A Prayer to the Nature Gods, Granted

 Written in the middle of Ohio's whitetail gun season last week, when I always feel anxious for my friends in the woods:

Cruel Nature Gods, while you're sparing my friends, pass over this spike buck who wandered in to the feeders.

 

He's too young to be Ellen's son, Pinky, who's probably sporting six or eight points by now. I don't know who he is. He's just small and sweet.

 

He bears more than a passing resemblance to Buffy, who I am still waiting for. She should have shown up by now. I'm having another Half-ear Smalley moment with Buffy. As Ellen's companion for many years, Buffy's got to be at least 12 now, and I suppose one fine winter she simply won't appear.  I already miss her stocky, short-legged form.

If you can't be with the ones you love, love the ones you're with...Please deem this red-breasted nuthatch and his adorable female companion too small for the hawk to bother with.

Male red-breasted nuthatch-black cap.

They amuse me no end when they chitter at me first thing in the morning. They get so excited when I go rattle the feed bins. Then they flit all around me tittering as I fill the feeders. I adore them. Chatty little companionable things!

Female--gray cap.

And, Nature Gods, please keep this sweetly inquisitive young female yellow-bellied sapsucker from braining herself on one of my unprotected windows. At least around here, the favorite pastime of sapsuckers is flying pell-mell into plate glass. She's bounced off my studio window netting several times since she showed up. I always laugh when they do it--trying so hard to kill themselves, only to be foiled again.

She knows there must be food around because all the birds seem to be eating something. But she has yet to figure out the peanut feeder. She did find some peanut scraps in the cracks of the post she's sitting on. The nuthatches and redbellies process their peanuts there. She liked those. I hope she'll key in before too long. Other sapsuckers have, but it's been years...like 20 years.

I laughed out loud when this titmouse landed as I was shooting as if to show her his sunflower seed.

 

It's a sunflower seed. They're good. Instead of pecking morosely at the arbor vitaes all day, you should try them, you silly gherkin.

I keep sending this bird mind pictures of delicious roasted peanuts. She's staring right down at Jemima's special feeder, which is always stocked with peanuts and Zick Dough. But she Just. Can't. Make. The. Connection.  Hanging out in the yard, 20' away, is a lovely peanut feeder you can land on and eat to your heart's content.

Don't you know that everyone who comes to Indigo Hill gets fed?  Pfft! I give up.

I have been working so steadily to finish my book that I prepared this post and forgot I'd done it. And while it was simmering away, hunting season came and went. I was locked in the house for six days, and thank the Lord it rained and was absolutely miserable the whole time. On the last day (Sunday Dec. 2), the sun came out like an extravagant apology, and of course the shots were ringing out all around, because now in Ohio we hunt on Sundays, over bait no less. So I spent most of the day puttering happily around the yard and greenhouse. I did all the things you can't do if it's cold and raining. The light was beautiful and I washed and hung out three loads of bedding.

This morning I awoke to find the gray flannel had closed over us again. Another dreary day. But wait! there was something out in the meadow. This is not an accident. It's the first morning after hunting season and you can bet the deer know it!

 The light was so flat and dull I actually didn't even see two of them at first. If you click on this photo, you'll see the one farthest in back is really beautiful--big square throat bib, strong features, large eyes, dark smooth coat. I can't be absolutely sure, because it's too far to see her ear notch, but I think it's my lovely Jolene, and I think the medium-sized doe to the right is her two-year-old daughter. With any luck, they're both with fawn from one of the beautiful bucks I've seen on the place this fall (more on them later!)

Who's the small doe to the left? When she raised her head, I knew in an instant. This is not a young animal. This is someone I know.

BUFFY Buffybuffybuffy Hello my love!!

 

Click on the photos and you'll see her all-red tail and the buff cast to her brows and coat. But it's by her build I recognize her first.

 

 If ever there were a textbook Buffy photo this is it. She's a short-legged thick little gal
and a bit on the squinty side.
Her left eye looks fine. I was SO glad to see my Buffy.

