deer morning

This morning when we got up, it was lightly raining, and across the street I saw two deer standing in the neighbor’s yards. What were they staring at? They were staring at the big, orange-brown dog within a wire fence. The dog looked scared and didn’t bark. He slowly walked. Even though the dog’s big, the deer were bigger. They were two does. The larger doe walked toward the dog, and the dog backed away, which made me laugh. The deer’s ears were pointed forward toward the dog, and I saw both deer move their ears the way cats do to catch different sounds. Eventually the dog went around to the other side of the house, out of view. The deer relaxed. They walked slowly in a stiff, halting way. They munched, and the smaller one nuzzled the bigger one, almost as if she were whispering.

I noticed that the mushroom stems and apple core I threw on the lawn yesterday afternoon are gone.

Usually when I see deer, it’s on the road. They’re standing there, and I stop my truck. I think something like, “Are you going to get out of the way, or what?” The deer will eventually figure out what to do and cross, or run and hop the barbed wire fence in a way that looks effortless. I watch for the moment when they seem to hang in the air.

Today it must be snowing in the mountains. I see Mt Tom out the window, and a cloud is descending to obscure it, which means that when the cloud leaves, Mt Tom will have more feet of snow on it. It’s so cloudy that you need the light to read even though it’s morning.