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Deer Deer Deer
Oct. 3rd, 2004 10:20 pmI hate deer, Bambi aside... As the beau once explained to someone (this person was going on and on about the rats in New York) "You wanna talk pests? The pests in Michigan stand 6 foot at the head, and the males have antlers!"
In other news, This past Friday (October 1 for those keeping track) was opening day for Bow Hunting Season! Yippee. Unfortunately no one told Mojo, my car, this and he accordingly hit the third one he saw. You must understand, it's never the first one or two- it's always the third one, the one ya don't see.
So yeah, Friday night I'm driving up to see the Beau and since there is construction on 23 I decide to take an alternate route. This being M-52, backwoods. Now, a co-worker had commented earlier that day that her son was all excited because this would be his first time going huntin'. I'm not a deer hunter, and no one in my family hunts, so I promptly put it to the back of my mind.
I'm driving through Chelsea, it's getting darker, I see a doe and her fawn scramble across the road not 10 feet in front of my car. Shit. I forgot, deer hunting season. The hunters end up spooking the stupid deer into committing suicide on the road. I'm driving more carefully, yet still staying right around the 55 mph speed limit.
Just past Stockbridge a doe jumps out from the right side of the road- right into the front of Mojo. Shit! I say again as I hit the brakes and stop on the side of the road. Blinkers go on, stress hits, tears start, get out of the car, call the Beau. I have no idea what to do at this point, as this has never happened to me before and my drivers ed teacher never covered it.
It should have been covered though, this is Michigan- during gun hunting season Michigan has more people out in the woods with guns than are members in many countries armies! In the UP opening day is practically a holiday! So the odds of hitting one of the beasts is pretty high.
Beau calls the sheriff for me, the cell phone wasn't at full power and I wasn't at full coherency. While waiting for the sheriff to arrive the Sasha cat (oh yeah, she was with me too, in her carrier in the front seat) is purring her fool head off. Either in an attempt to calm me down (I was scared witless) or to prove that she wasn't afraid by purring. In either case the sound was much appreciated.
So a truck pulls over to the side of the road behind me, but it doesn't quite look like a sheriff's truck- no lights for one thing. So, just in case I was suddenly in a horror movie, I did what I was supposed to do- I got out of the car. However, I had my phone with me- on, and the speed dial to the Beau punched in so all I would have to do is hit 'talk' to connect. Smart huh?
So a guy asks if I'm all right, he gets closer and I see the camo- ah ha! he's a hunter. Thus I meet Jed and Bubba, well those are the names I assigned to them, I never did catch their real names. Jed and Bubba were up from Redfern, Redleaf something like that, nearish to Taylor, and they had no luck hunting that day. I pretty much figured that the only reason they were keeping me company is because they wanted my doe. Oh yeah, Bubba checked before coming to see me- the deer was a doe (knew that) and she was quite dead. Yippee.
You must understand, in Michigan is it legal to keep a deer you hit and kill with your car. So there are times when hunting with either bow or gun is illegal- but you can always hunt with your car. Poor families in the UP refer to deer at Speed Beef- 'can't afford grocery store prices? take out yer old car and have at!'
So Jed and Bubba were nice and kept me talking and calm while waiting FOREVER for the Sheriff. When the Sheriff showed up he parked behind Jed & Bubba and joked with the boys that they were supposed to be out hunting with bows, not trucks. Which prompts me to pipe upand claim the title of mighty huntress. Sheriff guy doesn't even bother to look at my car (both Jed and Bubba did, trying to figure out how the doe ran into me as well as to make sure the hood wouldn't fly up or anything). He just asks for license, registration and proof of insurance and heads back to his truck.
In the meantime Jed and Bubba ask him about the doe, then get my permission to take her away! This actually makes me happy, if I have to kill a doe (apparently they figure she was 2-3 years old) at least someone will get some use of it. Goodness knows I would have no clue how to prepare dead deer. The boys did offer to toss it into the trunk for me, though.
The sum total of the damage is a cracked out passenger side light set-up, the hood is crumpled up a lil bit, the quarter panel got pushed in, as did the bumper. So over all the damage was really minimal. The car is still drivable and while I do have to get it fixed 'real soon now' I do have some time because I can still drive it just fine.
So yeah, bad night. I'm not opposed to hunting (well, I am opposed to trophy hunting) I just never really wanted to participate, just not my bag. And Sasha REALLY didn't like being left alone in the car for that long. Yeah, that's enough of the weekend for now, I'll post info on the good stuff later (the weekend got much better after that, but then, it would have to, wouldn't it?).
