A Close Encounter of the Cervine Kind
Dec. 24th, 2019 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mama_kestrelI have now had a vehicular encounter with a deer.
I am fine, my car is fine, and the deer is fine. No, I did not hit the deer. The deer hit me.
I was trying to explain to my daughter-in-law's grandmother how far out in the middle of nowhere we lived when we first moved to this part of Indiana, and suddenly realized that it wasn't really much out of the way to go by our old house. It is situated in the middle of fields (currently stubble-filled), across the road from a wildlife preserve. Seriously. Middle of Nowhere, Indiana.
So as we were coming up on the house - the only one in that half-mile stretch of road - I spotted a little flock of deer in the field on the north side of the road. It looked like several adults and a couple of juveniles. I do not trust deer. They were meandering toward the road, and when it started to look like they might cross, I slowed down, then stopped entirely. We three humans sat and watched them. I drive a red minivan, and it was broad daylight. I figured my dragon was, if nothing else, a very visible boulder.
Sure enough, when they got about five feet from the large red object in the middle of the road, the largest suddenly threw up his head and bolted. The rest followed. Three of them ran in front of the car; several ran behind it, and they vanished into the preserve. All but one. That one bolted with the rest, taking a flying leap...headfirst into the van. THUMP! She bounced off onto her little white tailed rump, stood up, shook herself, and then tried again, this time going successfully around in front of the car and across, presumably to join the rest of her deer buddies.
So yeah. I didn't hit the deer. The deer hit me.
I am fine, my car is fine, and the deer is fine. No, I did not hit the deer. The deer hit me.
I was trying to explain to my daughter-in-law's grandmother how far out in the middle of nowhere we lived when we first moved to this part of Indiana, and suddenly realized that it wasn't really much out of the way to go by our old house. It is situated in the middle of fields (currently stubble-filled), across the road from a wildlife preserve. Seriously. Middle of Nowhere, Indiana.
So as we were coming up on the house - the only one in that half-mile stretch of road - I spotted a little flock of deer in the field on the north side of the road. It looked like several adults and a couple of juveniles. I do not trust deer. They were meandering toward the road, and when it started to look like they might cross, I slowed down, then stopped entirely. We three humans sat and watched them. I drive a red minivan, and it was broad daylight. I figured my dragon was, if nothing else, a very visible boulder.
Sure enough, when they got about five feet from the large red object in the middle of the road, the largest suddenly threw up his head and bolted. The rest followed. Three of them ran in front of the car; several ran behind it, and they vanished into the preserve. All but one. That one bolted with the rest, taking a flying leap...headfirst into the van. THUMP! She bounced off onto her little white tailed rump, stood up, shook herself, and then tried again, this time going successfully around in front of the car and across, presumably to join the rest of her deer buddies.
So yeah. I didn't hit the deer. The deer hit me.
