Why Chickens Don’t Cross the Road

We all know why chickens do cross the road . . . to get to the other side . . . and in case we miss the point, there is actually a Wikipedia entry on the subject.

Yesterday as I was driving across Jack Mountain towards Monterey, I passed again a small flock of chickens on the right side of the road.  They are beautiful birds, these chickens.  Not your usual barnyard gathering by any means.

Yet there they were, free range on the side of the road, where I have come to expect to see them, not a caretaker nor coop in sight.

Who are these chickens?

To whom do they belong?

And how is it that they never, ever, ever, seem to cross the road?

While I was musing on such questions, I came upon a young deer who actually did cross the road.  But as with all the deer I’ve been seeing of late, she actually paused, seeming to look both ways before she stepped slowly from the side and walked, rather than leapt, across.

Has someone been gathering the animal population around here and teaching them about road safety?

A friend suggests that its evolution: all the ‘stupid’ deer have been killed, leaving only those smart enough to consider traffic when they encounter a road.

Perhaps.

But I rather fancy animal road safety courses taking place somewhere deep in the woods, beyond where human eyes can see – I wonder what the driver’s test is like?

3 Deer, 2 Frogs & 1 Happy Little Girl

[sung to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas]

Last night driving over the mountain, I encountered 3 deer and 2 frogs along the way – and all 6 of us survived the encounters. . . frogs jumping gamely across the road looking like rubber bands in super slow mo stretch – laconic is the word that comes to mind as I chuckle at their slow-quick pace.

One deer was just a brief sighting of hind legs disappearing up the mountain – how they do that remains a great mystery to me . . . somehow they’re made to traverse the world both perpendicular and horizontal.  Is it wrong to envy that ability?

The other two deer stood attention along the roadside as I swept by – old enough to understand the concept of a car, they steered clear and all was well.

I stopped to check in on young friend Katie, back from her hand surgery earlier in the day only to learn from her father that Katie was already across the road at her grandma’s.  A few seconds later, Katie came bounding back to her house, hand wrapped and bespeckled with bee tape (a bonus from the nurses and docs who attended her surgery), one pin in hand heavier than when she left home this morning, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

She didn’t show it much, but I suspect Katie was pretty nervous about the surgery – who wouldn’t be?  But with the gift of the young, she had already left that moment long behind by the time she and her parents got back over the mountain to home.

Life here was good yesterday for 3 deer, 2 frogs, and one happy girl (not to mention the one who got to be there for it all).

The Mother & Child Reunion

Driving home from a friend’s, on the upper bank stands a doe and her fawn, preternaturally still as only deer can be when hoping against hope not to be seen by a potential predator.  It actually hurts me to think that I am this gal’s predator, but there it is – reality in all its gore and glory.

We’re frozen together in time, the three of us, she and I gazes locked . . . until the fawn breaks the impasse, moving away with the nonchalance that only the young can afford.

As I leave the country lane inhabited by the two, Paul Simon’s Mother & Child Reunion reverberates from my brain down my spine, its words playing over and over again, unbidden in the course of a lifetime that includes the peaceful meeting (this once) of predator and prey. . . and the reunion is now and it is good.

Bears and Bobcats and Such

Last night a friend visiting from Galax (not exactly NYC, but apparently a buzzing metropolis compared to where I live) and I went over the mountain to dine out.  I drove.  That, enough, was cause for concern.  I thought I was driving reasonably, well within the speed limit.  Helen, however, experienced a ride of terror.

Then there was the deer.  Dead.  In the middle of our lane.  I swerved and missed all but a hoof of the carcass.  Crisis averted.  Then I stopped at the nearest house to ask if they’d call the sheriff about moving the carcass (I wasn’t dressed for the occasion and probably couldn’t have managed the dead weight on my own anyhow).  Back in the car, I noticed Helen’s wonderment.  “That’s how you do it.”  “Do what?” I asked.  “Take care of something like that.”  “Yep, that’s how you do it,” I replied.  Actually, moving it out of the way yourself is how you do it – shame on whoever left it there for me to come upon.

