Surviving hunting season

Rifle season for deer started last Saturday and concludes -- tomorrow?? I thought it was Tuesday. It encompasses two weekends, anyway.

Deer are running scared, all over the place. They practically run me down every night. My UPS man saw three this week. I can't imagine how he can get around, what with the deer population in a panic.

And, no wonder, with some of the yahoos who are out there, roaring around the countryside on their 4-wheelers, shooting at everything that moves, talking to each other on their cell phones.

It's a wonder we don't have the harried animals on our front porches, charging in our windows. My sister says that they're coming into the Springfield, Mo. city limits, hiding out in residents' front yards. My nephew went out for a smoke the other night and saw six deer standing in the neighbor's yard. He looked at them, they looked at him, and nobody moved! When he went back into the house, they were still there.

I guess it makes sense. Though the human population is greater in the city limits, they aren't carrying guns.

My sister-in-law has seen both deer and coyotes in the Cape city limits. These wild creatures are extremely adaptable.

My husband used to have coyotes watching him when he plowed his fields. They would sun themselves and watch him from the edge of the field. They even chased the mice that he plowed up. But if he tried to go over the hill, climb down off his tractor and get a gun, they were GONE!! He couldn't carry a gun on the tractor, either. They knew!

I'll be glad when the season is over, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is -- I can't go on my morning and evening walks during deer season. Too dangerous.

It keeps my dogs stirred up too. They've been barking like crazy since dusk.

I'm glad I don't have goats anymore; that was always a worry. Every year you hear about some city slicker shooting a farmer's cow or goat, thinking he's bagged a real trophy.

My friend Emma told me of a recent news report about a woman who was shot through the jaw while she was driving. The bullet went through her jaw and out the window!

The ultimate deer story in our family concerns my cousin Jeff, who has a place outside Springfield, where one year he watched a little doe come to his back yard every day and stay there till dark. She spent the whole ten days of deer season there, while Jeff's brother Bruce hunted in vain everywhere but in his brother's back yard. Bruce was none too happy when he heard that his own brother had aided and abetted the local prey!

From the dark and dangerous hills of Tillman, Missouri, this is your rural reporter Madeline, trying to keep her head down and her scalp intact!