Tuesday Triumph - February visit in the snow

 She comes around when she feels like it. Triumph's first sighting of 2022:

Tuesday Triumph - October, 2021

 She finally decided to stop by for a visit with her young one.

A little grainy pic in the twilight at evening time but that's her.

We're glad she's doing well since her first visit two and a half years ago.

Tuesday Triumph, she's been a little busy

A friend of our neighbor to the east stopped by after he set up a tree stand near the creek that runs through the neighbor's acreage. We had the usual conversation about weather, harvest yields, etc... I told him of my trail cameras that are set up in the SE corner and of the time of day that it captures the deer on the trails that lead over to the creek.

Big bucks seem to like my place between midnight and 3am which is about the time that the batteries drain on the electric fence (this allowed the deer and raccoons to get into the sweetcorn this past July.)

He replied that he had only had a doe tag.

I asked him to be on the lookout for a three-legged deer. There are plenty of other does he could choose from and no honest hunter would take a shot on a vulnerable doe.

He had already been warned about her. The neighbor had asked the same of him and he told me that they saw a three-legged doe with a fawn on the east side of the creek.

So, when I said Triumph was busy, I guess she was getting busy... 

She crossed the creek to meet some handsome young buck and probably is eating better over there instead of having to cross a creek, trudge up through the brush and then jump an electric fence on my acreage for sweetcorn that the raccoons would have decimated anyway.

This explains why we haven't seen her since April this year. 

Our Triumph doesn't belong to us but as a tough, resilient deer, I guess we can add mother to the list to describe her.

Triumph - April, 2021

Tuesday Triumph - April 2021

 Triumph is back with us this third spring. After wandering around, most likely getting better food at the neighbors, she has made her appearance once again at the farm. I believe it was around Thanksgiving when we last saw her on one of the cameras.

We speculate a lot of what she does when she isn't posing for the cameras here and maybe we will find the answers someday. At any rate, she looks well fed.

Tuesday Triumph - been missing her

 Our three-legged deer hadn't been seen since February this year and she wandered back onto the acreage in October giving us some time in front of the cameras.

We've missed her and hoped that she would visit a little more often but she makes her own choices.

Maybe she'll hang around for a little longer.

Tuesday Triumph - Spring 2020 arrival

Our three-legged deer decided to return for her first visit this year. It's been nearly three months and, once again, we feared that she met her demise. She survived deer season to give us another visit and she did not disappoint. Standing here with a companion at nearby, she gives a profile of her wounded leg that looks well.

Find more pictures of Triumph on earlier postings.

We hope to see more of her this year.

Tuesday Triumph - still with us

I'm still catching up with December. Here's one from the 11th:

Tuesday Triumph - saying goodbye to 2019

She making her rounds in December:

Hoping to see more of her in 2020

Tuesday Triumph - Christmas Eve

At least she's not hitched to a sleigh:

Tuesday Triumph - in the snow

Scratching through the snow to reach the grass underneath. The few inches of snow would make it difficult for any herbivore, of course, but this doe is making it so far.

Tuesday Triumph - Alone on Thanksgiving

While most of the locals were feasting and with family, our Triumph was by herself, roaming around the farm:

She is still coming by the place and has avoided hunters if she wanders off. I'm not sure if she is avoiding the bucks in the rut season that has started. We shall see.

Tuesday Triumph - November friends

Triumph is still visiting and made it through the first shotgun season. She has a friend this time around:

Tuesday Triumph, November visits

Triumph is taking her time during her recent visit and decided to hang around for a while. Here are a couple more pictures:

Hopefully we will have a winter without deep snows as I imagine that she would struggle. We have some open fences between the neighbors and it would make it easy to walk around.

With hunters to the west, we also hope they leave her be. She would be a slower target than others.

Tuesday Triumph - She returns

Taken last week, it looks like her wound has healed very well on her shoulder. It may be that she returned during hunting season that started and no one has permission to hunt on our property this year. For the time being we are her sanctuary.

We welcome her back and hope for a few more pictures.

Tuesday Triumph - saying goodbye (probably)

It's been about two months since we've had any sightings of our three-legged deer. At this point we are thinking the worst. With the numbers of coyotes that have appeared, it's most likely that we lost her.

She was a good addition to the library of pictures from the farm.

We were hoping for more.

Tuesday Triumph - a look back to June

I'm going through our files for Triumph and here's one from June:

I have no recent pictures and we are missing her. There were a couple of pics from July but after a closer look, I can't be convinced it is her. I don't post any deceptive pictures (unless it is for entertainment purposes only.)

Of course we are sad that we haven't seen her in a while and we're worried. We haven't seen an accident around the roads and I haven't discovered her around the acreage.

I hope no one is offended that I took a few liberties in an effort to inject humor onto the blog with a little editing. 

Tuesday Triumph - a closer look

In the early morning twilight, Triumph gave us a close look at her wound:

I discussed her with my brother recently and his theory is that she lost her leg as a fawn. The instinct for fawns are to stay still if a threat exists, laying low in the grass and hopefully a predator would pass without seeing them. Sometimes a farmer, while cutting hay, will mow over a fawn causing such an injury or even death.

Another possibility is that she got caught trying to jump a fence and tangled herself in the wire. I've come across something similar on the south fence and the result was unfortunate. No one wants to think of an animal struggling or suffering an amputation but it does happen.

-I apologize for these depressing thoughts.-

Back to Triumph, she has been missing for a few weeks and I have no further information on her adventures at this time. I heard an unsubstantiated rumor (because I told it to myself) that a three-legged deer was traveling in RAGBRAI this year. For my non-Iowan readers - RAGBRAI is the annual mobile booze party across Iowa that shuts down highways and small towns as the bipedal miscreants make their way from west to east across the state.

I don't think of Triumph as a beer drinker, maybe rye...

Tuesday Triumph - Adventures

Triumph comes and goes on her own schedule. She's here for a couple of days and disappears for weeks only to return briefly on a trail cam to take a hiatus for another week or two.

It has been frustrating trying to keep track of her without our imaginations going to an unfortunate conclusion.

Here she is in June:

We recently found other cameras around the state that have posted pictures of her.

Here's Triumph trying to purchase fireworks just before the 4th of July, because deer enjoy the night sky lit up in celebratory explosions:

Triumph was caught on surveillance cameras after-hours at the Iowa state Capital building lobbying for stricter hunting laws and a shorter deer season:

We hope she shows up at the acreage before real trouble goes her way.

Tuesday Triumph - eating well

Just nibbling on grass in early May:

Although flawed, this doe has shown resilience and perseverance here at the farm. So far, she has been hanging around and a welcomed sight (at least when the weeds are cut and can be seen on camera.)

Tuesday Triumph - May visit

After a ten day absence, I was beginning to worry a bit about our 3-legged deer. No need as she showed up on May 5th among the apple trees.

Still looking healthy.