 
Hadn't seen her since March 8, 2018, a day with light.  The light will return. Buffy did.
 

All hail the Nature Gods, and the resilience of a little doe who knows where to hide. 

The Morning Stalk

You never know when you're going to have an extraordinary day. I've learned to watch out for the weepy gray days, the ones trying so hard to be ordinary, to pass without notice. November 17, 2017, was just such a day.

While doing my morning wildlife feeding, I noticed a big dark doe walking, all the way out the meadow. Most people say, "Oh, it's only a doe," as if a doe were somehow less a deer than a buck, but I like does. It's like Patton Oswalt said long ago: "I like porn. Because I can GET porn."

Does are easier to see and far easier to stalk; does are easier to identify from year to year, as they aren't always changing their headgear and going through wild hormonal changes. So I threw on a coat and my boots and headed out to stalk this intriguing animal. 

The first thing I noticed about her was large size. Then, her deep blue color, and her beautifully straight topline. Hmm. 

And then I picked up the brilliant white stockings down the back of her front legs. 

She stopped and stood, rooted, staring back at me, and she was so beautiful I thought she might have to be Jolene. Jolene! Is it you? I couldn't remember if Jolene had a red tail, tipped in black. All these little things matter, all these things remain constant year to year, and I add them up to figure out who is who. 

But I don't waste any time looking at my photos when I'm stalking deer. I'm too busy getting those photos and keeping a low profile. I am happy to figure out who I've got after I upload them, when I can closely study and compare the current photos with my library of photos of known individuals. I hadn't seen Jolene since May, and she was heavily pregnant then. 

As luck and the rut would have it, this doe was not alone for long. Out of the woods to the west came a very large buck!

I immediately dropped behind the tall goldenrod, thankful that my part of the meadow hadn't been mowed.  I dared a few shots, rising up just enough to get the lens on him, then sinking back down. 

From his point of view, there was something small, odd and dark popping up and down in the frost- bleached goldenrod, and he wasn't sure what it was. 

I crawled, holding my camera under my belly, getting closer and staying in cover. I peeped up. The buck was still there, still looking at the spot where he last saw me. 

I stayed down. I wanted him to forget about me and think about sex. Finally he turned and continued parading slowly toward the doe. Fabulous! I took that opportunity to hunch-run a bunch closer, while his attention was diverted.

When his bone-white antlers pierced the darkness of the Virginia pines, I knew I had someone special. I couldn't help but notice his beautiful topline, and the white stockings down the backs of his front legs.

Does a buck follow his sister when they're all grown up? If she's in heat, does he know not to court her? Or is it hers to refuse and outrun him? These are things I wonder, and will likely never know. Surely they know each other by sight and smell, if they were raised together. 

Could poor crooked Ellen have been the outcome of a brother-sister tryst? 

So much to wonder. 

Look at his neck--swollen with muscle, built up by fighting saplings and other bucks. Look at the length of his tines. Eight points. A gorgeous gentleman.

When he turned, I could see a pretty good gouge on his right hind leg, doubtless from another buck's tine. He was moving well, though, keeping up appearances for the doe.

The doe had been watching me all along, and she was unnerved by how close I'd gotten. She rushed toward the buck and he broke into a run.  If you click on the photo you can see her motion ghost behind him. 

She was moving right along, outpacing him.

The eternal chase. You can see how heavy are his neck and forequarters compared to hers. He's ponderous by comparison.

It had been a magical encounter. I love little more than being out in a meadow with deer, having some cover to hide in while I watch them living their graceful, beautiful lives.

Next, we'll figure out who that doe was.

Seeing Ellen

I've had to walk a lot lately. I always have to walk just as hunting season comes on. It's the short days, the elusive light, the coming of the long dark. It's everything. 

And everything is so beautiful. 

I've got a talisman tree that, by some incredible stroke of provenance, actually lives on the farthest east corner of our 80 acre property. It's the sister oak to the one who used to mark our driveway. 

