Playing Santa...

Tonight we had Christmas gathering #4. This one was with Shelly's immediate family. We arrived home around 10:00 and hurried to get Matthew bathed and in bed. I read him the story of Baby Jesus out of his children's Bible, and he went to sleep fairly quickly.

Jonathan is not quite so easy to get to sleep. It's now 1:48 Am and he is still WIDE awake. I swear that kid never sleeps. Hopefully he will crash soon, but he's not showing signs of it right now.

After we were certain Matthew was fast asleep, I went out and retrieved all of the presents out of my trunk. It was pretty funny that Jonathan watched me put together all of the Santa Clause toys. Heck, he's already played with everything.

I started on the first present. A large box containing MANY pieces. The box said "partially assembled". Partially assembled? Which part? I think there was something like 100 pieces. I laid all of the pieces out, looked at the directions, then looked for the screws to attach the parts together. No screws. I tear apart all of the pieces, all of the packing materials, etc. we're not talking 3 or 4 screws, we're talking a butt load of screws. I enlisted Shelly's help, and we finally found them. Taped to the bottom inside part of the box. It's late, and I'm tired. I wouldn't be a bit surprised of those bums over at Fisher Price did that on purpose. Probably a couple of Jewish guys over there laughing about jacking with some unsuspecting Christian that is up late putting this stuff together for the secular celebration of Christmas. (Please don't take offense if you are Jewish. It's a JOKE)

Thankfully, after the rough start, everything went smoothly. I even was able to polish off a plate of cookies with a glass of milk. Not a bad day to be Santa. I do have to say, this is one of the fun parts of being a daddy. The look of wonder on 7 month old Jonathan's face when he saw his toys coming together was priceless. I'm sure Matthew will be equally thrilled when he sees his gifts in the morning.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, filled with all of the love and laughter that you can handle.

I'll leave you with a picture we took of our munchkins last week in front of the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve Gift...

My Dad's side of the family has always had this fun tradition for Christmas Eve. The object is to try to be the first one to tell someone else "Christmas Eve Gift". I'm not exactly sure what the point is, but it's something you do every year. Maybe you're supposed to get an extra gift from them?

Anyway, over the years, you get to the point where you answer the phone "Christmas Eve Gift" because if you say "Hello", the person on the other end of the line will respond with "Christmas Eve Gift", meaning you have just been gotten.

Well, this year, I was going to be the KING of the "CEG". I came downstairs, fired up the computer, and was getting ready to FaceBook and E-mail all of the relatives I could. Alternative delivery method. Those suckers wouldn't even expect this...

I opened up Facebook, and there it was. A message posted on my wall from Cousin Jeff, posted at some crazy hour like 2 am...

"Christmas Eve Gift"

Christmas Event #3...

First, let me say that I forgot to include Obama in this gathering. I'm a little bummed because he might have enjoyed the trip.

The place was generally a zoo. We had 7 kids under the age of 5. All boys. At one point, all of the kids were in one of the bedrooms, and Shelly's cousin went back there to check on them. Mighty nice of her since she is the only one there that didn't have children.

Apparently the decision was made that they were going to place house. Since Julie was the only female, she was the Mommy. Matthew volunteered to be the Daddy. He's a take charge sort of fellow. He told Julie that she needed to get on the bed and he was going to spank her because she had been a bad girl...

Ok, I KNOW that Shelly and I don't watch any inappropriate shows on TV. And, to be brutally honest, with 2 kids and each of us working full-time, what little time there is for hanky-panky sure isn't as involved as any role playing.

Add this to the list of things to bring up when we have "the chat". Seriously, a few weeks ago he's tying a girl up and bringing her home, today he getting into a little S&M, I can only guess what's next...

Honestly, a couple of other funny things happened while we were there, but how can you tell another story after that one?

Visit to the doctor...

About 2 weeks ago, I went to the Dr Old-School to see about getting rid of a cough and general upper-respiratory junk I came down with. I was given a shot and an antibiotic. Within a couple of days, I was feeling better, and got a little lackadaisical about finishing off the antibiotic. Instead of 4 over the course of 24 hours, I took 2 in the morning and if I remembered, a couple more at night.

Apparently doing it that way doesn't get the job done...

My cough came back with a vengeance last night. To keep it at bay, I took a double dose (maybe triple - I just took a big swig from the bottle instead of measuring out 1tsp) of cough syrup w/ Codeine. Man, that crap is potent when taken in that quantity. I crashed pretty hard and had to be reminded of my name this morning. Somehow I got up, showered, wrapped a Christmas gift, and helped Shelly get the kids dressed and in the car. Poor Matthew probably has his drawers on backwards and has mis-matched socks, but that's the breaks, right?

