IN DEER SEASON

                       “That time of year thou mayst in me behold

                        When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

                        Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

                        Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

                 (The first lines of W.S.’s Sonnet 73)

Beautiful as it was here in the early fall, there’s much to be said about this pre-winter time as well.  There have been many chilly desolate-seeming days and dark nights occasionally filled with the yelps of coyotes, enough to make you shiver, or even blacker nights and mornings when the air is so still it’s almost spooky. 

Snow showers whiten the high peaks of the Adirondacks

Sometimes early morning frost appears to cover the landscape with a sugary mist.  The air is usually perfectly still in these post-dawn hours, and so every feature seems momentarily immobilized, flash-frozen in place.  Your footsteps in the grass leave prints as the grass seems to fold and break under your feet–your footsteps the only sign that you have not walked into a still photograph.

Early morning footprints in the frost

Now you can see the shapes of things.  Buildings appear that had been hidden all spring and summer. Now you know there are rocky ledges in the woods behind our house. Now you can see the shapes of the branches.  The meadow is still bright green and the grass short, easy to walk through, thanks to farmer Dan’s second cutting.  (His square baler is still in a corner of the field with a half-compacted bale stuck inside; we guess the equipment gave out when he was just about done and the effort to fix it and pull it out was something he hasn’t have the time for.)  The pond is full again, thanks to plenty of recent rain.

A thin layer of ice covers the pond

Hunting season for deer began last week.  (Rifle deer season–bucks only–runs from November 10 to November 25.)   Although the land directly behind our house is posted (“No Hunting”) just behind and a bit more to the south the land is open to hunting.  It’s considered wise to wear bright colors (that is to say, it's considered stupid not to wear some hunter’s orange) when hunting or even walking in the woods off trail during rifle season.  We have seen deer behind the house, near the woods, and have seen plenty of signs that they bed down–or used to, anyway–in the copse at the edge of our property.  (Large areas of flattened grass where they lay down, and bent over grass that marked their paths in and out.) 

The first day of deer hunting season we heard a couple of shots early in the morning.  Sure enough, it was Chris, son-in-law and neighbor, who bagged a good-sized buck.  Ken’s grandson Spencer hunts too, and has tried his luck in the woods behind our house, but without success so far.  He was luckier last year hunting near his home in Bristol.  I love venison, but I would never be able to shoot a deer.  I just couldn't do it.

Chris with his deer that manages to look as if it were still alive.

The challenge is always to get a good clean shot, ideally one that drops the deer with a single bullet.  Once down, the deer is gutted where it falls (food for coyotes or other animals) lightening considerably the amount of deer to drag home.  This is no minor consideration, especially if you’re hunting alone.  At the weighing station (where you must report shooting bear, deer, turkey or moose) Chris’ deer was found to weigh 165 pounds, minus innards, of course.  

Here is Chris' description:“I shot it in the swamp at the exact location that I have had success on two other occasions.  It was not far from the field, so I dragged it through the woods and into the field.  Once Audrey and Ben joined me we dragged it to the back corner of our property where Audrey then had the idea to get the kids’ plastic sled, and it worked wonderfully.  We then took it over the horse bridge and up past the barn.  I loaded it into the brand new mini-van (!) with a tarp under it and some blankets, just in case.  Ben actually went with me to the New Haven general store and was very helpful in getting the deer out of the car and onto the weighing scale.  And yes, while I certainly could have unlawfully just hung the deer in my barn and gone back out hunting the next day, the law requires me to tear my deer tag off my license and check it in at an official station where they register the deer, when and where it was taken, etc.”

Yes, that deer is heavy!  (Audrey, giving it a try.)

Audrey and Ben pose with the deer (which still looks alive).  Audrey (a future veterinarian?)
will probably not eat any of the meat even though she helped her dad with the deer.

Audrey, just a few days later, looking on as animal behaviorist Temple Grandin
signs her book following a lecture at UVM.

There is no shortage of wildlife even though finding an opportunity for a clear shot at a buck is chancy.  An infrared-sensing camera that Spencer mounted on a tree last summer that recorded several bears and numerous deer is testimony to that.

Some other animals met their end this month as well.  Lesley raised some 30 chickens for eating this fall, in addition to the egg-layers.  Chickens raised for eating are an entirely different creature than egg-layers.  They eat and drink themselves silly, becoming basketball-sized lumps in a matter of a very few short months.  Their breasts become so large their legs can barely support them.  A couple of them died prematurely (that is, before their scheduled deaths at the slaughterhouse), most likely from heart failure, like overweight humans.  Five of these birds now reside in our freezer.

The meat chickens milling around the feeder, as usual

Brought outdoors, the meat chickens had no idea what to do.

November is a quiet time, really.  One’s focus changes from outdoors to in, and cooking takes up the slack in warmer days filled by gardening. This is the first full month of November we have experienced here.  Last year in this month we were in Africa (so long ago and so far away).  

Since I began with a poem, I'll end with a poem, one neither famous nor old, and not about autumn or about age.  More about youth, in fact. 

                                                  I Miss You 

                                         It was in first grade

                                        When I saw you on the bus

                                        You looked at me

                                        And I saw you write

                                        Something

                                        On a piece of paper.

                                        You gave it to me; I read it.

                                        It was “Love ya!”

                                        I want you to remember me

                                       When you look in the fourth seat.

                                       Now I am in the third grade.

                                       I miss you

                                       I miss you

                                       I miss you

                                       I looked at you in the last row.

                                       I heard someone yell “Harry,”

                                      Sit next to me!”

                                      You did.

                                      Sit next to her.

                                      And you forgot about me.

                                      I miss ya

                                      I miss ya

                                      I miss ya

                                                                                          by Carly Huston, age 8 (now 13)