We need to do a community event! I know, let's go deer herding!

     So back on the 28th my co-workers and I took the morning away from our project to go take part in a community event!  This was definitely something different as the event that my friend and co-worker found for us was deer herding!!  In short the object of deer herding is to help encourage the dear to go from one location to another.

Breakfast time!

     We all got up and met in the hotel lobby for breakfast which was nice because normally on a work day we don't hit the lobby for breakfast.  Its either a iced VIA or a slim-fast shake for me.

Grammy Tina

      Jokes started flying about Tina's velcro closed visor which earned her the name Grammy for the day and also jokes about how we were gonna just put Tammy out in the woods ahead of us and she would naturally scare the deer as we call her cougar we finished breakfast and headed to the cars.

     We got to the location for the community event first and the cars started showing up little by little.  We met people that worked at another one of the local walmarts as well as  other people from all kinds of walks of life including a cute seasoned couple who actually trudged through the woods better then people younger and fitter then myself.  We then learned a little more about what exactly we were going to be doing and why.

Some of the other helpers.

     Now I know I'm going to get some of the details mixed up but supposedly someone purchased a plot of land and had started converting it into sixteen lots for a planned development.  Supposedly something went wrong when this person tore out trees and river and put in roads and concrete causing irrigation problems for a body of water that was one of the main drinking water sources for NJ and the person got in trouble for it and lost the land.  A reservation purchased the land, which is now protected, and began the process of converting the development back into the river and wooded land it was before the damage was caused.  They had already removed the concrete and road and plan on replanting trees and recreating a river in September.  There was a particular spot of wooded area that they wanted to get vegetation to regrow.  Unfortunately the local deer were eating the vegetation they wanted to grow so they had to remove the deer safely.  They started by fencing in three quarters of the land they needed to regrow which scared away a good bit of the deer do to the needed machinery.

Trying to escape!

     Our task for the day was to walk back to the back of the fenced in area together walk through the woods and encourage any remaining deer to run out of the fenced in area.  Tina was asked to stay behind and be the counter and keep track of just how many deer came out of the fenced area.  Forty seven of us walked to the back of the fence and spaced ourselves out about 25 feet apart and waited till we were all along the back part of the fence.

Crackberry break!

     Once the OK was given we all started walking straight ahead through the woods in the hopes that we would encourage any remaining deer to move onto another location.  After some time we reached a first clearing and had to wait while the rest of the line caught up with us.  It was funny to be stuck in the woods but still see my co-workers, including myself, take a crackberry(blackberry) break.  Once the line was caught back up we proceeded to the next wooded area and continued our march through the woods to the open part of the fence.

     As we made our way to the clearing we found Tina siting on a rock waiting for us.  Supposedly only three deer had been encouraged out of the area.  The reservation had already assumed that most of the deer had been scared away by the machinery brought in to tear up the concrete and put in the first three quarters of the fence.  Once everyone had cleared the fencing area a crew was ready to put up the last run of fencing keeping any future deer out of the area so the vegetation could continue to regrow.

The gang all together!

     After three hours of trudging through the woods we headed back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for lunch.  We were given t-shirts from the reservation for helping them for the day and we decided before we headed up to the showers in our room that we should take a group photo since this was one of the very few times the entire team was together.  We needed someone to take the pic though which wasn't too hard of a task.  Since we had bee staying in the hotel since February the staff there has come to love us so the girl working the front desk at the moment was all too willing to take each of our cameras and snap a few shots on each one.

wern't there for the first half of the day!

     All in all it was a great experience and should we be able to help when the reservation is prepared to plant trees and other plants in September I would love to lend a hand again!