I "hunted" our 2015 deer from the couch and shot the button buck through the front window. The hardest part was waiting for the goats to move out of the way so I was positive I wouldn't injure anyone I cared about via friendly fire.

We're finally starting to become old hats at butchering a deer, so there's not much to say other than --- Thank you, Jayne, for the awesome gambrel! Instead, here are some stats for those of you keeping track at home.

All-time scores:

• Mark: 1.5
• Anna: 4.5

Yearly totals:

• 2009: 1
• 2010: 0
  
• 2011: 2
• 2012: 1
• 2013: 1
• 2014: 0 (Heavy acorn year; deer barely came into the garden.)
• 2015: 1

Venison as percent of annual  meat consumption:

• about 8%

Amount of damage deer do to our garden compared to their food value:

• Roughly even, trending toward us getting more food from the deer than the deer get from us in recent years
  

There's still time for us to bag another deer this year, and we certainly wouldn't mind the additional delicious, pastured meat. But I've found that once either-sex rifle season starts in earnest, the critters get much wilier and I can no longer hunt them from the trailer. For example, my neighbors on one side tell me they've already killed five deer so far this year, and I suspect the neighbors on the other side are equally productive. A pretty average year here in deer-central, where hunters fill their freezers in November to feed them all year long.