Anyway, about 10:30 this morning, I called the Dr's office to find out if he was still in business. Luck had it that he's still with us this week. I asked if they would call me in a refill of the antibiotic I took last time. Of course, they need to pay the bills, so I was told to stop in before lunch. I got there and after talking to the nurse, my call was apparently the first call they had received all day. No wonder they wanted me in. They needed my $30 co-pay plus the $95 Blue Cross will kick in just to keep the place running.

They ushered me into a room, and a sort of rough looking nurse checked my vitals and told me the doctor would be in shortly. The doctor checked me out, wrote me a prescription for a stronger antibiotic and more codeine cough syrup. He said the nurse would be back with a shot for me.

This is where things went downhill...

Nurse Helga has been there a while. She's a little stern and sort of a rough individual. She always smells like Camels (cigarettes, not the animal). She wears a fancy Dale Earnhardt Jr jacket. Nice enough, I guess, but sort of a no-nonsense type person.

Anyway, she came in the room with quite a large needle. She told me I needed to drop my drawers. Now, I was under the impression that most grown people should have the option to get the shot in the butt or in the arm. I protested, but she was having nothing to do with it. Then she proceeded to make me pay for questioning her authority in choosing the shot placement...

Nurse Helga: "Turn around and drop them"

me: "ok, but just let the record show I'd rather have it in the arm."

NH: "Lean over this table"

me: "um, this is a little unconventional"

NH: "Lean over further, elbows on the table"

me: "Alright, I'm starting to get a little concerned. I've never been asked to get in this position before" At this point, I start to wonder if Helga is really a Harold. I listen intently. Any sound of zippers, and I'm outta there.

NH: "Extend your right leg back and rest your right foot on the tip toes"

me: "What the hell does this have to do with getting a shot?"

NH: "You need to relax. This won't hurt as much if you will relax"

Ok, my mind is going nuts here thinking that this is by far the most unusual doctors visit I've ever had. Well, there was that one appointment many years ago where I had a Sigmoid Scope done, but you sort of go in expecting what you are going to get, but I didn't arrive at this appointment expecting the "full treatment".

me: "Relax? Who the hell can relax in a position like this? I hardly know you, and I'm sort of in a precarious position here."

Luckily by this time, the shot was over and she told me I could get dressed and head up to the front desk.

I just have to wonder. Why does nothing I ever do seem to be easy?

a recent dinner...

Was asked by a friend if I took a picture of my dinner very often. No, not really that often, usually only when it was a really good one and I want to make people jealous...

Ribeye, baked potato, sauteed mushrooms, and butternut squash (baked then mashed)

gotta remember to respect the power of electricity...

Apologies if you read this one before. I thought it was too funny not to post. More original content and stories will follow soon, but this should tide us over until I get a chance to type out a proper entry.


We have the standard 6ft. fence in the backyard, and a few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city.

To make sure this never happened to me, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence. Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground rod, and drove it 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.

One day I'm mowing the back yard with my cheapo Walmart 6hp bigwheel pushmower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way.
It seems as though I hadn't remembered to unplug it after all.

Now I'm standing there, I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the 1.7 gigavolt fence wire in the other hand. Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover. Time stood still. The first thing I notice is my balls trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head. I was literally at one with the engine.
It seems as though the fence charger and the POS lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot crap, pee, and nut at the same time.

I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just crap your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point I'm about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire. My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can't let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences.....but Dad always had those POS chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled.

This one I could not let go of. The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas.

'Damn!,' I think, as I remember I just filled the tank!

Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, jizz, and with my balls on my chest I think 'Oh God please die... pleeeeaze die'. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard, begging to die. I was not taken that day.....I was left there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire... I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned. There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot were the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire.

Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things :

1- Three of my teeth seem to have melted.

2- I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right).

3- Poop, pee, and semen when all mixed together, do not smell as bad as you might think.

4- My left eye will not open.

5- My right eye will not close.

6- The lawnmower runs like a sumnabitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that.

7- My balls are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long.

8- I can turn on the TV in the gameroom by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don't understand this???).

That day changed my life. I now have a newfound respect for things.
I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.

Surprise Guest...

Last week was a week from hell. Both Shelly and I had long, frustrating weeks at work. There was also some drama with some stupid family politics that had me pretty fired up. I'm not going to say much because most of the family reads the blog at one time or another, but lets say it got bad enough that I hung op on a family member over it. All is fine now, but that added to the stress of the week.

