It’s time to wake up my hibernating blog.
Sorry for the silence, but business has been busy lately. Plus, I was a little uncertain about how to proceed. I’m due for a total website makeover, and the changes will be more than skin-deep. That’s coming soon. For now, however, I’ll at least wake up my blog.
So here’s the scoop. My next writing projects probably won’t be about deer, and I can’t say more until it’s time. Meanwhile, I’ve also been busy with this side gig. It’s not exactly a day job, because it’s not exactly a job. And it doesn’t always end at the end of the day.
My wife is a Realtor, and the past couple years I’ve been doing more to support that enterprise. Real estate has become the family business, and selling real estate requires words and images. So behind the scenes, I’ve been helping out a little.
Every now and then, these two worlds collide. In DEERLAND I devoted an entire chapter, “The Deer of Buffalo County,” to a bizarre corner of southwestern Wisconsin where trophy deer temporarily drove the local real estate market totally insane. True, Buffalo County may be an extreme example. But all across vast swaths of America, deer are now the #1 driver of the rural real estate market. There, deer land is worth far more than farm land.
Here in northern Wisconsin, the #1 driver of our local real estate market is lake homes and cabins. Some are quite modest. Others stretch the word “cabin” right to the breaking point. That’s where most of the action is. At the lake. But every now and then, we do sell a few chunks of nice hunting land. Sometimes they include cabins, but these are called “deer shacks,” not “deer cabins.” In this context, I should explain for the uninitiated, the word “shack” is not an insult. It’s just what they’re called.
And if you’re going up north to deer camp, your deer shack is supposed to be a little rustic. Kind of like the one pictured below. Because the structure you’re far more interested in is your deer stand. That’s why it got first billing in this post—and sometimes even does in real estate listings.
And quite often, at least in the eyes of the hunters who buy these properties, the most compelling photos are not the beautiful landscapes or the stunning interiors I’ve carefully composed, lighted, and processed. They’re trailcam selfies that prove the deer are here.
Next time: Deer Camp and the OSB School of Interior Design.
