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Saturday, January 18, 2014

Five, ten minutes ago, four deer in the backyard area, the woods behind the house.

Add that to the snowy owls showing up around Town Center. The owls there makes sense. I have seen jackrabbits roaming that open expanse. The snowy owl - rabbit -- predator - prey relationship is well known. They are less a woods bird than one seeking a perch overlooking an expanse of open field.

About the deer, it looked to be two adults, two yearlings, no fawns. No horns, but I am unsure when rutting season ends and adult males drop horns.

___________UPDATE____________
Former Ramsey Councilmember Terry Hendriksen emailed:

saw your post. The insights I've learned about attracting deer. First they are on a 2-day cycle. Second they really like horse feed and I think they can smell it from a significant distance (Ramsey farm and garden claims they sell more horse feed for deer than horses). the only disadvantage is that deer/horse feed gets moldy when allowed to get wet. I feed shelled corn when rain or snow is predicted. Otherwise you'll need to clean out the feeder - the deer won't eat moldy feed.

I had 7 last night (at one time) before the snow including one very small but no longer spotted one. That's the most at one time this year. The small one was about the size of my lab but with longer legs. One full size adult others smaller.

Terry is one of the remaining few Ramsey horse owners. He owns a pair. Some readers may recall when he and Jerry Zimmerman, Margaret Connolly, and Susan Anderson were on council. When it was mayor plus four others with staggered terms, each serving at large. Before the ill-advised change to the Ward system with the notion that a town the size of Ramsey needs seven heads of state. Before pretensions. Not wholly before/without pretensions. There was one back in Gamec mayor days ... on council Sept. 2003, at the time the Town Center die was cast ... Al Pearson and Mary Jo Olson are two other former good guys who were on council back then around the turn of the century, the early 2000's. It's been awhile since one councilmember was suing another. It seems far in the past ...