Remember Pinky?

You'll remember Ellen's twins, Flag and Pinky. Flag, the doe, is a regular in the yard now. I'm delighted to say that Pinky lives on, though he's much more rarely seen.

Here he is on January 7, 2017. Just wee buttons on his fawn forehead. Born in the spring of 2016.

This elegant little fellow tiptoed into the yard on October 5, 2017.

When he raised his head, I knew him.

There's that pale pink nose. And now he's got a graceful lyre-shaped set of antlers.

I see Ellen in his face.

He came back on October 18, and it looked to me like he'd had an allergic reaction to something--his eyes were pink-rimmed and his muzzle was bright orange! 

He had a line of beggarticks stuck over his left eye.

You can see his white spats, Ellen's mark.

It thrills me to pieces to have these pretty little bits of Ellen coming to my yard.

What a difference nine months make! Stay well, stay safe, dear Pinky. I hope I get to see you all grown up, like your big brother Beck.

Pinky  Jan. 7, 2017

Pinky March 11, 2017

Pinky October 5, 2017

Remember Flag?

I spend a lot of time looking for and at deer. I am actually happy that Daylight Savings Time has started, because I love raising the blind on something more like this, instead of total darkness. 

It's depressing to wake up at 5:30 and have to wait until 7:30 for the first light to creep under the blinds. 

So I get up and get busy. People who ask me how I do so much each day probably don't take into account that I get up well before the birds do. Today, I'm finishing up the last of a million yard chores involved in buttoning the place up for winter. I cleaned the pond last evening, racing the fading light. I've given up on using the siphon, which, thanks to endless amounts of decaying plant material, clogs every ten seconds, and wound up just scooping up muck and detritus on the bottom with a net. Faster. Easier. Same net effect. 

This morning, having climbed to the tower to watch the sun evidently rise behind a thick blanket of clouds, I burned a year-old Christmas tree. It went with surprising difficulty, me thinking back wistfully to our tradition of burning it on May Day night. It would go up like a torch while we howled like wolves. The old, forgotten tree being soggy and mostly without needles, took every bit of spare cardboard I had to even get it going. It's still smoldering out there. The point was to get it and an enormous wad of morning glory vine, laden with evil seed, burned. I'm done with the Japanese hybrid Flying Saucers. They were early and floriferous, but the overall effect of this variegated flower was a dull bluish white. Nope to the nope. And they set viable seed like they intended to take over the earth. I've had to make two bonfires just to burn the vines. It's back to Clark's Heavenly Blue, for good, even if I have to wait until October for flowers.  

September 2016. Flying Saucers, ehhh, zzzzz.

November 4, 2016. Clark's Heavenly Blue. Now there's an apt name.

I probably can't mention Ellen without giving many of my gentle readers a pang. I get them too. But in the Circle of Life Department, all is well. Pangs just go with the territory.

Remember Flag, Ellen's little daughter? Flag is one of her last set of twins, born spring 2016, that also included a buck named Pinky.

Here she is on December 14, 2016, a little over a year ago. Her baby picture. 

October 17, 2017

And here's the lovely young lady now. This October, she began coming into the yard every day, looking for the corn and sunflower seed her crooked little mama used to love.

And in coming to my yard, she brings me joy. Great joy.

No asymmetry here. Flag is classically beautiful, untouched by whatever left Ellen crooked and bent. She has kept her big square throat patch and her enormous white eye rings. Yes, it's Flag, looking back at me with swiveling ears. What a difference a year makes!

December 14, 2016. She was such a baby! and orphaned since the first week of November. 

But she's come through fine, with a little help from Ellen's friend.

I know it's just habit and corn that brings Flag to my yard, but the halting trust in her soft eyes is real. It is something I have earned, and I'm keenly aware that it's a privilege to see her, each time. It's a privilege to be able to watch her drop her head, knowing I'm watching her, to eat. That takes a lot of trust.

She still wears her little white toe shoes, the mark that Ellen left on all her babies. I am looking forward to seeing Flag in full winter coat. It's just coming in now, and she's still patchy and a bit red. She's going to be so beautiful when her thick dusky blue winter hair is all in. 

I thank whoever sends Flag here to visit. These wild friends of mine have taken on new importance to me, bereft as I am of the animal companionship I'd grown accustomed to.  I hope to stay worthy of her trust, and I hope too that she will use her sharp young eyes and ears to stay away from people who don't know or care what she means to me. I fall in love with every deer I come to know. I can't help it. 

I've learned that it's easier on the heart to love the small does and the spindly bucks. They stay around longer. Be safe, dear Flag. I'm counting on you.

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.