A Deer and Me

A road where only three have walked
since the last snow from a week ago—
a deer, an unknown rodent, and me.





Fifteen years ago, the shooting of wolves was outlawed, and the situation has returned to the way it was. “We shot ‘em then,” says Jerry over motel coffee, “we had ‘em pretty well wiped out. Back then, you could let a pregnant cow have her calf in the field. No more. Wolves will get that calf every time. You could have sheep and goats back then, but no more.” I say something foreign and inane in this setting, about a balance in nature, to which Jerry compassionately shrugs. “Now it’s like it was in the real early days, where any dog, sheep or calf was gone if not kept inside.” I ask if children had ever been taken by wolves. He said he’d never heard of it. They will circle around a lone person in the woods at night and growl—enough to scare a person to death, but no reports of actual attacks.

Deer are in short supply this season, partly from wolves, partly because the snow fell so deep last winter and they had a hard time getting down to the food. And when the snow crusts over, it gives the wolves an advantage—they don’t fall through the crust like deer do, and can easily catch them.

“Usually we see a lot of deer in town,” Jerry says, “because they are smart enough to know that the wolves will not come in. But this year there’s hardly any.”

“Coming into town is a very smart adaptation,” I comment. “Such species will survive the human explosion.” Again, I see the local shrug in response to the city-girl comment. “Deer are smart in some things, but stupid too,” he says. “Once, a deer ran into the side of my pickup in broad daylight. Once, one jumped over the hood of a friend’s moving car in the daytime.”

While deer are digging away the snow to expose their meager winter browse, several bird species tough it out rather than migrate or hibernate, feeding frantically to supply the calories needed to stay warm. I notice it too. Heat from the lungs goes into warming the air, which noticeably increases breathing and heart rate for a simple act like walking on the level. Some people say they have to walk slower in the winter. I tend to walk at the same speed as in Pasadena, but with greater effort.

I walked out of town on a country road today, feeling braver against the cold, willing to venture farther, now that I’ve acquired basic skills. I remember telling a lady at the Lutheran church that I came here like a stork with a headstrong notion. She said it reminded her of something, and when I saw her the next time she gave me this poem from one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job, Chapter 39:

The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork.

She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,

unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.

She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,

for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.

Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
she laughs at horse and rider.

Though God did not give me wisdom perhaps, I remember the lessons learned: the icy fall where, in a blink, what felt like firm footing became slicker than oil. Thin snow on top of ice smashed me onto the concrete where I trembled and crab-waked, sliding shamefully on my behind, and now the solution with steel coils on my boots. And the much talked about icing of my glasses, now relieved through proper breathing. I will not describe the difficult maneuver of peeing in the woods after finding a private bush, only to say that for women it’s a bit more complicated.

Yes, I feel all grown up today as I walk, far from warm shelters. My stories from here on will no doubt involve exploits that show me in a good light. I have enough confidence in myself that I could create a meaningful life even in Siberia if I decided on that location.





A field under a dreary sky—a Poet’s Farm if only for five minutes











A house on a country lane, a home for a short rest or a lifetime











Welcome to my winter hometown