Another weird thing

There are often times when Hubby and I wonder why our lives are not what most would consider "normal".  We wonder why weird things always happen to us and why our stories seem to be so different than the stories shared by our peers.  I chalk it up to our lifestyle.  When you live the way we do, you are bound to have stories of crazy animal antics and oddly placed bee stings.  We don't even have that much land, or that many animals, but for some reason, weird things always happen in our back yard and what happened a few weeks ago was no exception....

It was a Sunday morning, at 6:00 am....yes folks...while you were snug in your beds at 6:00am on a Sunday morning, Hubby and I were awoken by horrible screams.  Screams that were not quite discernible, as in "is that a person or an animal?" kind of scream.  So we rolled out of bed and in our pj's we stumbled on to the back deck.  The screams were louder and very close...whatever was making that noise was in our backyard, in the woods.  We put on our boots and went down to edge of the woods.

Through the dark shadows we could see that something big, black and furry was moving around the edge of the fence.  Brian and I were both unsure of what this creature was...until it hit us...oh yeah...our dog is big, black and furry.  (On a side note, Waylon, our dog, is a big wimp.  We have a shed with a doggie door and he spends most of his days and nights in the safety of his lair, unless we are out there with him.  He is much happier to be in the garage or on the deck.  He doesn't like to walk on the grass.  He is afraid of our chickens and does not come out if the chickens are in the yard, unless there is something promised, like food or a walk.  We have watched him start to chase a deer until he got close enough to realize how big it was, only to turn around and head back up the yard.  So, we assumed he was still in the shed, really...I know he is a dog, but the last thing I expected was to see him investigating loud screams from some kind of animal.) 

When we got close enough to survey the situation and call off the hound, we realized the screams were coming from a baby deer that was stuck in our fence.  We have no idea how it got in the yard.  In an attempt to escape, it was obvious that the little gal couldn't find a way out.  When she got stuck, she started screaming, triggering the dog, which made things worse.  Her little foot was stuck in the wires of the fence and by this time she was lying on her side, completely exhausted. 

We approached with caution, because a deer, even a tiny one has some serious kick.  Brian cut the wires loose but she didn't get up, so we held down her legs and checked for breathing, but her poor little body couldn't handle the stress and within minutes she had stopped breathing.  We were too late.  She only had one injury, a scratch, from the fence wire.  The dog had not harmed her, but I am sure he contributed to the fear.  So Hubby picked up the little body and we hauled her up the woods to the yard.  He put her in the back of the truck and took her up to the right-of-way with power lines near our house (can I tell you that we really felt like we were doing something wrong, I mean, early morning, disposing of a dead body, it just seemed weird).  The grass is tall there, and all number of varmints and vultures patrol the area.  And, so is the circle of life.

When I walked back on the porch, my heart wrenched.  In the neighbor's yard, I could hear a doe calling, a specific call, from a doe to her fawn, one that fell on the silence that had returned to this early Sunday morning.  We walked back in the house, the clocked blinked 7:00am...too early to be up on a Sunday.  We ate breakfast and went on about our day as usual, nothing different here...just another story to add to the log list of weird things that happen in our backyard.