On Friday, my week really came to a head. I was in a rotten mood already, and had a million things to do, so I left a little earlier than usual to get to work. Everything is fine until I hit FM1960. This is 3 lanes in each direction, sort of a major thoroughfare. It runs through residential and commercial / retail areas. Lots of traffic lights, but fairly smooth sailing most mornings because the lights are timed right. Smooth sailing every morning except Friday morning...

I was bee-bopping along, and traffic came to a halt. Barely creeping along. After a while, I managed to maneuver where I saw some flashing lights ahead. Long story short, I tried to go around it, but I managed to get right back into the mess. After almost an hour in and out of the mess, I finally figured out what the hold-up was. It wasn't a wreck, it was a house...

They were moving a damn house down a major traffic artery in rush hour. A FRIGGIN HOUSE... The delay was that they had a cherry picker truck at every intersection to help lift the traffic lights out of the way. A HOUSE. During RUSH HOUR... Amazing...

Shelly, on the other hand had a decent Friday. She went to the kids daycare and attended Christmas parties for both boys and got back to work to find her Christmas gift. A Quite nice Coach Leather bag / purse. And not a tiny one either. One MUCH nicer than we could have afforded to buy for her had she wanted to buy a new purse. She ended the week on a high note, and I was left feeling like someone had crapped in my Christmas Stocking.

About 11PM Friday night, we were sitting in the living room. Shelly was feeding Jonathan, and Matthew was sleeping on the couch next to me while we were watching TV. All of a sudden, the doorbell rang. Now, if you know me, you can imagine that I peeked out the window next to the door and had a little household protection handy. On my front step was a tall, rather thin black man...

It took a couple of tense seconds to figure out what was going on, when I noticed the oak tree in the yard. Toilet Paper. The black guy? Barack Obama. Someone had TP'd our yard and put a life size cardboard Barack Obama figure on my front step. No one has fessed up, but Ty and Amanda are prime suspects.

Whoever did it, you have my sincere thanks. That was just the little bit of boost I needed after a really rough week. It only took me about 10 minutes to clean it up, then we had a good laugh about how I nearly capped Obama... I would have used the Castle Doctrine defense.

I will say that we have had soem fun with Obama the last couple of days. We have had 2 family Christmas events this weekend, and he went to both of them with us. I have to admit, NONE of the family members were happy to see him. Not sure who all voted for him, but I didn't run into a single one of his supporters while we were making our rounds.

He'll travel a little more with us this week before we pass him off to someone else in another week or so. He's going to the ranch with us later this week. Might be a little dangerous for him. People are VERY conservative out there, and the ALL have guns. Lots of guns. I can't guarantee he won't have a hole or 2 in him when he gets passed on...

Just Because...

A friend of mine posted a message on FaceBook today that her husband bought her a bunch of pink roses "Just Because"... Of course, this is followed by a bunch of other women fawning over how sweet that is and what a great husband he is.

I've got news for them... That's not how guys work.

Guys don't give flowers or do other nice things "just because". Sure, we tell you it is "just because", but that's not true. Don't get mad, it's similar to the situations where we ask "What's wrong?" and you answer "Nothing". We know damn well that it's not "nothing", but we play along to humor you.

There is always something after the "just because". Sometimes it is "just because I want to divert your attention from something I did that will probably tick you off." Other times it might be "just because this might increase my chances of getting some action later." Maybe even "just because I want to go hang out with the guys later to watch the game and don't want to be hassled about not spending time together". We always have some idea in the back of our minds about what we hope to accomplish with random flowers, etc.

Another thing... guys, by nature, are not overly romantic individuals. Those things just don't come naturally. Sure, we might pop off some odd romantic idea on occasion, but it's not a regular occurrence. Don't get mad or frustrated at us, that's just the way it is. Women are wired have romantic thoughts, guys are wired to watch sports on TV, hunt, and other manly stuff.

I know there are lots of young, single women out there with idealistic thoughts about some dreamy guy that is perfect looking and is always thinking of romantic ideas. You are correct, there are guys like that around. You just don't have a shot at guys like them. They are already taken - by other men with the same characteristics. Sorry, that's just how it is.

Any comments? Feel free to chime in. You can post as "anonymous" if you don't want to sign in, but leave your name at the bottom of your comment.

For the record, I just read this post to Shelly. It was met with an eye roll and a "whatever". Now, I'm smart enough to know that "whatever" doesn't mean "whatever, that's fine". It means "Whatever, you know that nice, romantic dinner we just had at a restaurant with real napkins and 3 forks next to the plate, that you took me to 'just because'... You just cancelled that out".

Would hate to have to explain this one...

I saw this article tonight and thought it was pretty funny...


