Off to go shooting. Back later.
(Actually, I would be gone already, but Shootin' Buddy was delayed on account of one of those notorious hoofed rats, the unfortunately unendangered Odocoileus virginianus kamikazus. He's okay, his vehicle less so, and Bambi came in a distant third. That's the one thing I worry about in the Zed Three; tag even a moderately-sized whitetail dead amidships and I'm going to have a lapful of unprocessed venison...)
It was a fascinating conversation to overhear half of:
ReplyDelete"Oh, no! ...You did...? It did? No! But you're okay? The car? Ow. Are the police there yet? No? Okay."
I was half-convinced he'd tagged a zombie.
My meeting with Bambi's daddy was at 80 mph, a year ago last December. Damn, that was a nice truck. Was.
ReplyDeleteSix months out of work and on my butt, and a year's nausea. Plus, I'll have the heavy ringing in my ears until I die.
More deer per square mile in Connecticut than anywhere else on Earth, and they won't let us hunt on Sundays. I think the deer are Catholic.
kamikazus? I am so far behind in my biology classes.
ReplyDeleteI think a cowcatcher (a la Mad max) on the Zed Drei is in order. I can maybe get my hands on some scraps of titanium, so it won't weigh a lot, and it will kinda match the car.
ReplyDeleteBe a shame to cover your face with a colander. Leather outfit would look nice on you, though.
The only saving grace a deer has is its edibility. Otherwise they're little more than oversize gophers.
ReplyDeleteJim
w/v: lestrat. Preferred instrument in vampire rock bands everywhere.
I wouldnt be so nervous about the lap of venison as the "face full of 40mph venison."
ReplyDeleteI hit one at about 5mph, just as it leapt for the side of the road. D'ya think my panic braking skid for 150ft (from a much higher rate )might have clued it in a bit sooner?
So need some large full time predators in CT. But I suppose humans are both slower and stupider, and their little dogs too, so the deer would be safe.
I had to coordinate a response when someone hit a moose once. Took AST a while to get there. The driver involved wanted to salvage the meat. The Trooper told him that's not how it works. Moose are mean. And dumb.
ReplyDeleteNo sisters were bitten, and there were no producers to be sacked. And, no, there are no llamas in Alaska. [/Holy Grail reference]
You need a grill mounted machine gun with an automatic deer sensor.
ReplyDeleteThat was one thing that worried me about my little Saturn....driving up in MI's UP there are deer everywhere. At highway speeds, both the deer and I would end up looking like hamburger in the front seat had I hit one.
ReplyDeleteDeer jumped onto I-65 and merged into passsing lane at MM161 (Southern Tippecanoe County). I honked (the deer challenge signal, who knew?) and the stupid thing charged me striking the driver side headlight at target angle 320 to 330.
ReplyDeleteIts body dented the back passenger door and wiped off the fender skirt over the driver side back wheel. I called state po-po and then checked SUV and then dragged the body out off the I. It was a large yearling.
State cop arrived took the report and then noticed I was carrying two pistols and wanted my pink card. He took everything and filled out the forms. That took 15 minutes and I was on my way.
Stopped in Lebanon at a truck stop for some Gorilla tape to hold my headlight assembly in place (very classy).
I took her to breakfast and we made it to the range with 10 minutes to spare. What a day. If anyone wants me, I'll be in my basement hiding under the reloading bench.
Shootin' Buddy
If you hit a deer you'll want one of these on your car.
ReplyDeleteYup, small cars get totaled when they hit a deer. It is pure luck if the driver is not hurt.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I once had some nice fresh venison in late July. The driver almost succeded in missing the deer, but the side mirror hit the deer's head. No meat damage, and a new mirror was all it took to fix the truck.
Take the Zed Three to a metal shop and have them mount a HD cattle guard on it. Then the deer will have to worry about you more than the other way around.
ReplyDeleteIt would also come in handy during rush hour.
