Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall – “It’s not about the killing.”

Doe and Yearling 1

Last Tuesday, while I sat in the great room and searched for an apple-blueberry pie recipe to bake for Thanksgiving, a movement caught my eye. I glanced through the sliding glass door and into the south garden.

Snow specks drifted, and my husband’s deer baffler―an aluminum pizza pan dangling from a string―swayed in the breeze. Near the baffler, a brown hump huddled against Spence’s chicken wire and pvc pipe fence. The hump unfurled into an adorable fawn. Undeterred by the baffler, the fawn jumped the fence and nibbled on dried weeds entangled in the wire.

Another movement pulled my eyes to a yearling nibbling the tops of frost-blackened pepper plants.

After fetching my camera, I attached the zoom lens then slid open the glass door. The white tail deer stared at me.

Standing still, I stared back.

They dropped their heads. Step by step, bite by bite, they filled their stomachs on November garden dregs.

Spence wouldn’t begrudge them weeds or dead peppers.

I stepped onto the deck and focused the zoom lens.

White tails rose.

While I took pictures through the snow, the deer vaulted over the fence and dashed to the woods. I couldn’t imagine my seventy-year-old bones matching their awesome, agile flight.

Fawn Jumping

Resuming the recipe hunt, my mind drifted back a week to a conversation with Leanne, the swimming buddy who, when hiking alone, packs a derringer in her bra.

Our adjacent YMCA showers sprayed hot water―balm to arthritic bodies after the chilly climb up the steps to the women’s locker room. I rubbed rose scented soap in a vain attempt to cover odor of chlorine. “Were you hunting yesterday?”

“Yeah. It was the last day of bow season and gorgeous weather.” Her shampoo bottle clattered onto the tiles. “We stayed out all day.”

Leanne and her husband hunt together on their fifty acres. When bow season started, she’d told me she wanted a buck with a big rack.

“Did you get your buck?” I turned off the shower and reached for a towel.

“No.” She sighed loud enough to be heard downstairs in the pool. “I saw a buck with seven points, but he was too far away for me to track. It would be cruel to injury him for nothing.” Her shower stopped spraying. “I saw a lot of does but didn’t shoot any. They were fun to watch. The poor things were eating sticks. We’re gonna dump the apples we gathered from our six trees. The deer will eat all the apples in three days―long enough before rifle season so it won’t be illegal bating.”

With a skimpy YMCA towel almost wrapping my torso, I paused at Leanne’s shower stall on my way to the locker room. “Most people would be surprised that a hunter had such compassion for deer.”

She rubbed moisturizing lotion on her leg and let out a belly laugh. “It’s not about the killing. It’s about being in nature and observing wonderful things.”

Friday's Yearling 6

Her words looped through my head this past Friday when I sat in the great room with a lunch tray full of Thanksgiving leftovers―turkey, trimmings, and a slice of apple-blueberry pie. Through the sliding glass door, I observed a doe and yearling grazing on Spence’s winter rye cover crop. I set my lunch tray on the table and fetched my camera.

Ears on alert, the deer looked toward the glass door.

I took a few pictures through the glass in case I spooked them sliding the door open.

They lowered their heads to the winter rye.

Opening the door, I took more photos.

The deer glanced at me between munches. Like Leanne had said, they were hungry.

When I stepped onto the deck, snow melt dripped off the gutter and onto my head.

No white tails. No dashes to the woods. The deer ambled toward Spence’s fence despite the deer baffler twirling and clanging against its pole. They nibbled weeds. They peered at me from time to time while I took ninety-four pictures.

Back inside, I traded the camera for the lunch tray, settled in my Adirondack chair, and watched the deer.

Spence came home from getting diesel for his tractor, toed off his boots, and stepped behind me. He rubbed my shoulders, watched the deer with me, and said, “I hope they get the four-one-one by Monday.”

After fifty years of marriage, my spouse can still puzzle me. Spence doesn’t hunt, but he allows hunters on our property to cull the deer so they don’t harvest all of his summer crops. Had he turned deer-compassionate like Leanne? “What information do you want the deer to get, Spence?”

“I want them on the hill across the road. I don’t want to clean the mess if they’re shoot in the garden.”

Okay. Not so compassionate.

Doe 1