Hunting Season Success

This year was an exceptional year for deer in the Hill Country, this ranch included. It also happened to be the year that both Doug and I were able to take trophies. Doug decided to take his with his bow, which until now, he had not shot a trophy with. It took him about a week of hard hunting to finally get him, and he scored 168 5/8 B & C with a 30 3/8" spread. My trophy did not take as long. No one has ever really seen this deer much from a stand, so it took Doug and I by complete surprise when he was at the stand we were sitting at the first morning of season. He was there at daylight, and it still took me over 15 minutes to shoot. Luckily, I was trying not to pay attention to how big he was, but was just waiting for the right shot. Doug on the other hand was looking at him through binoculars the whole time and ended up more nervous than I was! He scored 192 B & C, and is by far a deer of a lifetime!

Shed Hunting

It's that time of year again... time to hunt for whitetail shed antlers. Darcy and I found the first shed a few days ago and boy, were we excited. You see, every year Doug and I have this informal (somewhat serious) and playful contest to see who can find the most shed antlers from that year. He always wins. Sure, I usually pick up one earlier than he does, and I have found bigger ones than he has, but he wins the overall count. Which is all that counts in our book.




I got "the look" a few times while I was taking pictures. Like this one below:

Poor Brusky. What a trooper (most of the time). He needed a hug after taking pictures with Darcy.

Hopefully the next few weeks will hold a lot of sheds for Darcy and I (and none for Doug). :)

"Before Christmas" Update

Well, first for a regular update on us. Because apparently I'm not gifted enough to get all the photos downloaded into one blog for regular and Christmas. So Christmas pictures will follow in another blog, maybe tomorrow... I've about had enough for today.

We have had a pretty good end of the year. Here are a few pictures to show you what we've been up to. Here's Darcy with Deer (yes, that's his name... Deer). My, how he's grown since the last pics I put up of him. He's now taller than Darcy and got an attitude of his own. He's very tame with us and Darcy, but I know as he gets older, we won't be able to take shots like this anymore.


And this picture of Doug was taken the week of Christmas. We came home the Sunday before Christmas and found that this little guy had just been born and his momma had kicked him off and left him, well, pretty much for dead that night. Luckily they were right here at the house so we went and got him, brought him into the house, warmed him up, and fed him some Enfamil (for lack of anything else proper) to keep him alive till morning. I got him some proper lamb replacement milk the next day and we had him about two days. Then Doug took him outside to play for a little while, and Momma came running up to him, licked him and then took him a little ways away and let him nurse. Now. For those of you who don't know much about livestock, this is practically unheard of. Usually once a momma kicks a baby off, that's it. But this little guy has been out there with his momma and twin brother for a week now and doing just fine. We were very happy it turned out this way as the poop and pee in the house was starting to get on my nerves. But the little guy didn't even way 2 pounds and it was freezing every night, so there was no way we could leave him outside without his mother caring for him. Unfortunately we did not take any pictures with him and Darcy because we weren't sure he was going to even make it (usually when mom leaves them, there is something wrong with them, but we think he was just so puny and weak she didn't think he was worth it). Although the two of them did have fun running around the house together for a few days.

So, that's a wrap up of our before Christmas happenings. Hopefully I'll be able to get this old computer to download more pictures later and get some up from Christmas. Until then, hold your breath...

Update on Us

Well, folks, I know it's been a LONG time since I updated. But for not really having much going on, we sure have been busy the last month. So let me start with the important stuff. Darcy has gotten rid of her hives through an abundance of allergy medicine. We still don't know what caused them, and probably never will. She is off all but one dose of medicine so we are happy about that. Otherwise, Darcy is doing well. She's driving us crazy getting into everything (apparently she has Doug's mischievous streak too) and starting to talk understably. Here are a few pictures we have taken since the last time. Tractor & swimming pool = fun times.

Darcy's first scraped knee came when we were out feeding cows and she stumbled over some rocks. She took it pretty well, didn't even cry.

In other news, I took a management deer this year that was supposed to be an 8 pointer. He turned out to have a few extra kickers coming off at the base of his antlers. He was a lot bigger than we originally thought and ended up scoring 138, for those of you that that will mean something to.

Halloween has come and gone. Darcy didn't dress up. Well, we did put her in camo because we spent the evening at the Divide School's Wild Game Dinner fundraiser. It's the little school out here in the middle of nowhere, where she will go to school some day. They did have a Fall Festival for the kids with games and candy, but it was a little above Darcy, so we did not partake.

Doug has been taking care of Darcy quite a bit in the past few weeks while I worked in town some. I don't think she misses me at all. He keeps her a lot more entertained than I do I guess, but he does go through a lot more sets of clothes in a day than I do. Here's one for example.

Labor Day Fun

Well folks, here are some new pictures. Here is Darcy with the fawn we so aptly named Deer. He was eating a bit of corn while Darcy was playing in his bowl. She then dumped it out in her lap and whopped him on the head with it. He didn't flinch, he's a good Deer.

Darcy was entertaining this day, her friend Addison (Darcy's ONLY girl friend) and her parents came over to see Deer. I think Darcy is petting Addison in this picture (with Addison's mom Gayle). Apparently anything with hair needs petting, so watch out ladies, if you don't shave those legs at this house, they're gonna get petted!

In other unrelated news, Darcy picked up a cold or something of that nature and kindly passed it along to Doug and I. What a week we had last week with all 3 of us sick. But I guess we better get used to it. I'm sure it won't be the last time she spreads her germs to us, even though it was the first.


We are gearing up for deer season in this neck of the woods, so we are starting to get a little more busy. Maybe we will get some good camo/hunting pics this fall! I won't post anything too squeamish though (did I spell that right? it looks funny...).


Anyways, that's about all I have this time. We are waiting to hear of a few babies being born, some in the hospital at this very moment, so we are waiting for the phones to ring. Other than that, just the normal for out here.... Until next time.