ENJOY! CHANGE OF PACE - HUMOR IS GENERALLY SADISTIC

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home. I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they react a little when you actually start pulling on that rope. Well not so much react, as friggin' explode like a bat out of Hades. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer— no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. Also I realized that venison would have to taste like ambrosia from heaven for me to go through this for it. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals. So instead of me getting my tail kicked and totally owned by Bambi for 20 minutes, he only beat me for a brief 10 minutes. I saw that he was tiring, probably from my neck back and head putting a beating on his hooves, and he was not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me like an old shoe, when I tried to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gashes in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slowly and painfully somewhere. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set beforehand ... kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back. That's right score one for the primate. Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody. I mean I knew they had teeth, but all the Disney movies I ever watched never showed Bambi with a taste for man flesh, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head — almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts. Imagine vice grips on your nipples. I later found out from a vet that the proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. Well next time I'll try that, because I tried my method of screaming and shaking like an epileptic, and it proved ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds and I was woozy from multiple concussions and blood loss. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. Just imagine a horse raring back, but it has daggers strapped to his feet and he wants to drive them into your spleen. Know I know from my horses that if they strike at you with their hooves, and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. However this was not a horse, as so many of you have guessed by now, and this method also proved ineffective and only scared the deer more, and sent him into what I can only describe as a amphetamine induced frenzy. This demon deer was having none of my trickery. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. Well, I hate to bring this up again, but you are NOT supposed to run from a horse that paws at you because. Contrary to my previous lessons in this experience, deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down. Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are lying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey. I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the Co-Op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like hell. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling, "What happened?" I told him "I was attacked by a deer". I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me. It was obviously rabid or insane or something.