For various reasons I ended up having tonight off. Given I’m currently harboring a cold, this was rather nice. So as twilight moved over my house & yard I built a small fire in my fire ring (wasn’t cool enough for anything larger) and let the smoke carry various troubles off into the darkening woods. The fire flies were rising, two different kinds from here & there in the yard & the woods alike. A humming bird flew along the woods edge, stopped & chittered at me & then flew on its business. Paws-in Trouble hopped into my lap & got his tummy rubbed as we watched the green of the woods darken into green-gray backlit by the setting sun. The day birds had quieted & the night insects were beginning to take their place in the cycle of sound.
I’m not sure whether it was sound or a touch of movement but I turned slightly to my right as I was watching the fire flies in the yard – to see a nice 4 point buck saunter into my yard between my chair & the tulip popular. He totally ignored me & Paws from a distance of less than twenty feet. As near as I can tell he never even saw us, the sound of the weed wacker across the street had his attention. He nibbled his way across my yard, around the honeysuckle bush, along the pines between my yard & the neighbor’s yard & then walked alone the woods edge for maybe 20 yards before moving under the trees & back into the woods. For slightly over 20 minutes this handsome fella was never more than 50 feet from me.
Now in the almost 18 years I’ve lived here I’ve seen several deer in my yard. For the first 8 years there was a magnificent 10 pointer that showed up every October. Various smaller bucks & does have walked along the tree line & once I saw a fawn resting under the forsythia. But I’d always seen them from inside the house through the kitchen or back bedroom window, never when I was outside in the yard. I feel honored to have been able to enjoy this buck’s visit.
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