SISTER-SISTER SPAT

Don’t you know: I grumble about March-Bluster and we get it with both barrels. After several days of hard freeze and snow comes a warm wind and everything goes to slush. The ground is frozen so all it does is pool and refreeze. The only escape is to escape, make a run for it. Another month and spring will start making overtures. If you can’t get away then you wait. I went with ‘Getaway’. Once you have Chicago in the rear view mirror, things lighten up. But the drive down I-55 is through a radio wasteland. Bumping up the dial one station at a time I counted 9 preachers and 2 talk shows, either saving souls or doing ‘Glory, Glory’. Some were ranting brimstone and scare tactics, others spooning up Jesus-syrup but they didn’t disappoint, the end game was the address to send your check. I have a sleeve full of CD’s under the visor assembled if for no other reason than as a tonic for radio wastelands. I gave up on the FM dial and booted up the Eagles, “ . . . . runnin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load . . . . one says she’s a friend of mine.”

The evening before, my host/amigo and I were at the kitchen window. I showed him the photo I took of deer in the drive and he laughed. We went to the barn and scooped up a bucket of shelled corn. “It’s bedtime for birds and squirrels.” he said “but it’s breakfast time for deer.” It was no accident I had seen deer there earlier in the week. He dumped corn on the ground under the bird feeder. Inside with lights out we waited at the window. In those last few minutes of waning light a big doe, then another big doe, then several yearlings; they came around the end of the greenhouse, follow the leader. Altogether, 11 deer were there to browse on corn. They were so close, if the window wasn’t dark they would have kept their distance but they were right up in the yard, taking turns at the corn. I don’t know where the dogs were but it was quiet, so quiet you heard were nails and boards in the walls and ceiling, giving in to push and pull of gravity and time. 

It wold have been easy to let it go at that, deer feeding just a stone’s throw away but noting is that simple. The big doe, the leader, she nosed her way into the huddle around the corn and pushed another doe out of the group and up into the yard. The other doe tried to get back to the corn but the big one got testy, kicked her and stayed between her and the corn. I don’t know if she thought the other had had enough and the babies get the rest or if she just didn’t like her sister. Odds are they were all related and sister-sister spats can boil over in any species. It was raining: I slipped out the door and got a smart-phone photo before they bolted. Off they went, you know who was out in front and they disappeared in the dark. “They’ll be back.” Duane said. “They won’t leave any corn on the ground and you spooked them before they were finished.” I guess I do that but again, I got a better photo than I thought I could with my telephone. Duane will no doubt dump another bucket of shelled corn again tonight but I’m south, far south of the Lake Michigan shore so I’ll make do with my photographs.