Monday, October 1, 2007

Mystery in Evergreen

Evergreen, Colorado is a small town in the foothills, about forty five minutes west of where we live in Centennial. The weather was beautiful today, so Scott, Amedeo Modigliani and yours truly headed into the mountains to enjoy the sun and to admire the changing aspen leaves.


For trivia buffs, according to the most reliable source on earth -- that would be Wikipedia -- South Park co-creator Trey Parker graduated from Evergreen High School in 1988 and many of the early South Park episodes are based on Parker's experiences living in nearby Conifer and going to school in Evergreen.

But I digress.

We turned off of highway 285 and onto a dirt road with no particular destination in mind. At one point in our drive, I could see an open meadow off the side of the tree lined road and so we stopped – right where I felt like we were supposed to stop.

Modi romped around in the open grass and Scott wanted to take some pictures of me that he might use for painting. I was walking along a path in the grass and he asked me to stop and then step to my right. My back was turned to him and I caught sight of something out of place, just at my eye level in a tree in front of me. We’ve come up with quite a few possible explanations and stories about what we saw.

If you saw this in the woods, what would you think it was about? Maybe more importantly, what would Cartman do?

12 comments:

Rachel Green said...

That's bizarre.

My guess it's a fetish set by squirrels to scare away deer.

Charles Gramlich said...

Interesting find. I like the Squirrel fetish idea. Wish I'd thought of that. My actual guess is that someone put it there to freak people out who might find it. Either that or the deer had a bad case of hoof rot.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Maybe a cougar dragged a part of its kill upinto the tree? But I'm thinking Charles is right.

Cartman would eat it with ketchup.

Larramie said...

Whatever it is, it's sad and scary. But, since today is October, could it be an early Halloween "Trick?"

Lisa said...

Good guesses all and I'm guessing too. Since my dog had no trouble sniffing it out and standing on his hind legs to get a closer look, my guess is that another dog owner picked up the bone and the deer leg and jammed them up in the tree to keep his dog from eating them. I'm guessing, based on the chew marks that you can't see in the photo that either a predator took this deer down or possibly it was hit by a car and nature took its course and critters started carrying parts away. You see a lot of bones and carcasses in the mountains, so even though this looks a little "Blair Witch Project", I think it's just part of life in the wild. I doubt this came from any legal hunting activities because the only deer hunting season that has opened (and already closed) is a two week black powder/musket season that ended more than a week ago. The foreleg wasn't decomposed much, so I don't think it came from that. It was just such an odd thing to see...

steve on the slow train said...

In northern Indiana there's a cougar sighting at least every month or so. Most turn out to be false. (For a while, my wife was calling squirrels "Indiana cougars.") But I suspect that there are a lot more cougars in the forests of Colorado. Ello's suggestion seems likely, though Charles's is a good possibility, too.

Sustenance Scout said...

I'd have no time to think as I ran out of the woods after my screaming children, Lisa!! And chances are, they'd never go back. That is too bizarre! K.

Melissa Amateis said...

Whoa. I'd definitely do a double-take if I saw this in the woods. Freaky, yet sad.

debra said...

File it under "what's wrong with this picture." Pretty weird, yes indeedy.

Lisa said...

Maybe it's because it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon that neither of us was really freaked out by this. It was just...weird. I'm still inclined to think there is a rational explanation that doesn't involve anything maleficent. (Is that a real word, or did I just make that up?)

moonrat said...

oh my goodness gracious.

thanks for your great questions recently, btw. i've gotten a couple of good posts out of them :)

Bernita said...

My commonsense mind agrees with you, Lisa.

Then I would immediately speculate about our atavistic habit of mounting bones and skulls, sacred spaces, and curse markers.

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