And it is magnificent. I stand beneath it and gloat that nobody can cut it down but us, and we aren't going to cut it down, ever. There's a little red barn we don't own right near it, and it makes for some lovely photos, especially at sunrise.

Just north of it are the Three Graces, Auxiliary. They're all tulips, and they do a graceful dance against the rising sun. There's sometimes a redtail we call James perched in the tallest one.

If you click on this to embiggen it you will see the light in his eye.

 I see him as I head for my morning place, where yesterday I watched a seven-point buck taking corn. The way the sun heaves up through the forest soothes me.

The last red maple leaves are leaving their tree-mothers.

And when the sun is just right, I can see our tower top glinting on the return trip. Supermoon riding high. You'll have to click to see the tower, left of the Graces.

I have been missing Ellen, not that I'd be seeing her in the yard yet; she usually came in December and January for the little corn handouts I gave. I just miss knowing she's around, miss her crooked little face and the way she used to run with her head down and tilted over to the right.

On November 14, I saw a wee button buck tiptoeing into the yard who looked awfully familiar. 

I took in his details, smiling widely.

A pinkish nose. Hmm. That's interesting!

White blazes between his toes: check. 

A bit of asymmetry about his face: check.

Odd set to the ears: check.

There was just something about him. And I saw Ellen looking back at me.

He was young, and he was apparently alone, which also argued that he might be Ellen's child. He should still be with his mother, unless his mother has been murdered.

Of course, I didn't know if I'd ever see him again, bow season being in full swing and gun season coming right up. Uch, how I hate that immutable fact of life, that some of my neighbors are going to get gunned down every year. The way Ellen beat the odds for nine years made me love her all the more.

Four days later, I saw him again. I was able to ascertain that yes, his left eye seemed larger, wider and differently set than his right. There's definitely an asymmetry going on in his face. This was something I'd noticed the first time I saw him, but wasn't sure about. 

 

There were the white flames between his toes. It was Pinky, named for his pink nose.

But this time, he wasn't alone.

Now I had seen Ellen once over the summer of 2016, when fawns were still spotty, and to my amazement my elderly friend had not one but two spotty fawns with her. She'd always had singletons before, but even old eggs divide. Incredible. Say what you want about her, but Ellen was a highly fit individual, reproducing well into her golden years, with twins at 9!

I love this photo from my last live photo session with her in May 2016, with a cardinal singing on the snag overhead; her crooked ears...she, unbeknownst to me, gestating two fawns!

A little doe fawn ducked her head to the right and ran awkwardly a few yards, in a manner so reminiscent of Ellen I laughed out loud.

She stopped, as does will, and looked back over her shoulder at me. 

If this is Pinky's sister, she's a looker. So much white, with big rings around her eyes (Pinky has those, too); a big white bib, and best of all, flashy white backs to her forelegs! I decided to call her Flag, after Jody's pet in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling. A formative book if ever there were one.

Am I sentimental about deer? Oh yes. Did reading The Yearling five times as a kid influence how I feel about them? Undoubtedly. I like knowing deer as individuals. I love to notice the little things (white leg linings) that set them apart from the herd. It's a privilege to know them. 

And, having noticed those little things, you can't un-notice them. Look at those eyerings! Those legs!

Flag paused and looked over her shoulder at me, Liam's willow tree making a golden cataract in the foreground. 

Be careful, kids, without your wise and durable little mother to guide you through this hunting season, and next, and next. Flag, watch out for those ten-point bucks. Pinky, I hope I get to see you grow antlers next year. 

Maybe you'll be as beautiful as Beck, Ellen's masterpiece, her son from 2013. 

You don't have Ellen here to tell you where to find a little handout of corn, the way Beck did, but I think you'll figure it out. 

It comforts me, seeing Ellen again, seeing her genes and spirit and slightly crooked face again in her children. I'm leaning into the pain, and being pleasantly surprised at the gifts that come as a result.

