Found A Deer Shed

 

Today I went up to the farm and opened up the doors and fed the cows a few square bales of hay. I fed the cows a couple scoops of field corn and fed Margie her scoop of grain. I emptied the rest of the water from the old sap wagon into the water tanks outside before driving over to our back hay field. It was a bit windy today, so I went around the edge of the field and picked up any sticks and branches that were in the grass before it grows up. I found a couple woodchuck holes with some fresh dirt outside of them, so I set a conibear trap up on one of the holes. I drove around the field and saw that there were 3 trees that have now fallen into the field. We will have to buzz them up and move them with the loader later. Driving around, I found some more holes, so I put the other trap out. I came home and then walked down to the crick to check on the trap I set yesterday. It was not set off, but it was pushed aside from the hole, so I got it put back in place. A while later when I was inside, I was seeing something poking its head in and out of a hole in the field. I knew it was a woodchuck, so I grabbed our .22 and went out to find it. I stood in the field at the top of the hill, and I saw it running down to the crick. I took a few pops at it, but it was way too windy, so I was unstable and moving a lot. It is that time of the year now where the nuisance animals come out which to us is woodchucks. We exterminate them because they do damage to things on the farm and in the fields. With woodchucks digging up lots of dirt in the field it becomes a issue when you have a machine cutting the crop and its hits a pile of dirt. We also get rid of them because if they get under a foundation, they can destroy buildings and their structural integrity. I went down to the crick where it disappeared and found a ton of holes along the bank. Looking around me at the other holes I discovered a deer shed which was pretty cool. It is the first I've ever found this big and not eaten up. My sisters and I went on a walk later along the crick-side to look for more. All we found was 2+ dozen woodchuck holes. I went to check on the trap again, and it was moved aside again. This time I put sticks and bark around the edges so it would go through the trap and spring it. We had another guy stop by, and he bought 4 bales of hay and 4 bales of straw from us. After dinner I got the cows fed for the night with a couple more bales of hay. I closed up the doors and then came home and fixed the fire with 14 pieces of wood for the night. Tonight had another amazing sunset.