Saturday, June 9, 2007

One Deer, 3 Horses, and a Weasel

When I go to work, there is supposed to be a shuttle to take. But, through miscommunication, it turns out that on the weekends, there is no shuttle to return me home at a reasonable hour. So instead of wasting my entire day in Gateway, I drove myself and the girl I was working with to the job site. About 45 minutes into the drive, I noticed some kind of animal moving rather quickly across a field. The memory of the last deer to come in contact with my car still fresh in my mind, I decide that perhaps 65mph (the posted speed limit) is a little fast, and I begin to slow down, keeping my eye on this animal. Sure enough, it was a deer. Being the talker I am, I told him to stay right where he was, but no, he starts to run along the fence, just ahead of my car. Then the dumb animal decides to jump the fence, and run right in front of my car. I hit the brakes and start pleading with my car to slow down, NOW. My passenger wasn't too freaked out, and she commented that she didn't even see the deer until we were really close to it. I of course was shaking like a leaf once the deer was safely out from in front of my car.

A few more miles down the road and I noticed what looked to be a black animal in the road up ahead. At first I thought it was a cow, but as we got closer we saw it was actually 3 horses. Someone must have left a gate open. At least they were in the road, and easy to see from afar. As we (slowly) approached them, they made the wise move of getting off the road.

Not too much later, a small animal (which I thought to be a ferret, but was told by others was probably a weasel) crossed the road, and I was sure I hit it with my tire. But a glance in the rear view mirror revealed no dead animal.

Lesson learned: there is no reason to travel the road to Gateway at excessive speeds. My car has enough wildlife damage already.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Do you have a sign on your car that says "If you're an animal, please run in front of my vehicle"? I don't think I've ever met anyone who makes more road kill than you!

I miss ya, and miss beer:30 with you! So no more hitting deer or elk or horses for you!