Our Deer Have No Horns

Everyone we have met from the Windy Hill area is open, friendly and actually welcoming.

It is refreshing to call someone at the courthouse or electric company who actually follows through on a task and calls you back when it is done.

As example, we had to establish a 911 address before we could get the USPS to do a change of address and before we could get our drivers licenses.

"Understand what you need, let's look...pull up Google Earth while we are on the phone...now which place is yours?   Got it, I will call you tomorrow with your new 911 address details."

AND HE CALLED THE NEXT DAY!  No need to chase 3 more times - hugely helpful!





The questions we are asked when meeting new Windy Hill neighbors always seem to follow the same pattern:

Q1:  Yer not from 'round here.  Where ya from? (said in a friendly way). 

A1:  Just moved in after living a 'short time' in New Jersey, but we're not New Jersey-ians.  Judy is from the Blue Ridge Mountains north of Scranton (makes her a real ridge runner) and I grew up in a small town in the heart of the Lake Ontario snow belt where we had enough snow days that I only went to school for a total of 6 years during my entire 12 years of education - (Judy says this explains everything to her - not sure what she means? ). 

Them:  So yer flat-landers huh. (said as a statement meaning that anyone not from here is a flat-lander and after living here 20 years is still going to be a flat-lander).

Q2:  Where ya living? 

A2:  We own the hill up on Valleyview.

Q3: Do ya hunt?

Now this is the real answer they want to know...

You see, Windy Hill butts up to a Corp of Engineers lake, which has a fairly wide perimeter of unhunted deer Habitat - and rumored to have lots of big bucks.

So of course the locals believe we have herds of 17 pointers eating our pa-tune-yas every day. 

Everyone seems to hint about wanting to hunt Windy Hill!

But I'm not so sure things are as they imagine.

Our deer have no horns...

Not the Road Runner "Beep-Beep" kind of horns, but ALL the deer we've seen on Windy Hill are slick headed does.

And we see lots of deer...nearly every day...often 6-7 at a time.  One night coming home late from replacing the manifold on the 60 year old Massey (more about that later) I counted 18 doe in our front field.

Nary a horn among them.

It seems like the doe/buck ratio is off.

We lived the last 17 years in an area with a dense deer population due to light hunting pressure.   And we often saw bucks.  In fact, it was not uncommon to see groups of them together year round and we've had opportunity to witness rut driven buck aggression...wonder if those toxic male deer have Y chromosomes too? 

My concern is that the actual percentage of bucks around Windy Hill may be lower than optimal and creating long-term risks.

When you declare open season on bucks, and everyone is doing it - it doesn't take long before you have no real males left.

Recently I walked the perimeter of the 34 acres to put up Posted signs ahead of hunting season.

For the record, I am not against hunting...I just put up the signs to keep uninviteds from messing with Windy Hill and to protect those deer ones that can't protect themselves.

While making the round, I did see some limited evidence of buck rubs, so maybe...just maybe...there still remains a few good males.

I don't know...just wondering if this might be what happens when you reach a tipping point and the future population is truly endangered as a result of shooting everything that looks and acts like a buck.

Just thinking...