Man handcuffs wife to bed, loses key

Police say situation was an intimate relationship, not an imprisonment
The Associated Press
updated 3:04 p.m. CT, Thurs., Dec. 11, 2008

DEARBORN, Mich. - If you love something, set it free. And if you can't, call the police. The Detroit Free Press reported police responded to a call Thursday morning by a Dearborn man who handcuffed his wife to their bed but misplaced the key.

Police used a universal key to free the woman.

Sgt. Ray Patrick said the situation was "more of an intimate relationship than an unlawful imprisonment."

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28181033/?GT1=43001


Man, what luck. Imagine this poor fellow. Probably nothing but plain vanilla for years. He finally begs and pleads with the wife, maybe cashes in Christmas favors or the promise of a kitchen remodel for the chance at something a little spicier. He pulls out the handcuffs. Then, he completely screws up the situation by losing the key. Call that his last shot at the big time...

I sort of feel sorry for this guy.

Funny happening from the office today...

Late this afternoon, I was needing a stretch break and a Diet Coke, so I walked back to the kitchen at the office to get a drink out of the fridge. While I was back there, the receptionist evidently decided to go around and empty everyone's trash cans. My trash can is under my desk, near my feet, so I guess she sat in my chair to reach under there.

On the way back to my desk, she said something to the effect that my behind must be hot. It caught me a little off guard, so I asked her what she meant. She told me that it was a little cold in the office, but when she sat in my chair, it was quite warm.

My reply? Can you guess?
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"Of course my chair is warm. It has gas heat."

Snow in Houston...

A rare event happened in Houston this evening. It snowed. Of course, it is typical southern snow. It doesn't stick to the ground, but does accumulate a light dusting on cars and other flat surfaces.

Matthew and I just went out and scraped all the snow off of my car. I think there was enough for about 4 decent snowballs.

Ok, not much compared to you guys that get all you want plus some, but for those of us down here, this is a big deal.

I wonder if they will close the schools tomorrow?

Going to the doctor...

Earlier in the week I started getting that strange feeling the the back of the throat that told me I was coming down with something. What starts out as head congestion for me quickly turns into bronchitis. I had asthma as a kid, so I think that makes me a little more susceptible to chest type issues.

Not a big deal, it just means that I need to go to the doctor once or twice a year when the crud hits to make sure it doesn't get too bad. Ok, doctors for a man are a pain in the butt. For several years, I would just pick one out of the most current list of doctors for our health insurance each time I was sick. The problem with this is that I could never remember which doctor I had seen the last time, so I never saw anyone more than once.

Also, it cheesed me off that when I would call it would always seem to take 2 days to get an appointment. I'm a man. By the time I get around to calling a doctor, a 2 day wait isn't a good idea. By then I will either be cured from over-the-counter meds, or I will be dead somewhere. That is, until I found Dr Moore.

Dr Moore is my kind of Doctor. He's old school. By old school, I mean he graduated from med school 52 years ago. This dude is pushing 80. The first time I went to him a few years ago, I called and asked for an appointment. It was about 11:30, and they told me to come in at 1:00.

I've found out since that first visit that appointments aren't required. I've never had to wait when showing up. Hell, I've only seen another patient there at the same time as me once in the last 3 years. Today, I got there at 11:10. at 11:30, I was pulling out of the parking lot with a shot in my right butt cheek and a prescription in hand.

The joke around here is that I still call in for an appointment, more or less just to make sure the old fart is still alive. I know one of these days I'll call in and either will get a phone disconnected message, or they will tell me he has either finally retired or kicked the bucket.

Dr Moore, here's wishing you many more years of health.

A couple of pics of the kids...

Jonathan sure does like those carrots.

No butt, but look at those chunky legs...

Christmas Shopping...

Shelly and I went out tonight and did a little bit of our Christmas shopping. Our friend Janice lives a stone's throw from a Toys R Us, so we left the boys with her and headed out to shop for all of the kids in the family.

I LOVE giving gifts and I love picking out toys for the kids, but I hate dealing with the other shoppers. In Houston, it seems that whenever we decide to go shopping, it is right after a crowd has rummaged through the store leaving it in a complete disarray. On top of that, the other people that are there are all speaking languages other than English. Not sure why, but I tend to get a little annoyed by that.

It took a little over an hour of searching the shelves of scattered and strewn about toys, but we managed to take care of gifts for our boys as well as the niece and nephews. Now we just need to buy for our parents and for each other and we'll be set.

One funny thing happened tonight, which is pretty much what you might expect from me... As we were wrapping up our shopping, we were alone on an aisle of toys for the younger kids. I needed to release a little pressure, and since no one was around, I popped one off. It was a little louder and longer than expected, and about the time I turned around, there was another couple coming onto the aisle, not 6 feet from me. Shelly was between me and this couple.

