The Herd (Runinants)

It started innocently enough. Although I am living in Paradise, I was saddened by the lost of my beloved pet boxer Abby, and am trying to fill the void. So, I bought a few deer pellets for RUMINANT ANIMALS (Thanks Ed for SP) and invited Momma Doe and her yearling for dinner on a daily basis. They soon equated the shape of the green suburban coming down the road about 4 or 5 p.m. with a bucket full of corn or deer pellets and would come down to the beach and wait in the trees nearby for me to lay down the pellets. It was really cute to see those two deer trying to hide behind leafless trees---thinking I couldn’t see them---with their ears perked up, standing motionless, looking at me incessantly, thinking they were invisible. The truth is, I could see every detail of their eyes and fur. However, they really depend upon motion as a sense more than seeing distinct objects. So they equate that to me---thinking if I don’t see them move, they are invisible. I have found I can stand within a few feet of them and as long as I am motionless, I am invisible. Remember the movies about the dinosaurs, the raptors, and the characters being a few inches from a Raptor and being “invisible” as long as they didn’t move? Well, that trait has certainly carried on into my Michigan Deer.

I would laugh out loud and chuckle with this wisdom. As I talked out loud I sounded eerily like my friend Julie---who would chuckle that way about Abby. When Abby would try to “butter up” to Julie for a snack---thinking Julie didn’t have a clue about Abby’s motivations with the short wagging tail---Julie would chuckle in the tone much like I chuckle over my deer. Isn’t it fun to watch someone you love try to get something from you when they don’t think you know their motivation and you don’t care anyway even though YOU know because you love them so much you’d give them anything anyway????

Be that as it may, after countless dinners the Deer have started to trust me and have little fear of me to the point where I can pour corn within a few feet of them and they tolerate me. Well, maybe that’s because they are pretty hungry from the long cold winter, although some roots are showing now and they can fill themselves more readily. Still, they are hungry enough to go to the edge of trust with me. They really like drinking water from my stream and kicking up the succulent roots that have been at stream temperature all winter. A couple weeks ago those shoots were hidden below ice and snow. However, now spring is coming rapidly, the birds are returning, deer food is being exposed. Soon, the Great Lake itself will be exposed again.

The commercial fishermen are involved in a flurry of activity everyday, trying to get out on the ice with the trucks and snowmobiles and bring back the whitefish before the final meltdown and blowing winds break up the ice. Yesterday they went out 16 miles past the Naubinway Lighthouse and brought back 3,700 pounds of whitefish. They bring the fish up thru the ice on gill nets, and load a wooden sled with tall walls to the max and tow it back. All this over 18 inches of ice some 16 miles from shore. Is that a job you want? Can you imagine going out there and hearing the ice creak and moan, going over cracks and fissures and feeling the waves move under you and bob you up and down. You can’t wear a survival suit, it slows you down too much to fish. You just trust the elements and the ice in order to make the living. Should things go bad, it’s not likely you would live. As much as I admire the Coast Guard, and my friends within it, they wouldn’t get to my fishermen friends in time in the frigid waters of Naubinway from the Traverse City Air Base.

I just went out on the ice cross-country skiing yesterday, over anywhere from 1 to 5 feet of depth of water beneath me. I took virtually no risk compared to my commercial fishermen friends. However, as I skied the ice creaked and moaned and moved about and I must admit, it unnerved me at times. At first I told myself to relax, I can’t drown in 5 foot of water. But then, I invisioned myself going down thru the ice in 5 feet of water with a pair of almost 7 foot long skis on. It would be damn near impossible to get them off in the ice cold water---in fact, I realized, I could drown in much less than 5 foot of water. However, I persevered and continue to enjoy the ecstasy of being out on the lake on skis with the morning sun coming up. You can’t imagine unless you join me in it. I am facing the east, watching the sun come up over the ice and the cedar trees, out there all alone, without a sound except the ice and wind, maybe a coyote, feeling the faint warmth of the sun on my face, knowing I am part of a greater thing than myself. It really makes the day go by so much better, exercising first thing in the morning like that. Anyway, back to the story.

Such are the deer—willing to risk going out on the edge with a human, me, in order to survive, make a “living”, despite the potential fact that I could take out my pistol and have enough venison forever right in my front yard. But, they have to go out on the edge, because they are hungry, as are my commercial fishermen friends, going out on the edge because their families are hungry.

Well, the news got out. It got out that I am unarmed when I feed my pets, my deer, and shake the bucket full of corn and say reassuring words and have plenty of food to share. It wasn’t long and we had a couple of young bucks joining the herd. Before I could cough and blink I inherited 14 deer now. They are about 1/3 bucks and 2/3 does, pretty good odds I’d say that the bucks will have a good spring. About half of them trust me, and stay within a few feet when I pour the corn. The other half take off running about 50 yards away and watch me, and as soon as they see me go back into the house they come back and have their dinner. I am sure that someday soon they too will become closer friends. I went from one bag of week of feed to about 6 bags of feed a week now.

Yes, it started innocently enough, but now I am become Pandora, and am holding an open box. Because, in addition to feeding the deer, I have been putting out salt blocks and alfalfa and bird seed in feeders and now I have blue-jays, chickadees, too many red squirrels (including “Fast Freddy”), crows, black birds and chipmunks. Virtually every living critter within several miles now equates my house with home, and mom’s cooking, and SANCTUARY. Isn’t that a great thing to be? A sanctuary for someone or some thing? Isn’t that the love of a mother for her children, always offering sanctuary. Isn’t that the love of my friend Ed to come help me work on this never finished housing project? Isn’t that the love of God, to give his Son Jesus, creating a sanctuary for you? Yes, I like being here and each day having these most beneficial thoughts inspired by all around me. God Bless You This Day, thanks for listening, and may you also find your SANCTUARY among the Herd.