A little ways on, I asked, “did you see that?”  “What?”  “The bear,” I replied, having noticed a bear scooting into the undergrowth on the right of the road.  “No!  And I’m glad I didn’t!” was Helen’s somewhat chagrined reply.  Truly baffled, I considered my own delight at spotting yet another ‘bear in the woods’ and wondered at Helen’s dismay.

Helen:  “The next thing you know, we’ll see a lion.”  Me: “no lions.  A bobcat, maybe; but no lions”, meaning to be reassuring.  Somehow my words had the opposite effect I’d intended.

Off to dinner, good conversation and lots of laughter, as we got back in the car to return home, Helen put on her heavy coat saying that now we could safely return, since she was wearing her ‘lion coat’, as she put her right arm forward in a protective posture.

We laughed and laughed all the way home – no bobcats, more’s the pity.  Helen was ready.

12 Days of Christmas Rolled Into One

The last 24 hours were remarkably good to me.

The math doesn’t add up (5 golden rings ≠ 4 white-tailed deer), but imagine this sung (badly) to The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Edible Arrangement . . . 

Dinner with new friends . . . 

Cello lesson . . .

Interesting debate . . . 

Roof overhead . . .

Jesus loves me . . .

Car back -- only 5 weeks . . . 

4 white-tailed deer . . . 

3 flocks of birds . . . 

2 shooting stars . . . 

1 black bear . . . 

and the Milky Way

An Edible Arrangement came as a thank you from a friend, who knows I have always coveted my own since she received one from her son when we graduated from seminary.  Better yet, I watched the UPS guy deliver it to my back porch while we sat in Bible Study at the church next door, where he came next to drop off something for Sue, recognizing her car and saving himself the extra trip.

Dining with new friends Priscilla and Bill, I got to enjoy their lovely home and sit under the stars as we huddled around the outdoor wood stove for warmth and enjoyed the setting sun and the wonders of a night sky uncrowded by light pollution.  Tracking flight paths of the distant planes, I saw a shooting star.  When I got home, I took my last look at the night sky and there was another.  If it was an omen, a message, the only lesson I draw is to be blessed by the fleeting beauty and wonder, thankful I could see them.

The sky was so perfect we could see the Milky Way, like light cloud cover over our heads.

The deer, of course, are ever present, but out where they run free, their tails bobbing up offer a white exclamation point to their quick departure.

Earlier in the evening, three distinct flocks of birds rose up from the trees as I drove by (sorry for the intrusion).  I imagined their calls into the setting sun . . . we’re late, we’re late, we’re late, as they rushed southeast.

Indeed it was a very, very good day.

Here's hoping & praying your day comes blessed with its own soundtrack.

What I saw today . . .

Mr. Rabbit scurrying out from his hiding place 

within the wisteria cave – Rowen long ago 

claimed the cave within as his own, 

but like any soon-to-be 5 year-old,

surely he would welcome this intruder

Sister Squirrel full-bore runs

straight up the maple tree

she calls home – the one shading the picnic 

table with the firepit sitting abandoned 

by the pretend soldiers in civil war garb

who sat round her for warmth just weeks ago,

now cold under the table

A lone deer jogs casually across

the gravel road before me

with no look back

A raccoon runs – ambles, really – 

all roly-poly

first alongside the car

then moving in front –

not so much darting 

as deciding – deciding

that he could make it –

deciding that I would not

kill him with my behemoth 

of steel – not today

Best of all, 

a school bus of finches*

arises as one

from the evening sun-washed

yellow of the wheat field

_____________________
*A schoolbus of finches borrows from an observation by son Ben Cumberledge, that the color of goldfinches would have them better named as school-bus-yellow finches.  An Idyllic Life  Describing them as a ‘schoolbus of finches’ is in keeping with the whimsical tradition of naming clusters or groups of animals and birds based on some presupposed anthropomorphic attribute, such as a murder of crows.  Fun with Words