In one week Stranger in the Woodsshot to the top of the best sellers list in Northwestern Lower Michigan. A portion of every book sold would go to the Nature Conservancy. We decided to dedicate our book, 'For those who protect wild places and to the snowman that lives in every child's heart.' In November of 1999, we hand-carried our book to bookstores in Northern Michigan. We then built a snowman, and Stranger in the Woodswas born. Jeannie went upstairs to her favorite chair by the fireplace and began to sketch her idea for the book. She no sooner expressed her idea than it started to snow outside. We should do a children's book!' I looked at her as if she was crazy. She said, 'It's a shame we can't use more of those winter deer pictures. 'Jeannie, you know we have to finish our book sometime this year, not just choose the pictures.' Then Jeannie saw two images: 1) the deer eyeing the snowman's carrot nose (cover photo for Stranger in the Woods) and 2) the image of the chickadee on the snowman's carrot nose. It was at this point that I smart-mouthed my wife. After spending two months editing slides, we had narrowed our images down to 2,000 deer slides - but we needed only 140 images.

We have taken over 60,000 pictures of this family of whitetail deer, so Jeannie and I decided to create a deer book. Since then, my wife, Jeannie, and I have grown to know over twenty deer that trust us enough to walk with them in the woods. That year was also the first time I shook an apple from a tree for a whitetail doe. It was 1982 when the first chickadee landed in my hand to take a seed.

Stranger in the woods carl sams