An evening surprise

My sister sees this all the time. After all, she lives in the Northwoods. But here in the suburbs, just a mile from Minneapolis city limits, this sight is not very common.

Last night, Raven (our German shepherd mix) and I were out for our evening stroll. It was later than usual, a little past dusk, and it was getting pretty dark. As we came back through the wooded area near our house, I looked through the opening in the wooden fence.

There was something there I hadn't seen before--perhaps some sort of statue? It looked like--but could it really be? It was so still, it couldn't be a living thing...

Then Raven noticed and started to bark. The statue started to move--quickly. It bonded away from us--toward our back yard and to the nearby county road.

I got Raven back home and went looking for the moving statue. It was nowhere to be seen, and I didn't hear any screeching tires on the road, so I figured the statue was all right for now.

It looked like a young deer to me--no antlers, and fairly small. A doe? A yearling? I didn't see any other deer with it or nearby.

It's been a couple of years since I've seen deer in our neighborhood. Come to think of it, I haven't seen our groundhog around lately. (Did I ever blog about that--we had our own groundhog burrowing under our shed--and two of our neighbor's sheds as well. He seemed quite at home.)

Maybe the deer scared Robbinsdale Ronny (the groundhog) off. We'll have to look for him again in early February.

By then, the deer should be easier to spot. We'll just follow their prints in the foot-high snow.

Till next time,


Suzi