Dear Deer

AC and Butterfly have both written about our marvellous experience with the deer last week, but I have been so busy with Advent postings, hair raising experiences and Christmas baking that my deer pictures have been sitting gathering dust. I have a few extra minutes before I hit the hay tonight, so thought I would take a minute to share a few of my pictures with you too and try to post this first thing in the morning.

As you know, AC and I have spent a lot of time at Riverwood, the 117 acre piece of property on the rugged Canadian Shield. The homestead has an old farmhouse, a couple of barns and three other outer buildings on a couple of cleared acres, but the rest of the property is heavily treed. A river runs along one borderline and old logging roads cut through the property here and there. AC and I love to spend time at this little piece of heaven on earth and enjoy all the gifts that nature has to offer in such a beautiful spot. We walk the trails in the fall and snowshoe along them and down the frozen river in winter. There are lots of deer on the property because every morning in the winter when we go snowshoeing after a fresh snowfall we see deer tracks criss-crossing our paths but we have never seen a deer. Not one!!!

Last year we spent Christmas on the farm and seeing as it was the first year for us not to have the whole family together we decided to do something completely different. We decorated a "Christmas tree" for the birds and we took apples, carrots and carrot tops out for the rabbits, deer and any other animal that happened upon our gifts on Christmas morning. Even with all these treats set out for them, we didn't see one deer – not one! Lots of birds, but not one deer. Not one!!

We drove into town, the nation's capital, last Wednesday and found a Nature Trail Butterfly discovered near her work. She told us we might see deer there, so we took our cameras and a bag of apples and set off along the path. It was a bitter cold day, but we were bundled up and ready for the cold – we thought!

We only ventured in a few yards past the entrance when Butterfly spotted the first deer sitting on a little knoll. We veered off the path and "tip toed" (if you can tip toe in snow boots) over to see if we could catch a closer glimpse of the lovely beast too.


Well, who would have believed it, but as soon as she heard us coming, she got up and walked towards us. Wow! Not only that, but pretty soon she was joined by eight other magnificent companions. It was absolutely thrilling.



All three of us stood there utterly amazed as the deer sauntered up to us to see what we had to offer. We talked softly to the beauties, offered them apples and lettuce and snapped pictures like crazy. I kept expecting them to bolt at any minute, but they didn't.


Our hands and feet were turning into little blocks of ice and Butterfly had to get back to work, so we left long before the deer did. It was totally awesome.

Well, I must toddle off to bed now, so will put this in draft to post in the morning. Hope you have a good rest tonight and wake refreshed in the morning to walk in the sunshine all day.