Fall in the Forest

Fall isn't just about beautiful color change on the trees. Here's a photo of the forest floor and its own color change.

Deer are in rut right now, and as a result driving at and after dusk consists a lot of hoping not to hit one. I find that using my fog lights helps to spread my light from my headlights out to the edges of the roads. Then I look for eye shine and slow down as soon as I see it.

A few nights ago, I was driving near Roundtop and saw a car coming towards me in the opposite lane. As we were on an already narrow road, I slowed down since even his non-high headlights were nearly blinding. So I wasn't noticing the edges of the road. Suddenly a decent sized buck that I hadn't noticed leapt across the road between the two of us, but closest to me. Never saw it. Another few feet and I would have had a deer hood ornament.

The same night, as I pulled in to Roundtop and neared the cabin three deer danced across the road by the pond, like so many ballerinas moving to the edge of the stage. Likely, they'd been down at the pond for water.

This morning, Dog and I saw three deer, probably the same three, on our pre-dawn walk, a doe with two fawns. I couldn't see much of the deer themselves, just their eyeshine in my headlamp, and the two of the eyeshines were considerably lower than than the third, hence my conclusion that it was a doe with two of this year's fawns. They trotted across the lane ahead of us. Dog wanted in the worst way to give chase.

The deer followed the edge of the road, stopped and looked back at us. We walked closer and were within 20 feet before they moved slowly off and into the woods, much to Dog's disappointment. They certainly weren't afraid of us, probably thinking they were invisible in the dark.