Love Lies Bleeding

It was a morning, typical in a miraculously atypical October. A warm breeze had played in my bedroom window all night, and I'd fallen asleep to the sound of crickets and burbling water from the pond just below. 

I'd gotten up and made breakfast for Liam, and seen him off to his dreaded Wednesday college chemistry class and lab. (He's taking his courses at our community college in his junior year of high school).

I'd gotten dressed and headed out earlier than usual, to watch the sun rise. It was another warm and breezy morning, another day in Paradise. First stop: the morning glories on the back deck, for obvious reasons.

With short, warm days and warm nights, these flowers get gloriously confused, and they stay open for two or three days instead of closing up on their first night of bloom. I don't understand the mechanism of it at all, though I've thought hard about it. Could it be humidity related? There's no dew on these dry warm nights. What makes a morning glory close up at the end of the day, anyway?

Whatever the  mechanism, they aren't closing. They're staying open for two or even three days.

When they're two days old, a violet hue creeps into them, brightening to fuchsia on the edges. It's...ahhh.

The net effect is an absolute carpet of blossoms in varying shades of true cerulean to cobalt violet. I had worried that my vines would never bloom before frost. Well, frost has been kind to them, and I get to roll my eyes around in morning glories all day long. Here it is November 2 and they're going strong through this fabulous autumn, the most protracted foliage spectacle I can remember. Every day I strive for the perfect, definitive, best morning glory shot. Every day I come a little bit closer. There is no such thing. That's why I keep shooting.

The growl, roar and beep of logging machinery was especially loud this morning, a bit less than two miles to the east of us. They're taking down a large tract of timber to drill a massive oil well.

This is probably the last photo I'll have of Longview Acres' little shed. The house came down weeks ago. 

The house site, straight on. 

I feel compelled to record what they're doing, what was here before they did it, and what they've left us to drive slowly by.

I still can't wrap my mind around this forest being gone. To be fair, it wasn't wilderness. Nothing around here is. Much of it was white pine plantation, that had been selectively logged, and it had grown up to black raspberries, greenbriar, and the happy confetti of red and sugar maple saplings, the kind of riotous tangle that's full of foxes, coy-wolves, deer, raccoons, squirrels, box turtles, American redstarts, yellow-throated warblers, hooded warblers, wild turkeys, and even ruffed grouse and bobcat--I had seen all of these creatures in and coming out of this tract. I'd even released a painstakingly rehabilitated one-eyed smashed box turtle right here years ago, where I found him when he'd been hit two years earlier. I'd sent him in a box poked full of holes by overnight Fed-Ex to New York State where a wonderful woman kept him for a year and a half while she healed his wounds. And then I'd driven 3 1/2 hours to Pittsburgh to pick him up in the autumn so he could go back to his home to sleep out the winter, to have another chance at living.

 So much for him, and so much for his home.

So much for our hearts as we drive slowly by. Looks like we'll have some handsome chain-link fencing to admire soon.

So these mornings I get up early and walk a mile east through the haymeadows and into the woods, where, if I drop below a steep berm, the sound of all this destruction is a little less obnoxious. At that point I'm three miles from it, and I can still hear it clearly, but it's not as bad as it is at the house. There I sit quietly with Chet and watch the birds and animals coming in to a game feeder on our neighbor's place. There's always action there, and it soothes me to see these animals take their corn breakfast. I don't think much of shooting deer over corn, but that's how it's done around here. It's all game cameras and time stamps and figuring out when that monster buck comes in so we can be there on opening day to drop him. Hmmm. However being an opportunist I am not above watching what comes in to their corn, and I absolutely love the beautiful paths my neighbors maintain through the woods, and the fact that they let me walk them whenever I wish. That privilege, I couldn't pay for. These men take good care of their land; they plant food crops for deer, and they are kind and friendly to me, and I respond in kind. They're good neighbors. They've bought a huge tract of land to leave it for wildlife. Far as I'm concerned, they can take all the deer they want. There are always more deer coming up.

