Meeting my deer totem

I was rounding the corner of Norway & Willow
near the village of Ephraim (Wisconsin) on my
Trek bike one hot afternoon when I nearly ran
into a doe, a deer - a female DEER -
standing in the middle of the street.

I stopped, hoping she wouldn't charge me.
I finally won the inter-species staredown:
scuttling hooves as she turned, she hurdled a
wooden fence & ran into the forest.

A beautiful tawny female animal
in the bright sunlight of July asphalt
darted into the darkness of woods & disappeared.
Karin Wolf of Madison told me that deer
are totems of gentleness & I believe it.

A wounded fawn along a Wisconsin country road

At the corner of Sugar Hill Road & Hillcrest Drive in the town of Brooklyn (Wis.) this morning I saw a fawn. She was stoically dragging her broken right rear leg as she moved dow.n the side of the sunny asphalt country road.

A white wolfish dog watched the injured deer from across the road, his owner keeping him at bay by voice command. It was just about the saddest damn thing I'd seen in ages, but I admired that fawn's struggle to survive. I slowed down immediately. I pray that I never hit a deer with my little Volkswagon.

I am moving to Door County (Wisconsin) this Friday - just in time for the Steel Bridge Song Fest this wseekend. I hope I have better luck finding a job up there, where the rich Chicagoans temporarily dwell. At least for the summer tourist season. Enjoy the summer, everybody!