Oh deer!

I really need to start carrying a camera with me whenever I leave the house. I see the strangest things here. There are a lot of Amish people in the area and it took awhile for me to get used to being parked next to a horse and buggy in the Wal-mart parking lot, or pulling up to a red light and seeing a horse in the lane next to me. A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving to the post office, I saw a man walking down one of the busiest streets here with a snake draped over his shoulders. And it was a huge snake too! But what happened today beats all. I pulled up to a red light, and looked at the car in front of me. There, from on top of the car were two black, beady eyes staring at me. As my gaze moved from those eyes to the owner of the eyes, I was surprised to see it was a deer! Someone had strapped a deer onto the hood of their car and it was sitting right in front of me! I grabbed my cell phone and tried to snap a picture, but it didn't turn out so well. Stupid camera phone!

As I sat there waiting for the light to change, I couldn't help but think of the yummy meat that deer would provide. My dad's family is really big into hunting and growing up we ate deer, moose and elk meat all the time. I don't think I had a real beef steak until I was well into my teens! Then my mind wandered from the deliciousness in front of me to the number of times I would come home to dead animals in our backyard. I remember on numerous occasions coming home and seeing dead geese laying out on our picnic table. A little startling to say the least. And then, there was the day when I came home and there was a dead deer tied up in the branches of one of our trees, just waiting to be gutted (or whatever they do to deer) and made into the various cuts that would be our meat for the winter.

As the light turned green and the car with the deer turned away from me, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of homesickness and a desire for a good, thick venison stake. Maybe if I had followed the car, they would have shared...