Come to the woods with me!

Today wasn't quite as nice as yesterday, but it was still pretty decent compared to what's predicted, so after we got out chores done at home this morning, Mr. Johnson wanted to head out to the woods and get some of our deer stands taken down. We left around noon and only got a couple miles down the road when we saw this -- holy moley, look at all those turkeys! This was worth stopping the car for. I didn't use the wide angle shot, but there were even more turkeys to the right of this shot! We guessed probably close to 75 total and a bunch of them were big ol' longbeards. Now that deer hunting is over, Mr. Johnson is really looking forward to turkey season again this year. Poor guy, he'll have to wait at least 3 more months :-(

When we got to the deer hunting woods, we split up. My job was to take down the little seats from our permanent stands and loosen up the bindings holding the ladder stand to the tree (to avoid damaging the tree when it grows more in the spring). I wanted to be home by 3 PM, but of course, I'm always the one who gets sidetracked and today was no exception. I headed towards the first stand through deer's known bedding area. I saw lots of tracks and finally spotted this area on a south-facing slope under a big cedar tree where some deer had laid down.

I crawled under the tree for a closer look and found this huge, fresh pawprint. Another "holy moley moment!" Since I didn't have a tape measure in my pocket, my glove has to do as an indicator of the size of this print. I measured the glove when I got home and it's about 5 inches across at the widest point. Naturally my first thought was this was too huge to be a dog print, but there aren't any wolves in Southeastern Minnesota, are there??

OK, well, I'd better get going on what I'm supposed to be doing. Looking down the hill towards my stand, I was amazed at all the tracks in the woods.

I was so absorbed in looking at tracks that I almost walked past the deer stand and had to backtrack a little bit to find it. There it is! (good thing that pink arrow was there!) I was happy to see that the deer trails still go up and down the hill right next to this tree. Next year, I will definitely get a deer from this stand!

I got the little seat down and started hiking up the hill to the cornfield. Easier said than done for this out-of-shape, middle-aged biker woman! The snow was sofa king deep! How do the deer walk in this stuff and where are my feet?

I finally made it to the corn field where the snow was not quite so deep and found more tracks! If you read my post from yesterday, who do you think made these tracks? If you said "fox" that's exactly what I thought. I know there are foxes in these woods because Mr. Johnson and I both saw them while we were deer hunting here last fall.

Here are some more fun tracks--a mouse! And see its little hole next to the corn stalk? How do they dig through all this snow? It's probably at least 8 inches deep here.

I saw some 'almost fresh' turkey tracks in these woods too. Mr. Johnson was happy to see these and plans to place a blind in this vicinity for our turkey season in the spring.

Here's another big pawprint again--on another game trail in this woods. Same animal? I never did see find any hair, poop, or other clues, so I'll probably never know who made these tracks.

Who says squirrels don't remember where they bury their nuts? Looks like he found one here or was at least attempting to.

Oh gosh, I'd better get going, I still have to climb another tree and pull the seat down.

Thanks for coming along with me to the woods. Wasn't that fun? And you didn't even have to put on your coat or boots!

Have a great week everyone and stay warm!