DASHING DEER

It seemed that only a short time ago I was watching kangaroos bounding past the house where I lived. It happened on such a regular basis that I didn't even bother to look up. It was so mundane that the dog even stopped barking at them as they bounded by the back fence.

Now I find myself in Canada and confronted by a new type of bounder. Well to be accurate deer don't bound so much as leap, though those around OK Falls are more the ambling type of deer who just saunter down the middle of the rode going to one suburban garden after another.

The Australian in me still gets a kick out of seeing deer wandering around the streets. They really have no fear of humans and you can get reasonably close before they wander off. They crop grass close to busy roads all the time, yet in all my Canadian travels I haven't see one roadkill deer. The only dead deer I have seen were 2 dead deer beside a road in Washington, State, USA.

That tells me two things. American deer are dumber than Canadian deer and Australian kangaroos are dumber than all the animals in North America, because our roads are littered with dead kangaroos.

Just this morning I let the dog out into what passes as a backyard to be confronted by 2 deer happily chomping away on the remains of a summer garden. The dog thought about a chase but decided that discretion was the better part of valor and sat back valiantly and saw the deer off the property. The deer paid both the dog and I scant attention and wandered off when they felt like it.

Damn deer!

The other animal I have run into recently is bighorn sheep. I have seen them on the rocky slopes of the hills near where I walk the dog. They have only appeared recently so I assume that the onset of the cold weather and snow has driven them down from the higher peaks.

Sometimes I just see them far off silhouetted on a far off hill, but today they were relatively close to the trail a group of 5 bighorns who just watched my passage impassively never once taking their eyes from me or the dog. The buck was a huge animal with an impressive set of horns. Sad that these animals that are adept at suriving in such a harsh environment are often easy fodder for hunters gun's.

Not much going on with the book, still editing slowly with a target to finish by 07 December. What a relief that will be.