My Outdoorsy Side

Hello World, Not a lot has happened in my life since my last post but there are a few things I will mention. :) On Sunday I went on a hike with my dad around our 40 acres and we came across a few interesting things. There have been a couple bobcat sightings on our land this fall so we went looking for where they(it) might be living. There's one place near the edge of out land where there are some tree stands set up for hunting and we often put a trail camera on the fence, and one night we got pictures of a bobcat on the trail camera. Not far from that, my dad watched one walk 20 yards in front of him in broad daylight along the edge of a field while he was in a tree stand. Between these two spots there is big oak tree at the top of a hill where the land drops down on either side to a creek below. under the tree there is a definite animal dwelling that has been dug out. Yesterday we saw that there had been quite a bit of traffic around the hole and the earth was very packed down. we looked in the creek bed for foot prints but it hasn't been wet enough lately for the mud to be that soft and the creek was very rocky in that area.

When we left this spot we hiked up and around the field where the bobcat had been seen and my dad spotted a deer carcass laying in the trees. It was a small 8 point buck that didn't appear to have been shot with anything, but it had definitely been laying there for a while. The hide was still attached to the head, otherwise we would have taken it to boil it and keep the antlers. There was the nastiest green slime all over the side of the deer that was on the ground. The body had been picked clean by coyotes and other animals. My dad plans to go back in the spring and retrieve the head. We walked across the field, by some tree stands, and around into another area of land where deer had scraped their antlers on 10+ saplings and scraped the bark off. We got into some nasty briars here and one even snagged my forehead! I have thorn scrapes on areas I didn't even know were exposed when we walked by. We walked down one of our four-wheeler trails and over a bridge all the children in my family call "the troll bridge." Down by the troll bridge there are a couple large oaks that don't look like they should even be standing. One of them reaches far out over the creek bed and looks barely suspended by the roots still holding into the ground on the other side. It's a really awesome tree, i'll take a picture and post it soon. I don't know what i was thinking! Under the other tree there is a hole also clearly in habited by some small creature.

However, it isn't too small because we found numerous bones where it sat outside of its hole and ate smaller animals. There was what we decided must be a muskrat scull along with bones much to big to be squirrel, but possibly raccoon. We found some footprints in the sand under these trees. Some are definitely raccoon, but I have high hopes of some of theses being bobcat tracks! I'll keep you updated on sitings! - S