Beside the Stream

On any given day, a herd of ten does and fawns moves through the back yard.  It’s hard to tell them apart.  I can recognize a big lady with twins and a scar on her leg, but the rest are just brown, fleet and mostly female.  I don’t see a set of antlers in the yard from one month to the next.  

The biggest doe was a shy Miss Manners until one day in late November, when she started swishing her rump provocatively.   That day she didn’t look shy at all.  She stood under a ponderosa pine and looked at me, and I looked at her, and her needs were unmistakeable.  She was feeling it. 

I wasn’t the only one who noticed this doe had one thing on her mind.   A big old male stepped out of the woods and started investigating her hind end.  It must have smelled just right to him, because he kept after her. 

 But she kept moving along, grazing and shifting her rear, looking over her shoulder and wondering why he didn’t look more like the buck she had in mind.  

 He was no beauty queen.  He would’ve been a twelve point buck except that one of his antlers was broken off.  His face was scarred up, he had tattered ears, and if he was a man he’d have faded tattoos along with big ropy muscles.  This male had the heft of age, but he was not her shining prince. 

 And he wasn’t her only choice, either.  Out of the woods steps buck number two,  

eager and young with five points total.  He was a sweet young thing for certain, but in truth he’d barely be doing his own laundry if he were human.   He grazed next to her and asked sort of conversationally if she was interested in his help,

 but she said no. 

And that was lucky because yet another buck stepped onto the grass, and he was most definitely what she had in mind.  My Doris Day had morphed into Mae West, and when she told that buck to come up see her sometime, she was thinking “and now is a VERY good time” so loudly that even I could hear it. 

Um hmmm, she said.

Did I count ten points, she said.  It surely is extremely delightful to meet you.

Uh, huh, he said. 

And my shy Doris Day of a doe had sex on one side of the wagon, and she had sex on the other side of the wagon.  And then she switched her tail, and he trotted off to help out other women in need: the year is long, and the mating season is oh so short. 

 I haven’t seen any of these bucks since that day in late November.  I think perhaps neither has she.  According to Wikipedia, the gestation period is 190 to 200 days, so the fawn should be here in mid to late May.  So far she has been looking sleek, Mazel Tov, but the snow is deep and the winter is long.  I hope she makes it through.