January 21, 2022
It happens every year. Just about the time I know I should be preparing year end paperwork and sending in our tax return - the deer start shedding their antlers.
Unlike our sheep whose horns continue to grow throughout their life, male deer drop and regrow their antlers every year. It seems like a terribly inefficient system, and I have yet to hear an explanation as to why they do this other than – “they just do”.
We have lots of deer, and at least a half dozen bucks among them, that consider our woods their own. So, by my calculation, since each buck has two antlers which fall off one at a time, there should be twelve “sheds” laying on the ground waiting for me to find. If I find one a year, though, I’m feeling pretty lucky.
I sometimes wonder if the bucks don’t go out of their way to leave them somewhere they know we’ll never find them. We follow their trails and we check where they sleep at night. We look by the brook where they drink, and the hemlock grove where they rest. We check where they jump over our pasture fence and where they jump back out again.
Finding a “shed” is not unlike finding a four-leaf clover - there is no practical use for it, but it always makes me smile. (Which is something my tax returns have never done). Time is of the essence, though, as once on the ground, all the calcium starved forest dwellers - from the coyotes to the mice - start gnawing on them and hauling them back to their dens.
When I used to accompany my mom on late winter walks, her dogs would not infrequently veer off the path for a quick foray and come back with an antler. Pleased with themselves, they’d drop the antler at her feet. Clearly, I’d get our taxes done a lot sooner if I had such a dog.
Our dogs will happily swipe an antler off the porch where I’ve left it, but they certainly show no interest in finding them. Stealing yes, finding no.
I suspect if it weren’t the deer, there would be something else beckoning me to go for a walk in the woods, as the pile of paperwork sits there motionless on my desk. Perhaps a quick note to the Revenue Service by way of an explanation is in order as I put in my request for yet another extension. “Gone shed hunting again, I’ll get it done soon”