A Zed Three looks like a spaceship compared to my commuter-mobile of the 1990s, a Honda Civic. However, I could drive stupidly fast in it from my home north of Baltimore using many country roads to reach my job in Rockville, MD, just outside the DC Beltway.
ReplyDeleteThe funniest thing I ever saw during predawn commuting was a deer trying to gain traction on wet oily roadway, legs spinning like a cartoon character, trying to get out of my way. As I was trying to put the brake pedal through the floorboard at the time, I only thought it was funny in retrospect, way after I had stopped inches from his chest and he had leapt over the hood to get away.
The biggest deer I think I ever saw was crossing a 6 lane road in Rockville, at 5 am, shaking his majestic rack like he owned every lane out there.
TW "bowne" which is both what goes thru your windshield and the present tense of what you are about to be, as you come around a curve at 60mph and see the deer herd in the road.
One of life's lessons: It sucks when a deer runs into your Cessna on the post landing rollout. Only gave our 182 a dent in the side, but a deer did take out a friend's 152's tail assembly.
ReplyDeleteBeen, there, done that. Once was plenty, thanks. DO NOT like the smell of deer residue on a hot radiator. Nope. Not even a little.
ReplyDeleteActually, my brother and I both tagged deer with the same vehicle, about two years apart. We both made it through ok, and the van (Safari awd) made it through (after some repairs... both times resulting in towing) We still have the van, though it has been relegated to a farm vehicle now.
Brother got even, though... As a professional freight relocator, he discovered one night, while avoiding a front-end collision with a deer, that if you swerve over and back just right, the rear end of the trailer will snap back over and into the offending critter, launching it like a rocket across the four lane. No video, I already asked...
Deer were a primary reason for the popularity of the accessory spare tire mount for VW Type II's, which are (ok, were) sometimes seen bolted below the windshield on old VW busses.
ReplyDeleteI think my brother is up to 3 deer for 2 vehicles now. He did put a very nice heavy grill guard on his F250 as a preventative measure, and it has paid off. A previous truck met its demise in a confrontation with a bovine. Brother has issues with right of way.
The biggest things I've ever hit were a bobcat a few years ago, and I swatted a LeSabre with an RX-7 about 26 years ago. There's hope for me yet.
Regards,
Rabbit.
If deer have a calling it is on a grill.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Kelley
"One of life's lessons: It sucks when a deer runs into your Cessna on the post landing rollout. Only gave our 182 a dent in the side, but a deer did take out a friend's 152's tail assembly."
ReplyDeleteOne of our pilots where I used to work clipped a deer with the wingtip landing light of a 310 in Hattiesburg, MS late one evening.
He swore on a stack of Bibles that the light grazed Bambi's noggin, turning it through one complete somersault, but it landed on its feet and bolted for the treeline, no doubt with an amazing story for picking up does.
not sure if i've hit a deer in fla or not; they're about the size of a 'coon here, so a flash of eyeballs in headlights and a quick whump-whump and it's all over, no looking back.
ReplyDeletedifferent story for cows, though; taking the long, dark road from west palm beach back to the lake okeechobee town of pahokee where we lived, wifey and i were returning from a Christmas shopping trip in our new '74 torino when a huge dark object loomed in the road. it was laying down, injured or already dead from the dumbasses who had hit it and were standing by their car a few hundred yards up the road, with no thought or concern for warning the next victims.
there was a big stand of australian pines on the right side, and a steep swale and drainage canal on the left. after launching over the bovine, i took the port side and we plunged down the swale but avoided the canal, drove along the swale to the next driveway (that's where the dumbasses were, i gave them a nice thank you), got back on the road and continued on home. no big damage to the torino (that thing was a tank), just some denting to the doorsill under the driver side door.
not a fun experience, but it coulda been worse: headline in the 'glades observer "20-year old couple hit cow, drown in canal, leaving toddler and newborn orphans".
glad s.b.'s okay; your deer are more like our cows.
jtc
Sunday, May 10. I thought you were out to give your mother one big Mother's Day greeting. dad
ReplyDelete