Eagle Eye Spots Unusual Vineyard Droppings

Eagle eyes (my husband) spotted this while he was driving his truck to pick me up at the north end of the vineyard. He asked me if I wanted to see the antler. I said "no", lets do it tomorrow. So, yesterday was tomorrow and it was early in the morning and still cold, so I said "yes". Here was this white tail deer antler caught in a mass of brush. "Oooo, cool" I said and we went to take a picture of it. We know that we have white tail deer on our property because our hunter gives us some of the bounty of his kill. Also, in 2015, I blogged about Snow Melt in the Vineyard Brings Surprises, seeing a skeleton of a deer head as the snow melted.

You can be sure that I went into the brush to retrieve the antler. This morning, we looked on line and found some interesting information at Realtree United Country called 10 Facts to Know About Whitetail Deer Antlers.
I didn't know that antlers are different from horns. Apparently, they are "cast" or grow every year in the spring and summer, not like horns. The antler is one of the fastest growing tissues on earth known to man! Dropping testosterone levels triggers the antlers to fall during late winter and early spring. The growing antler is covered in velvet which allows the deer to have feeling on the growing antler rack. Post growth, the deer has "muscle memory" of the rack on his head.

What does this have to do with a vineyard? While pruning, I kept thinking, that in order to do what we are doing, we must really love the work. Indeed we do and seeing unusual and interesting things in the vineyard is the added spice that livens up the work day. In addition, as I mentioned, we are the recipients of our hunter's endeavors in the vineyard that provides us with delicious meals to warm a winter's day.
I also learned more about antlers than I ever knew before. If you are interested, check out the link in the references. Back to pruning for us. We are more than halfway done, thanks to some timely help from our friends!
References:
1. Josh Honeycutt, Realtree United Country called 10 Facts to Know About Whitetail Deer Antlers, September 14, 2018.