This morning I walked out the driveway with Chet and I saw something I thought might be a white grocery bag that had blown in.  I quickly realized that it was the white belly of a deer, laid out in the grass.

I knew right away that someone had shot her, probably from the road less than 200' away. They'd probably pulled into our turnaround to get a bead on her. Oh, the bitter irony.

Disgust and anger welled up in me as I looked down on this little doe, wasted. So small--but nothing about her looked like this year's fawn. No trace of spots on the flanks.  Something about her domed forehead opened a cold sinking drain in my heart.

I knelt and looked closely at her forehead. One eye was higher than the other, an asymmetry I knew all too well.

I fell to my belly and looked at her right eye. Clouded and protruding, sightless, even in life.

Ellen.

They had killed my Ellen.

Blood still pulsed out of a terrible arrow wound that had smashed into the point of her left shoulder, into her heart and lungs. 

I hesitated a long time before I laid a hand on her. The pulsing blood, I could not explain, for she was stiff and still, her eyes already drying. When I touched her, she was cold. There was still a little warmth behind her ears, that had hung at such funny angles in life. Did her heart beat on? No, she was gone. Ah, Ellen. What have they done to you?

 The creep who killed this doe was engaging in a sport, widely practiced in my area, of dropping deer from their cars. What they do--and I saw three of them coming out together, in their loud beater cars and trucks just last night!--is shoot deer from their vehicles for fun. They drive by, looking straight ahead, and they never look me in the face. They are on a mission, but they aren't after meat.  They simply want to kill something. I can see it in their filthy faces as they pass. They leave them to rot and go kill something else. I find the carcasses everywhere, year around. And now I find Ellen, right out my driveway. If I could shoot a gun, I'd shoot out their tires and leave them to walk. If I had a rocket launcher...

 They wouldn't have recognized this doe, the way I could at hundreds of yards, just by the way she held her head. Had they known that hippie woman who lives in that tower house had loved her and written about her since 2009, they probably would have gotten an even bigger thrill out of dropping her and leaving her to lie right where I couldn't miss her. No, this dear little being was just something to sight the bow in with. Not even worth getting out of the truck to take. It takes a lot of skill to spotlight and shoot a half-blind elderly doe from your car at 200'.

The wound was a triangular slice, the hairs along it neatly clipped as with surgical shears, no burning such as you'd see with a bullet wound. So much for my theory that bow hunters take a more sporting approach to it all. 

I laid my hand on her domed forehead, the way I had so often longed to in life. Two tears rolled down. I did not weep. I couldn't. I think I've cried all the tears I have. I feel numb now, but oddly enough, stronger than I ever have. I feel I've been fired in a long, very slow kiln until my heart's crusted over.

I said a prayer of thanks that I had been so fortunate as to know her, to follow her through winter, spring and summer, for seven years. To see her through the terrible pain of losing one eye, to see her come out the other side, to see her grow her hair back, and pregnant this spring, with a swollen udder! at perhaps 9 years of age. A Methuselah among deer.

My first post about Ellen, March 1, 2009.

My second post, March 1, 2012. 

My third post, Feb. 24, 2015. 

My fourth, Feb. 21, 2016.

My fifth, Feb. 23, 2016.

My sixth, Feb. 24, 2016.

My seventh, June 26, 2016.

Here, they end.

The last time I photographed her: May 22, 2016, snorting at me.  I glimpsed her along the driveway once more on a summer evening, and it looked like she had two fawns with her, and she at least 9 years of age. But I can't be sure they were both hers. The only thing I'm sure of now is that I will never see her again.

Ellen was a survivor, until the wrong person rolled up to her and drew back his bow. I pity him, because he never knew her, because, taking it away so callously, he doesn't know that life is a gift.

What a gift Ellen was.

Go now, with your eyes that both work, with your supple neck, no longer kinked and lowered; with two ears that swivel as they should. There is a much better place for you than here. Thank you for everything, sweet Ellen. I'll be looking for your face in this year's fawns.