Dear Deer

There are two herds of male deer that have been living very close to the house for at least the past month.

Up until the other day I had only seen one of those herds, and the other had existed only in stories that LC shared with me after he and Jamie had been traveling in the truck without me.

For a while I thought that he was mistaken.

Surely there was only one herd of bucks.

Surely they were simply roaming the area and LC only thought that there were two different herds.

Surely if there were two herds I would have seen both of them by now.

Surely they would not only be visible when LC and James-dog were out together.

Well I was wrong.

And don't call me Shirley................

I had stopped briefly at the grocery store on Friday afternoon, planning to make a fast entrance and even faster exit from Albertsons while leaving man and dog in the comfort of the air conditioned truck.

Grocery stores have never been, nor will they ever be, a place where I like to spend a lot of time.

REI is another story, but not grocery stores.

I constantly notice people in these stores socializing, wandering, inspecting, price comparing, walking up and down every single aisle, rummaging through the sale paper and then rummaging through their extensive collection of 50-cent-off coupons.

Some people even have their coupons in a coupon book - all alphabetized or entered according to expiry date or entered according to the meal planning they have done for the upcoming week.

I on the other hand spend all of 15 seconds scanning the front and back page of the Albertsons flier that is inserted into the Sunday paper each week, and then hurriedly rush around the outside aisles of the store, with the ultimate goal to be in and out in under 10.

And so it went on Friday.  In and out in under 10.

Carrying one bag of staples but absolutely no junk food what-so-ever.

By late Sunday afternoon my junk-food-loving man needed sugar and salt - preferably in chocolate and nachos form.

And so we found ourselves around 6pm on Sunday headed again for Albersons...................

As we drove down the rutted out washboard of a gravel road I looked out over things that once were, and are becoming again, familiar to me.

Horses at the top of our road, horses as we take the sharp left curve down the hill, horses in the pastures both to my left and right coming down the hill, Heart Mountain towering over the landscape to my right, Carter Mountain towering over the landscape to my left, Cedar and Rattlesnake Mountains in front of me, BLM land at every turn.

One of my favorite houses that is partially embedded into a small hill and an old barn.

As we drove beyond the house and barn I looked, as I always do when I pass by, to see if there were any deer in the homeowners large pasture.

Last year there was a large herd of maybe 20 does that for all intents-and-purposes lived in this field.

It was perfect for them - lots of grass to eat, large trees for shade, the irrigation canal at the edge of the property.

It was a beautiful and safe field for a large herd of female deer and their fawns, and throughout last summer I took many many pictures of this herd because no matter what time of day there were always at least some deer eating or bedded down in this place..............

This summer has been different from last, and I have no idea why.

A couple of deer grazing in the pasture every few days is all that I have seen throughout this very hot and dry summer.

Their stomping grounds have changed over the past year.

Do deer change stomping grounds? I have no idea.

Last year we never heard any coyotes, but have heard them almost every night for the past month or more, up in the hills on BLM land late at night. Did THEY change the deer's routes? Again I have no idea.
So it was with a great deal of surprise and delight that I saw this herd.

I have seen this herd before, usually grazing in the middle of the day, usually off a busier paved street not far from this place, but I have never stopped to take pictures of them.

On an early Sunday evening I asked LC to pull the truck over on the washboard road so that I could take pictures of these young males...................

They were very beautiful and very healthy looking.

They were watchful of me and knew that I was standing alongside the fence line watching them.

Late in the day I played around with the zoom function on my camera, trying to take a variety of pictures of these very sweet animals, not exactly sure how well they would turn out.

Ever since we arrived back in Cody we have seen multiple deer wandering through yards within the city limits, have seen a doe within a couple of miles of the house who is caring for two beautiful and still spotted babies, and have enjoyed watching many other does traveling in ones and twos.

Many times these country does graze close to the road, and we have stopped frequently so that moms and babies can cross safely.

This herd of bucks has always, until this past weekend, been a long way from the road.

They were not close on Sunday, but this was the closest I had seen them to this point and I stood for a long time beside that fence greatly enjoying the sight of them.....................

Eventually our small herd of bucks began to slowly wander away and I turned back towards the truck, smiling at LC and knowing that he had enjoyed the sight of them as much as I had.

Instead of immediately heading for the grocery store we stopped for a good 45 minutes at the dog park that is located at Beck Lake Park.

It was late in the day, the temperature was finally and thankfully beginning to cool, and as I wandered around the fenced in park with my sweet old pup, LC visited with a young couple who had brought two small children and three small dogs with them to the park.

Five small things all needing to burn off excess energy before heading home for bed.

Leaving James in the truck LC eagerly (and I reluctantly) walked into the store, and 30 minutes later walked out with more junk food that one household of two people and a dog should actually have.

Instead of driving our usual route home we turned off the Greybull highway early, and slowly drove down a paved, narrow and winding road, taking our time heading back towards the house.

I looked out over more irrigated and beautiful pastures, and then looked beyond them to the beige and barren hills of BLM land.

And then suddenly and unexpectedly there they were.

The large herd of males that had existed only in LC's stories.

It was a small herd but these males were much larger, much darker, much older than the young herd we had seen a couple of hours earlier.

Again I smiled and again I asked LC to pull the truck off the road so that I could take pictures of them.

I was so pleased at this unexpected sighting.

I stood alongside yet one more fence line, looked out over this larger and older herd, and instantly wished that we had taken this road on the way into town.

Daylight was almost done, and I knew that I would not be able to get many good pictures of these boys.

Sure enough. 

I quickly snapped about 15 pictures hoping that some of them would turn out well.

Most of them did not.

Most of them turned out very fuzzy.

But now that I know that this herd of mature adult males actually exists I will try and get better pictures in better light before summer is gone..................

Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it..............Henry Rollins