Boy, I feel dumb!

After the recent rains, I was elated to find tiny deer tracks up and down the hillside.  Our local deer had babies!!!  My oldest brother saw the tracks in his yard as well!  Wow!  Lots of baby deer!  There was just one thing that was a tad troubling...there were no Mama Deer tracks along side of the little ones.  Hmmm...had Mama Deer abandoned these tykes? (There seemed to be many more than one!)  In the past few years, the herd had grown to seven known does and one buck so I could see why we might have several little ones about the area.  Still, that did not account for no Mama Deer.  I did not think much more about this for a number of days.  My oldest brother did call notice to the tracks in his garden to my other brother that lives right next door.  While he was looking at the tracks, he made the remark that they really did not look like deer tracks.  Well, now!  Just what in the world did he think made the tracks??  Well, we got our answer the other evening.

Pigs!!  All evidence points to PIGS!  There was a very heavy crop of acorns this year.  Nigh on every tree is carpeted beneath with a healthy layer of the nuts. Mark and I were recently remarking at how loud they crunched under our feet as we took our daily hikes.   It seems the hogs are coming in to dine upon the plentiful nuts.  Down the lane there is one huge oak tree that towers over the rest.  The driveway was thick with the nuts just a mere week ago then the hogs came!  Under the tree looked a lot like someone took a plow to it!  The soil was turned as if a garden was to be planted!  Each night since, the pigs have visited a different tree and turned the hard ground into soft, tilled earth!   The nuts were gleaned from the land..even those that lay buried beneath the leaves and a layer of dirt.  Nothing escaped the snout of the hogs!

I am just wondering what is to become of my gardens!  Michael is working fast and hard to finish the fencing before anything tempting begins to grow.  Hopefully, the acorns will lure the hogs to the oak trees for a bit longer and the garden will be safe.  As for the pigs?  I read where the entire Southeast is being inundated with wild hogs.  The feral critters are not hunted as they once were and with laws not allowing hunting within the city limits, there is no stopping them.  Not many predators will attempt to take down a grown hog.  Coyotes will hunt the shoats or piglets but know to steer clear of a full grown hog.  Actually in lean times, the hogs are their greatest threat.  These critters are not above cannibalism.  The young, if left unprotected, soon become meals for marauding grown hogs.  Not fair..not fun..not a happy thought but true.  Something will soon have to be done to maintain the hog population before they become a threat to neighborhood pets and even hikers like myself.  I have never felt threatened during my hikes but know from growing up on the farm that you never trust a boar.  I might have to rethink my hiking areas a bit!  PIGS!  Who would have thought?  This thing called "Progress" is shooing all sorts of critters onto our property.  When the land around us is being clear-cut, I guess the animals have no choice but to run to our last bit of rugged area.  But hogs?  Now what?   * By the way, I do not feel to bad about not recognizing the tracks as hogs.  I was told that some seasoned hunters mistake hog tracks as deer tracks!  Whew!  I feel a tad better!