Runs With Deer ....

So I am sitting in bed in the motor home (MH), Rudydo lying next to me, and we are watching the dear do their morning frolic through the back pasture. The house where I am living for now is in a cul-de-sac in a semi-rural area of South Austin where the back yards of the neighborhood houses are basically one large connected field with a green belt behind it. Lot of creatures live in and access the green belt: hawks, possums, raccoons, coyotes, other various creatures, and LOTS of what Roger calls scrawny deer. He says this because he and Jacquie and the kids go to a house boat they own on a lake in Canada every summer and the deer there are evidently more stout.

Anyway, the scrawny deer come through the yard fairly often each day, usually in the mornings and evenings. I know this because I live in the back yard, and as the only one who seems to be living in the back yard in this neighborhood, I have a unique perspective. This is how I know there are coyotes, yet that’s another story. And this is why Rudydo has free run through the small window of the driver’s side of the MH from dawn until evening, yet spends his nights safe inside on lock-down.

In the mornings these deer love to run. They actually frolic, chase each other, gallop across the edge of the green belt, several of them, mostly girls.  The other morning there was a young buck with a short, soft rack with the group of about a dozen, chasing each other, being quite brave, running through the yards between the houses and back again. They do seem smaller and young, so perhaps they are the young deer, daring each other like most kids I guess do. 

Our first evening here, as Rudydo and I were getting acclimated, I went to the bedroom area in the back of the MH to find him transfixed on something out the window. I joined him on the raised bed platform and there were about five deer coming from the green belt and grazing in the yard. I have told many folks that I was excited to see Rudy experience his first squirrel; it never occurred to me that his first encounter with a non-Hawaiian animal would be such a larger creature. Yet, I realize I need to embrace the fact that I am in Texas, and most things are larger than they appear in the rear view mirror of my imagination.

So anyway again, back this one morning, last Saturday I think it was, when the big group was frolicking, we were hanging out on the bed together watching them and Rudy as usual was mesmerized. I was distracted by something - as I am so often these days - and turned my attention elsewhere for awhile, Rudy left, and the next time I looked out the window, I saw several of the deer running along the greenbelt, about 30 yards in from the edge, and a small black and white creature running along side them. He was several yards away, closer to the houses than the deer, yet there he was, running with the huge scrawny deer. 

Trying to get the Holiday shopping done ... even with all I have been through the last few weeks, still need to BUY and GIVE. And there is much more to buy here on the mainland. It is a curse. God Bless America.

Much love til next time.

Aloha Laura in Austin