Day 39 - Lost and Found

Finding golf balls was a pleasant surprise of living on the farm. Finding a carcass isn’t as pleasant. As I entered our u-shaped driveway one day, I noticed a deer presumably hit by a car had breathed her last breath smack dab on our lawn. Although on my side, she was near the property line so that prompted my neighbor to meet me at the carcass when I went to inspect. He informed me that I needed to call the town office so they would send a crew and come clean everything up. He also requested I do it promptly as the previous owner took his time to call, turning an already unfortunate casualty into a much more unpleasant scene. Little did I know that my wife had already made the call. 

The deceased deer certainly isn’t something we hope to encounter often, but now that we are living in a more sparsely populated area where wildlife have a little more freedom than in overdeveloped suburbia combined with living on a more major road, it is to be expected from time to time. However, based on some other unexpected findings, these unfortunate incidents are sure to be overshadowed by much better ones.  

Living on twenty acres with open fields, water features, and wooded areas is sure to attract a diversity of wildlife. Though we might not always see the animals, they leave plenty of evidence of their visit behind for us to find. Even in our first few weeks of farm ownership, we collected some of this evidence and created our own little farm nature center.

My kids have always been known to collect nature on our hikes and excursions. Let’s just say it has become a necessary routine to check and empty all of our pockets before loading the washing machine. This step has been made a little easier as we now have a farm to drop off our findings. A shed deer antler. Empty, cracked turkey eggs. Various feathers. Assorted bones and skulls. Even a completely preserved deer hoof and lower leg.

You’ll never know what you will find at the farm. In the same way, you don't realize what you’ve lost either.