You never know what you’ll find in the woods

Each morning, Nikita and I walk to the mailbox. We do this a couple of times a day, more for the exercise — it’s a long driveway with a good hill — than to check the mail. Most days, we roused the deer in the woods and Nikita takes chase. Usually, they head further into the woods and it’s hard to know how many they really are. Today, the deer ran across the driveway towards the neighboring farmer’s field (the opposite direction of their usual route). I was able to count 30 deer crossing the driveway about 50 feet in front of me — many more than I expected.

I love seeing the deer right outside my door. It makes me feel close to nature. I usually see groups of 5 or 10 grazing in the (still unused) paddocks or beside the driveway. Sadly, there are too many deer here and that is a problem. Many are hit on the windy country roads where drivers never see them until it’s too late, often at dusk when visibility is limited.

Hunting is fairly common here. From time to time, I hear gunshots, but I don’t think much about it. I certainly wasn’t thinking about it when I headed into the woods today. It was a beautiful day and I thought I would take the opportunity to explore the fox hunting trails beyond the paddock.

Nikita and I headed over the jump in the paddock fence line and hit the trails. We followed the crisscrossed network of trails over hill and dale. Most headed down to a creek that was too wide for me to cross without getting a soaker so we doubled back a number of times and worked our way down one side of the creek. I’m not sure how much distance we actually covered but we were out for more than an hour when I thought we should start working our way back. About the same time that thought crossed my mind, I heard a gun shot. It wasn’t particularly close but it did seem to come from the directed we wanted to head in. It stopped me cold. I hadn’t thought about people hunting. It was mid-day, mid-week and I had no idea what the rules were.

Walking home on the road wasn’t much of an option as I wasn’t sure where the road was relative to where we were. I decided to head back the way we had come until we reached the neighboring farmer’s field. We could get back into our paddock from that side and avoid a good section of woods. I talked to the dog and hummed, trying to make it obvious we were not deer. I breathed a sigh of relief when we hit the farmer’s field and we made our way through a small stand of trees to the gate. Something to my left caught my eye; when I turned to look I saw that it was a man, in camouflage, with a gun. The gun wasn’t pointed in our direction, but my heart skipped a beat. He looked our way and said nothing; I waved, said “well, hello!” and kept walking.

When I got back to my place, I took a deep breath and sat down on the patio (AKA the run-in shed of the barn). Our 2+ hour walk was a good workout and I had worked up a bit of sweat, but I was also slightly terrified by what could have been. Having lived in an area where hunting is not common (and illegal in many places where I hike), it never occurred to me that I could be shot!

I guess it’s time to learn a little more about local hunting regulations. And perhaps invest in some bright orange apparel. In the meantime, I’ll stick with a few daily walks to the mailbox.