I Tracked My First Deer!!!! (& energy)

I never know what will happen one day to the next but Misty, the dog, reeally wanted to go for a walk. I wasn't planning on actually, literally, tracking down deer, but I found TEN of them. I am not kidding. I can't believe there were that many so I wonder if I counted one of them twice. First I only saw 4 of them and then a bunch of others rose up in the distance, like sagebrush turning into animals.

It was SO random! We weren't even on a path that had tracks! At first we were, and I followed the dog and just wanted to get up higher on the mountain (which is covered in snow), and then we passed a pile of deer droppings, and then I was just hiking for the fun of it.

The dog loved it, and it's like 10 years came off of her (she's 9 years old they said).

So we were up pretty high,, and the dog was off to the right somewhere and for whatever reason, I got to the top of this one hill, and I couldn't hear the dog at all, but I went left and then just around that corner, and there were no tracks around me at all, I saw 4 deer! A couple of them, out of the 10, had antlers. I guess that means they're male? Do they always have antlers if they're male?

The deer were at a distance and I guess had sensed we were somewhere behind because they were looking back at me, across the way, higher up on a mountain. If I'd known how to shoot though, I guess some of the Native American in me came out...I guess I might be able to keep my family fed! It was so fun just to see them, after all that hiking, and out of nowhere.

I think with real tracking you follow the tracks the whole way? or do you go off the track trail and sense where they are? I don't know, I guess I was lucky.

But there were 4 very large deer and then I was just looking at them as they walked around a mountain and then several more came up out of the snow and walked off too and I counted them. I think maybe only 2 or 3 had the antlers?

So the dog was bounding all over and excited to pick up the scent and went the right direction but I guess we were both bloodhounds today.

Can you believe it? TEN deer. There must be a ton of deer over here because there were tracks all over the place.

Then, coming down, we met or passed another guy and his dog and had the doggy intro. It was fun. I'm not huge into roughing it, but hiking with the dog and finding the deer was kind of fun. The thing I like about hiking in the snow is the challenge of balance on steep terrain. I have pretty good footing and that's sort of fun. Just meandering along isn't as much fun.

The dog was bounding like a deer, through the sagebrush and thicket, and tearing down the straightaways. She had a blast!

At one point, we were passing the other dog and she just bolted and in the snow, I was almost skiiing, holding onto her with the leash.

What a random thing to do today. I didn't even plan to go for a hike at all but the dog really wanted to get out and then I let her off the leash and then one thing led to another.

I thought about my son, and oh yes, he would love to do this with me. I found I liked holding the leash, when she we were on leash and she was ahead, with my left hand, and having my right hand free for balance or maybe carrying something else, but that if she was really getting ahead or I wanted to have more control, I liked holding the leash with my right hand, because it's stronger, to keep her from charging out into the road when we were getting back.
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It's about 1:30 p.m. and even though this was fun and I had a good sense of energy this morning (not early this morning but later) now, for some reason, I sense a sadness or heaviness a little bit. I don't know why. I think someone, somewhere is sad for some reason or something doesn't feel just right.
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I just found out, I guess there weren't many deer with (I kept wanting to say "horns") antlers, because these are the bucks and there are only 1 buck to every 6 or so female deers (lucky bucks...I don't know why the saying is "lucky duck" when it should be "lucky buck"...I don't know...maybe that's why ducks are supposedly lucky too?) Wait. Ducks include male and female. So no, that isn't why we have the phrase lucky duck. Maybe a lucky duck is lucky because it doesn't get shot? I dont know. My Dad always thought, well once, I remember him saying, if he were an animal, he would be a duck because they can go in water, on land, and in the air. I have no idea why that whole tangent came to mind.

I know I saw at least one buck but I think maybe 2 for sure. One had bigger antlers, and the other had little ones.