Well, this weekend has taken an unexpected turn for the crappy. Having got some last minute time off, Sheri & I were going to go on a camping trip for a couple few days. It was some last minute string-pulling, but we had everything sorted out by thursday afternoon...

...and then i saw a deer running through our backyard.

Now, generally deer running through our backyard doesn't inherently ruin plans. Thing is, deer running through our backyard is a somewhat uncommon event. In fact, I don't think i've ever seen it before. Granted we don't live in the most urban of areas, but we don't live in what I would classify as a 'rural' area either - so when I saw the deer run through our backyard and stop underneath a neighbor's (apple?) tree, i grabbed my camera and threw open the office window to take a few pictures. When I saw that the deer was quite content to stay where it was for a bit, i decided I'd try to get a little closer - so I headed to the front door and down the stairs on our front "porch" to head around from a somewhat concealed position.

At this point I need to point out that, in the excitement of taking pictures (which i *love*), there were a couple of factors here I had failed to consider completely. The first is that it was lightly raining. I decided that I wasn't worried about my camera - it wasn't raining very hard and my camera does have some weather protection. The rain, however, did result in the ground being wet - and the concrete slab at the base of the staircase is both inclined and significantly less textured than the concrete on the stairs and the porch itself.

Which brings me to factor number 2: i was wearing flip-flops. When i reached the bottom of the stairs and attempted to make a 120 degree turn to the backyard, I discovered that my flip-flops have *no* traction whatsoever on a slick, wet sidewalk.

I didn't actually fall, but my left foot immediately slid straight out from under me. This had the unfortunate side effect of me basically sitting down on my right ankle - which popped at least three times. And hurt. A lot.

Undeterred, I limped into the backyard where I got a handful of decent pictures of a young male deer (which are in the gallery) who was apparently eating apples from our neighbor's tree before i got too close and spooked it and it took off.

Now, usually when I do stuff like this to myself, I expect my ankle/leg to hurt for a few hours and then stop. Not so this time. It's been about 27 hours now, and it's still very sore - though considerably better than last night. I can't really walk without a serious limp & some occasional pain. It's actually my calf muscle that hurts so bad. I think i stretched/pulled/strained it. What sucks is that it's killed our camping plans. :-( Still, at this point, I'm just hoping it continues to feel better.

~PS

Man, I hate when injuries/illness affect plans like that. At least it sounds like you didn't do anything hospital worthy. Just keep that ibuprofen handy to keep the inflammation down. Not that you needed me to tell you that. On the bright side, that's a great shot. 8-)

Yeah, thanks Zeb. By today, it's feeling tons better - almost healed, i'd say. I'm still limping just a little, but it's more to keep it from aching a little than limping because it's hurting a lot (if that makes any sense). Thanks - a couple of the pictures did turn out pretty good (though not what i'd consider injury-worthy ;-) ) - though more of them would have turned out better if i'd been using a faster shutter speed. The ones I have are severely cropped as well: I wasn't able to get close enough to the deer to occupy more than just a small portion of the frame. I'll be able to do a lot more with wildlife when i can get a nice, long telephoto lens. Still saving for that. ~PS