost all of her winter fuzz (except that odd rectangular clump on her neck).



Dare I even hope???

Snow day!

I'm not one who wants to use up our "bank" of snow days; I'd rather have the time off early at the end of the school year. But today I'm glad to be at home.

It wasn't snowing at 6 a.m., but NOAA's weather map showed a buttl0ad of precipitation heading our way, and for once our supe went with science instead of looking out the window, not seeing any snow or ice (I think he lives in Hawaii), and saying, "Aw, we might as well go in today." Even yesterday morning the principal announced the schedule for Friday in case we were off today (exam schedule days).

Now it's looking like we still might be getting snow or ice at 10 a.m. tomorrow, so it's anybody's guess what will happen with school.

I hope the supe looks out the right window in the morning.

Where's Stumpy?

Another weekend of hunting season has gone by, and we haven't seen Stumpy since last Monday.

I'm worried about him.

The other deer have been around. A couple of times there have been as many as 10 or 11 in the yard, all mommies and babies and yearlings. Old Mommy and her baby are almost always waiting out front from about 4:30 p.m. until we leave around 6 in the morning.

This is Old Mommy's baby, or I think it is. It's always with her. This day she came alone for a while. I don't think you can see it in this photo, but she has a little black mark on her lower lip that distinguishes her from the others. It looks like those are little horn buds on its head, so I guess we'll have to come up with a boy's name.

Okay, in this photo you can see the black spot on his lower lip. Things like this are the only way that we have to tell who's who around here.

Hmmmm, after looking at those two photos again, I'm not so sure that the first baby is Old Mommy's (or whoever she is).

Once again, Old Mommy and whoever-he-is. Whoops--that's a girl. The first one is a boy.

Is it time to go home yet?

Stumpy's harem

Maybe, just maybe, Stumpy has rounded up his own little harem. It seems to consist of his sister, Stella (who is very antsy these days; maybe she realizes that she's his sister and that just isn't done--but this is West Virginia, after all), Molly (who turned out to be a boy), Jason and Kelsey the twins, Old Mommy, and a couple of assorted adult females and their babies. They've been hanging around together all summer, except for the newer ones and Old Mommy.

Stumpy disappeared for a few days a week or two ago, but he's been back with the ladies and babies since then. He's very comfortable at the house; the others tend to jump and bolt a few feet when we toss the corn at them, but he just stays put. He stalks poor Old Mommy and chases her off when he sees her; she in turn chases off the babies. Stella bolts at every little sound. Molly, Jason and Kelsey bolt but come right back.

Old Mommy, whoever she is, is old, fat, and pretty placid. Her face looks like a donkey's to me. She must have pretty much eaten and rested all summer, because she's in wonderful shape for an old deer. She hangs around the porch for hours waiting for a handout.

It's so cool to drive up the driveway in the evening and see several deer lying in the tall grass, one or two off to the side, and more coming down the hill and around the house. Tom sends Zippy outside to do his business; he and the deer cross within a few feet of each other and don't even seem to notice. Later, when the deer have eaten all their corn and have wandered off into the yard, if we go outside they run right back, even if we don't call them. There are as many as 11 in the yard at once; the usual group is 8, but lately there have been a few more.

Photos follow.

Old Mommy

Stumpy, Molly, Jason and Kelsey

Fat Old Mommy

Stumpy and friends

There are 9 deer in this photo; they're watching the other two who'd just gone down the hill to the creek.

That time of year

Huntin' season: starting

Deer: still eating at our house

Hope: that they're all still there in January

R.I.P., whoever you were

Every evening, as we're heading toward our driveway, I mentally steel myself--or, try to--to the thought that there might be a dead or, worse, dying deer nearby. Fortunately for my sanity, it's only happened a few times, and not to "anyone" we knew by name.

But last night, just before we turned into the driveway, we saw a dead, dull-brown large female; the only one that we "know" that looks like that is Stella. She and Stumpy have both turned from the reddish-brown that they all are as fawns and have become darker. Most of the others are redder than they are; Old Mommy is that shade, and the other mommies and Molly are becoming darker, but most are still that reddish-brown.

I felt so bad. I wonder if feeding the deer and playing games with their minds will get them killed. You know, they hang around while we feed them and then wander off on their rounds. Are we messing with nature?

So, anyway, I was moping around but went ahead and threw out some corn, calling Stumpy and Molly. Didn't call Stella, although it's habit to say "StellaandStumpy" when I yell for them. No one showed up until almost dark.

I called Tom to make sure that I was seeing what I thought I saw. (You know how bad my brain is, not to mention my sight.) There was Stumpy--and Stella! Alive!! Not injured!!!

Relief!

The babies (Molly, JasonandKelsey) and their mommies weren't there last night, but we haven't given up on them yet.

More deer

A passel of deer wander through our yard, some days more, some days less. Last night we had the usual (Mommy 2, Stumpy, and Stella) plus JasonorKelsey (they're twins, and if only one is there, we can't tell them apart. Heck, for that matter, we can't tell them apart when they're together.) and Molly, who's a little older than JasonorKelsey.

Molly was the first to show up last night, and s/he was hungry. The others straggled in and they all chowed down.

JasonorKelsey is less skittish than Molly and Mommy 2. S/he's not shy about pushing her way into the passel.

What we find tremendously entertaining is that they come when called for dinner. Either they're already nearby (usually down by the creek or on the hill) and show up before we finish bellowing, or they come tearing in a couple of seconds later. Even the babies come running, but they're usually a little shyer until their mommy shows up. One night Stella was already waiting when we got home (Stella is usually the first one there), but Stumpy wasn't anywhere to be seen. A little while later I yelled for him again, and when I went into the kitchen and looked outside, he was rushing toward the side of the house like he thought we'd take back the corn. He actually looked worried.

So, for your viewing enjoyment, more deer.

Molly, JasonorKelsey, Stumpy, Stella

Same bunch, different order

If you look closely, you can see that Molly has lost most of her spots, while JasonorKelsey still has plenty.

By the way, how many is a passel?

Stumpy, Stella, and twins

Stumpy and Stella are over a year old now. They don't look like little babies any more.

For comparison, their twin siblings, about 2-3 months old. Jason and Kelsey, or Jason 1 and Jason 2, or Kelsey 1 and Kelsey 2.

Blame A; she named them!


More deer photos from August:







And Old Mommy came back a couple of weeks ago; she's only been around twice all summer.



Old Mommy and Stumpy:





And lastly, Zippy stole some corn out of the trash.