They barely acknowledged my presence. And moved on.- - -
I just remembered ...
I had the opportunity the other day of rescuing a fawn from certain doom. I was working at the back of my property when I heard the distinct and prolonged bleat of a young deer. A distressful bleat (you live amongst them and you get to where you can understand the language). I walked about a hundred yards down the old turnpike to see what was going on but the screaming stopped. I figured the fawn had found its mother and all was well. I went back to work.
Then a neighbor drove up and told me that, sure enough, a young deer was caught in the farm fence down the road a bit.
So I hopped on my ATV and went to the rescue!
The fawn had tried to leap the fence (standard woven wire farm fence), had accidentally slipped a leg through the top wires and, when the little guy came down on the other side, had wrapped the wire around its lower leg. The fawn was hanging almost vertical when I got to him/her.
I had this happen once before down below my house. I pulled what was left of a carcass (after the buzzards got through with it) of a deer that had gotten entangled in the exact same way, but wasn't able to escape, and I disposed of the remains. I'll bet this sort of thing happens more than we would all imagine.
Anyway, I climbed the hillside to the fawn, wrestled with the tightly wrapped wire, and finally freed the deer.
It was disoriented (in fact it slammed into the fence upon release) and was hobbling. But it looked to be in good shape as it scampered off.
A good deed on my part. I saved a deer for the hunters to shoot next year.
Ah, life on the frontier.
