End of Year 2020

We are coming to an end of our 12th season at the Pantry. The warmer temps we’ve had the last week has the deer heading to their home range for the summer. Spring has come early for us this year. The Pantry fed 24 tons of oats, over 700 lbs of apples, 600+ lbs of acorns, 1 mineral block and 75 20lb Purina Premium Deer Blocks over 100 days. We had less deer than years past so those that made it to the Pantry are leaving extra fat and sassy this season. The piebald we had coming for over 10 years didn’t come this year. We all missed her but know she had a very good upbringing and enjoyed her winters at the Pantry. In all we would estimate 150 deer were visiting daily at the peak. Many of them were notables from years past. Miss Apple Bags (as the chat channels call her) was a daily visitor who spent most her time staring up at Dad’s window waiting for her steady diet of apples. As soon as apples went into the troughs she was right there for breakfast cleaning them out. We guess she ate over 400 lbs of apples herself! The Pantry also had the most bucks with antlers to ever show up. One buck STILL has one side of his rack as of a couple days ago. One deer had a bum leg but was getting around good. We had one coyote pass though the Pantry the beginning of December in broad daylight but not a single one has been through since. A few fox visited on occasion temporarily scaring some of the deer off, but many other deer stood their ground and stared at them back into the woods. Overall we had a very good season at the Pantry and want to thank everyone who has become a part of our community and helped us over all these years. Between our members, moderators, I.T. Man (Protech Solutions , Mike Russel) and all of our viewers from around the world (119 countries) we can’t thank you enough. We will miss the deer in the off season but know they had an awesome winter, full of energy and will be anticipating their return to the Pantry on December 16th. In the off season we will be looking into expanding our food plots around the pond and looking into getting a feed silo to save dad from handling the 50lb bags. Ryan’s Bird Buffet will remain on but all other cams will be off at 7pm. Be safe, take care and we’ll see you all again in December. – The McMahon Family