I was COLD BUSTED.

It all happened so fast. The guy busted out laughing and took off, leaving his wife standing there with her mouth open and a look on her face that said "What the heck just happened here?" Shelly turned around just in time to see the woman with a funny look on her face and then turned back in my direction as I busted out laughing. The woman beat a hasty retreat when it finally hit her what had happened.

Ok, at that point, you are stuck. You can't exactly look out into the main aisle to see where the other couple went. You have to move the other direction. We also had to regain our composure because we were laughing so hard we were crying.

Shelly said she's not sure she can take me anywhere in public again.

Now that I'm recapping the evening, I wonder what the store employees thought was going on when they saw 2 separate couple dying laughing, headed in opposite directions.

Apologies if this offends anyone, but by now you shouldn't be shocked by much that goes on in our family.

Gotta have a LONG talk with that boy one of these days...

Several Months ago, I bought Matthew a little fishing pole to use at the ranch. The last time we used it, we were in my car, so it was still in the trunk. This morning, when we were loading the coolers full of tamales in my trunk, he found the fishing pole and wanted to have it inside the car. There is no hook on it, just a little weighted disk to use for practicing casting, so I figured it was safe enough. Other than being pegged in the back of the head a couple of times, there were no problems.

At one point, we were sitting at a red light and there was a girl in the car next to us. Matthew said he was going to use his fishing pole and catch the girl in the next car.

Me: How are you going to catch her with that fishing pole?

Matthew: Well, you have to roll down my window and I'll catch her.

Me: what are we going to do with her after you catch her?

Matthew: We're going to take her home and wrap her up.

I'm starting to get a little concerned here, but I'm playing along to see where this goes.

Me: What are we going to wrap her up with?

Matthew: That rope you have in the garage.

Ok, this is going down hill fast. I mean, she's not really even good looking. We sure don't need an ugly chick tied up around our house... At this point, I have Shelly on the cell phone while I'm asking the questions and we're laughing at his responses.

Upon further questioning, his plan was first to give the tied up woman to Sweetie the Chihuahua, then let her stay in the backyard apparently to play with Sweetie.

Interesting. Not exactly what I... Well, never mind...

Man, the things that go through the mind of a 4 yr old with an active imagination...

Tamale Update...

I picked up the tamales this morning. It turns out my dad was wrong and I only had 80 dozen instead of the 90 dozen I originally thought. I chalk that up to his hearing not being what it used to be and the accent of the guy that runs the meat market. Either way, that's a BUNCH of tamales. On the way home, I made a stop at Tommy's house and my boss's house and arrived home with just 45 dozen left.

The good news is that these things are EXCELLENT. I ate 1/2 dozen for lunch and am contemplating polishing off the rest of that dozen in a couple of minutes. If I end up not being able to offload the rest of them, at least I know they taste good and they freeze well to eat later.

Holy Crap, that's a PILE of tamales...

You guys probably remember that I wrote last week or so about dropping off a deer I shot to be made into tamales at a new processor I haven't tried before. What I didn't do was ask the guy how many tamales he thought I would end up with. In hindsight, that would have been a good idea.

That was last Tuesday. Over Thanksgiving, we went out to Rocksprings. My Dad and I each shot an Axis deer. I dropped mine off with my usual processor to be made into smoke sausage. My Dad dropped his off with the processor that makes tamales to have some tamales made. Again, no one asked how many tamales might come from the deer.

Well, my Dad checked with them this morning and found out that the tamales were ready. I think his count was 72 dozen, mine is apparently 90 dozen. I won't even say how much 90 dozen tamales cost, but bear in mind that they mix the venison with pork and tamales are a little labor intensive.

First thought, that's a PILE of money. Second thought, where in the HELL am I going to put 90 dozen tamales? Luckily, I've arranged good homes for about 28 dozen so far, and some folks I know will be getting tamales for Christmas.

One other thing. Shelly IS NOT happy with me right now...

I was planning on going back to the ranch to hunt next weekend. What do you think the chances of me actually getting to take that trip are at this point?

1,080 tamales. Un-Friggin-believable.

Roping a deer...

Actual letter from someone who farms, writes well and tried this:

I had this idea that I could 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 are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.

That deer EXPLODED. 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. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed 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 gash 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 slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. 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. I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...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.

Did you know that deer bite?

They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, 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.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.

It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons 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. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal --like a horse --strikes 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.

This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. 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. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying 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 to sort of even the odds.

All these events are true so help me God...

An Educated Rancher