Wary of Getting Shot

November 29, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Before dawn this morning Moi drove over to Ezra’s to walk into his woods with a deer rifle.  In order to allow the heat from downstairs into my bedroom, I’ve been keeping the door open for periods of time, and Squeak has been able to come in to purr and walk all over my chest, which she was doing this morning.  Right now Mway is lying down on the rug in Moi’s room.  I don’t know if I should take her for a walk now or not – if we’ll encounter and disturb a hunter in the woods by the creek, maybe in that deerstand I mentioned the other day.  I just looked out the office window – at first I thought I saw the red outfit of a deer hunter standing in the distance, but then I realized the red I was seeing was the berry cones of the sumacs.  I haven’t been hearing any gun shots.  I suppose we can venture out – just keep our eyes peeled for anyone out there with a gun.  I’ll wear my orange wool cap, and maybe put Mway on a leash.

State of the Path.  As soon as I start putting on my walking clothes, Mway stands up, and she leads the way down the stairs.  I find a red leash, but when I go to snap it on, I discover Mway doesn’t have a collar.  The chicken’s water dish is sitting in front of the door – Moi must have brought it in to thaw, and I realize I’ll have to take it back outside (later I find a note in front of the coffee maker telling me to do just that).  I decide to sneak down along the summer house and cross the lane, where I’ll have the best vista of the fields.  Frost covers the ground; there are crystals on some garlic grass and on the big flaps of leaves of a flattened burdock, wrinkled and holey but still green.  When I get to the beginning of the path that leads from the lane, I survey the fields.  I don’t see anybody, but I also realize there are a lot of trees, shrubs, and brush in which somebody could be hidden.  I hear the caws of crows or bluejays.  Mway scoots down the path then makes a sharp left turn to head to the clearing, but I figure we can still go at least as far as bug land, where there’s another open area for me to look around.  Mway follows me.  The streak of water in the path in front of the ridge is crunchy with ice.  I pass through the break in the ridge, then take another survey of the trees and shrubs around the creek.   Soon I see, first one, then two, finally at least about five, deer running up from the bottom of the field on the far side of the creek, their white tails turned toward me.  Mway doesn’t seem to see them, but she takes a few steps into bug land, ears raised – I believe she must be able to hear them, though I don’t hear a sound coming from their leaping bodies.  I figure, though they’re a hundred yards away or so, that they must have heard me coming down through the field, and while they’re still running up toward the top of the ridge, I surmise that they must have been down by the creek, hiding from hunters in the woods.  I then realize I’ve put them in a predicament – they were down at the creek to hide from hunters, and now I’m scaring them from their hiding place back into the woods.  I decide to turn around and go back to the clearing, and just before I do, I see the deer shift from running up toward the top of the ridge and head instead toward Hutchinson’s wood lot, which is still close to the creek and, I hope, just as good a hiding place for them.

State of the Creek:  I don’t get to see the creek, but on my way back to the house after our fetch, I see that some ice has formed in Moi’s garden pond.

The Fetch: I throw the stick in alternate directions, looking out over the fields as I do.  The goldenrod fuzz is especially fuzzy, since it’s covered with frost, and when the stalks break as Mway runs through them the snaps sound a little sharper than usual.  A bird lands on a bare tree down by the two cedars.  At first I think it’s a blue jay, but eventually I can see that it’s a black-capped chickadee.