Oh, Deer!

So tomorrow is Deer opener in North Dakota. Last weekend I had to go out of town, and I was gleefully patting myself on the back because for once I wasn’t traveling on deer opener weekend…and it turns out that I was driving across Minnesota, and it was their deer opener last weekend. So I totally failed at that. Oops.

Fortunately for me I didn’t hit one this time. As opposed to previously, when we completely totaled our car driving home from a wedding on deer opener weekend. Not that you can’t hit them at other times, they just tend to be a bit more riled up after being hounded and gunned down for a day or two. Certainly the sweetest ladies I know turn into enraged and growling entities that swear like sailors when deer are mentioned, since having hit multiple deer while driving back and forth has clearly flipped a permanent switch. Did you know there are significantly more deer in the United States than there was 300 years ago? I don’t think all of them line the roads waiting for cars to pass that they can use to kill themselves, but with that many deer it’s possible they might be shoving each other out.

To commemorate Deer opener, I have created this cautionary note:

I was going to say Bullets not Buicks, but not everyone drives a Buick. If anyone wants to get a gift for the person they know whose car was taken out via deer, feel free to pick up a sticker.

I have never been interested in depicting deer before, but somehow I have now done three in the past year. This little sticker, the deer skeleton lent me by a friend, and my latest. Apparently after my drive home I had deer on the brain. It’s a little experiment I have titled “Camouflage”. It must have worked, because my poor, bewildered husband doesn’t see the deer in this piece at all!