Chew Toys

As I said before, my dogs are junkers in their own right. I picked up all of their prizes yesterday getting ready for the snow that didn't come. The dogs weren't at the gate when I arrived from work today so I thought they were probably curled up in bed. After all, with the windchill, it was about 10 degrees. Nope. They were otherwise occupied. The first one I noticed was Dumplin with a deer leg. Cricket had a hide - tearing away, fur flying. No, they didn't kill anything. I'm sure it came from Tim.
Tim has a tractor and tills my garden. Also, he has planted several acres of watermelons on my land for the last two years - with no success. The deer eat the leaves and shoots until they destroy the plant. In my little garden, they mowed down the folieage of my peanuts and green beans. Later in the summer, they gingerly stepped through the field pea plants to pick the purple pea pods. That is amazing to me that the deer will walk over the pea plants to eat the bean plants. Is this innate in deer? I had always said that nothing bothers okra. But this summer, they even ate my okra leaves and chewed on the okra pods.  And corn? Between the deer and the neighbor's horse, the corn stalks were denuded.
As you can tell from my rant, I am not over the deer in my garden. Anyway, I gave Tim permission to hunt deer - not doves, quail, or turkeys though. He came by yesterday and told me he had gotten a big buck. Offered some meat but I declined. So I guess the dogs were the beneficiaries of his largess.
I think deer are beautiful and majestic. It tickles me to see one bouncing down my driveway so naturally I am conflicted about killing them. There are over 100 acres around me. Can't we just get along?
Allowing their population to go unchecked is bad for the deer and my garden.  I saw an un-managed herd at Guntersville State Park years ago. They were small and inbred. At the time there was no regulated hunting at the park.

Following that tangent, when I saw the deer I had been at Guntersville to watch eagles. January is the time. Check it out.
http://www.alapark.com/LakeGuntersville/EagleAwareness/

This is Dumplin. He is a sweetheart. Just his looks make me smile. 

His mom is the pit bull/boxer mix below.

Dumplin found a plastic tub of crochet thread in the garage. I'm still finding bits of thread.

Chessie cat loves to play also.