The other night I was startled to hear a pretty large animal clumping through our small orchard. It was dusk, going on dark and so I was hoping it wasn’t too fearsome. I had a fair idea what it was as I had seen a young fallow deer (spiker) in the open that same morning but being that close and that time of day did give me a start.

Throw forward to the next morning and I received a text at 5.45 am from Tony our neighbour saying that a deer had just been shot. ‘James is sorting some deer meat out in the shed if u are keen.’ Well at that time of day there is keen and there is keen – but there is certainly more reward in dressing a deer carcass than the rabbits I had been shooting lately so I sharpened a knife, grabbed the meat saw and popped on over.

Nothing like starting the day with a warm, but mercifully eviscerated deer. James the Culler has spied a mob of three fallow deer from the house and bowled over one of them. Now James is a keen hunter and the poor beastie had little or no chance but it is odd that the deer were so low in the valley at this time of year – and in the open. Anyway, not to look a (ahem) gift horse in the mouth, we had the carcass broken down before breakfast and there’s a nice bit of venison in the freezer. Perhaps an option for Christmas dinner?

Later in the day I discovered that our heirloom apple trees had been thoroughly foraged and at least 50% of our crop had been stripped by the dusk-time prowler. Karma can be a bugger eh?

On an altogether different note, I recently had the pleasure to meet Rosie and the team from Coal Pit Wines and they kindly gave me a bottle of their 2016 Reserve Tiwha Bennett Pinot Noir to enjoy with our other Coal Pit Rd friends. Personally I think that the marketing and design team have nailed the label and packaging design. As one of 600 bottles I’m sure that the wine quality will match the presentation – can’t wait to share it around.

NB/ background theme is purely coincidental and not linked to the theme at the top of this post (much).