deer and geese and evenings

Yesterday I took my walk at late dusk, and the different light brought new life to common sights. A doe and two fawns ran ahead of me, and their tails were positively glowing white in the haze of the coming night, swishing back and forth like a bouquet of pond cat tails. I thought something was wrong with my eyes; that's how white their tails were.

In a few minutes, I heard a great honking and looked up to see a flock of geese. They were silhouetted so starkly in the vast, clear sky. Poor dears were heading the wrong way, but maybe in a few months after they've met their end in the Yukon Territory, God will let them know that one human, at the very least, recognized their last flight as incredibly beautiful. Or they could be, as my mother suggested, taking an alternate path to avoid bad weather. When I was almost home again and it was pretty much dark, I heard one single honking goose overhead, also flying northwest. I was about to get really sad, but I strained my eyes and could see that there were at least 7 or 8 of them. Just the one honker though, keeping everybody encouraged. The other ones were thinking, "This route seems very fishy..."

Tonight Jason and Dad took two horses and went on a hunt overnight. We need winter meat desperately - a few deer, an elk, or a combination. Jason had a little buck in bow range a couple of evenings ago and called my dad on his cell to see if he'd be available to help haul it out, since it was almost sunset and he was a ways off the road. Talk about blending old ways and new - a bow and arrows and a cell phone. Unfortunately, Dad had a meeting that night, so Jason decided to let the critter go, but he's sorry about it now after a couple subsequent days of being skunked.

We only did a little hunting in Alaska, and I like being in the mode again of having reason to care about the weather and skies other than for recreation. Because of the full moon and clear skies lately, the deer stay up late grazing and go to bed in early morning. Then they sleep in and get up midday for even more grazing. This, as opposed to grazing primarily at dawn and dusk. Now I find that very cool!