Deer Dragging

Molly says thanks for asking, she is doing rather well. She is attempting to see how close she can get to looking like a pot-bellied pig. I guess we all have our goals in life. I have cut her prednisone to 2.0 mg from 2.5 mg, but her appetite has not yet dropped. Baby is of course just fine, and the oldest cat in the world is, well, old.

Obviously I love animals. I always find delight in them. Last summer I wrote of a katydid that was on my window ledge, and I was able to see it breathe. I have never before seen an insect's sides move in and out like that. It was awesome.

Today is Sunday, which means getting up and getting out of the house and driving 15 miles to a local mall to walk for miles. Maybe I should just walk to the mall, but it's a bit far and this time of the year it's a bit cold.

I vary my route, and today's route took me down a road that is in the process of developing. One side of the road has new condos and businesses, and the other is mostly woods/swamp/field. I was a big groggy this morning, having been up until after 2 am. That isn't unusual for me, but maybe I was a little groggier than normal.

As I was driving west, I realized that on my right were two female deer. One must be careful at times like these. Deer are worse than squirrels for darting out in traffic and cause much more havoc. I have not personally had the experience yet, but I have heard it's much like suddenly hitting a brick wall you didn't see coming. Cars get total, deer get killed or maimed, drivers are killed or maimed. So I slowed down, very cautiously. No one else was around, so I had this gift of nature to myself.

I went slowly both for caution and so I could study the ladies. They are beautiful animals and very graceful. They can be playful. I realized after a few seconds that these two were in a playful mood. They started to race me.

There I was driving down the road with two deer on the side of the road racing me.

My camera was at home, and anyway I needed to keep one eye on the road and one eye on the deer to be sure they didn't decide to turn left without signaling. I swear they were enjoying the pure delight of being free to run and race a car. I believe they smiled at me.

For about half a mile, they paced my car. I confess, I didn't try very hard to get away. Eventually, though, I decided it was safe enough and went ahead of them and on to my destination.

Only to be met by a large gaggle of geese. I thought geese would have had enough sense to have flown to some warm southern clime by now. I sure would, if I had wings. There they were, about a dozen of them on one side of the road and a dozen on the other side. If you don't have geese in your area, let me tell you that they have a way of blocking traffic by walking across the street, one at a time, in a row, and taking their darn time at it during rush hour, too. This being a Sunday morning, they were early for rush hour. They stayed as they were, with only one in the road. He was in the other lane, so I was able to pass them without incident. They didn't race me.

After that, my only encounter with nature was a raccoon that had tried to race someone else and had lost the race. It was a sad moment to see the remains, as raccoons are fun to watch, grasping things with their little prehensile toes.