In other news, This past Friday (October 1 for those keeping track) was opening day for Bow Hunting Season! Yippee. Unfortunately no one told Mojo, my car, this and he accordingly hit the third one he saw. You must understand, it's never the first one or two- it's always the third one, the one ya don't see.
So yeah, Friday night I'm driving up to see the Beau and since there is construction on 23 I decide to take an alternate route. This being M-52, backwoods. Now, a co-worker had commented earlier that day that her son was all excited because this would be his first time going huntin'. I'm not a deer hunter, and no one in my family hunts, so I promptly put it to the back of my mind.
I'm driving through Chelsea, it's getting darker, I see a doe and her fawn scramble across the road not 10 feet in front of my car. Shit. I forgot, deer hunting season. The hunters end up spooking the stupid deer into committing suicide on the road. I'm driving more carefully, yet still staying right around the 55 mph speed limit.
Just past Stockbridge a doe jumps out from the right side of the road- right into the front of Mojo. Shit! I say again as I hit the brakes and stop on the side of the road. Blinkers go on, stress hits, tears start, get out of the car, call the Beau. I have no idea what to do at this point, as this has never happened to me before and my drivers ed teacher never covered it.
It should have been covered though, this is Michigan- during gun hunting season Michigan has more people out in the woods with guns than are members in many countries armies! In the UP opening day is practically a holiday! So the odds of hitting one of the beasts is pretty high.
Beau calls the sheriff for me, the cell phone wasn't at full power and I wasn't at full coherency. While waiting for the sheriff to arrive the Sasha cat (oh yeah, she was with me too, in her carrier in the front seat) is purring her fool head off. Either in an attempt to calm me down (I was scared witless) or to prove that she wasn't afraid by purring. In either case the sound was much appreciated.
So a truck pulls over to the side of the road behind me, but it doesn't quite look like a sheriff's truck- no lights for one thing. So, just in case I was suddenly in a horror movie, I did what I was supposed to do- I got out of the car. However, I had my phone with me- on, and the speed dial to the Beau punched in so all I would have to do is hit 'talk' to connect. Smart huh?
So a guy asks if I'm all right, he gets closer and I see the camo- ah ha! he's a hunter. Thus I meet Jed and Bubba, well those are the names I assigned to them, I never did catch their real names. Jed and Bubba were up from Redfern, Redleaf something like that, nearish to Taylor, and they had no luck hunting that day. I pretty much figured that the only reason they were keeping me company is because they wanted my doe. Oh yeah, Bubba checked before coming to see me- the deer was a doe (knew that) and she was quite dead. Yippee.
You must understand, in Michigan is it legal to keep a deer you hit and kill with your car. So there are times when hunting with either bow or gun is illegal- but you can always hunt with your car. Poor families in the UP refer to deer at Speed Beef- 'can't afford grocery store prices? take out yer old car and have at!'
So Jed and Bubba were nice and kept me talking and calm while waiting FOREVER for the Sheriff. When the Sheriff showed up he parked behind Jed & Bubba and joked with the boys that they were supposed to be out hunting with bows, not trucks. Which prompts me to pipe upand claim the title of mighty huntress. Sheriff guy doesn't even bother to look at my car (both Jed and Bubba did, trying to figure out how the doe ran into me as well as to make sure the hood wouldn't fly up or anything). He just asks for license, registration and proof of insurance and heads back to his truck.
In the meantime Jed and Bubba ask him about the doe, then get my permission to take her away! This actually makes me happy, if I have to kill a doe (apparently they figure she was 2-3 years old) at least someone will get some use of it. Goodness knows I would have no clue how to prepare dead deer. The boys did offer to toss it into the trunk for me, though.
The sum total of the damage is a cracked out passenger side light set-up, the hood is crumpled up a lil bit, the quarter panel got pushed in, as did the bumper. So over all the damage was really minimal. The car is still drivable and while I do have to get it fixed 'real soon now' I do have some time because I can still drive it just fine.
So yeah, bad night. I'm not opposed to hunting (well, I am opposed to trophy hunting) I just never really wanted to participate, just not my bag. And Sasha REALLY didn't like being left alone in the car for that long. Yeah, that's enough of the weekend for now, I'll post info on the good stuff later (the weekend got much better after that, but then, it would have to, wouldn't it?).
