Ditch Deer

Back in March the kids and I were doing some pretty long bike rides trying to get out of the house during state wide lock downs. It kept us busy and away from people since we are out in the country. On one of the rides we were out on a country road near a large drainage ditch for a field and took a break in the shade. The ditch had large chunks of concrete and among the concrete were these sad little concrete deer someone had tossed. They were missing ears and tails and parts of their legs but the rebar was still there.

Greta insisted we save them so once we got home the truck was taken back and the deer picked up. One was a buck and the other a doe and it turns out their fawn was in the ditch as well but it's head had broken off and was beyond repair.

The poor things sat under a large tree for nearly two months before I got around to figuring out a plan for their repairs. My dad mentioned Bondo might work so I ordered a tub of that off of Amazon. It was considered "non-essential" so it took a couple of weeks to get here.

I went out on a 95 degree day and sat under the tree in full vapor mask and mixed up the Bondo into a gooey paste and attempted to "sculpt" ears and a tail and fix the cracks. I didn't really know anything about Bondo but it set up within a minute or two so I had to work fast.

The definitely aren't perfect but it will work. I used a hand sander and sanded down the Bondo and went out and spray painted them last week. While painting them I saw 1961 stamped on their sides. The little antique ditch deer have a new lease on life.