Deer me

I like nature. I like animals. I don't eat them and figure they've as much right to their place on the planet as any of us. On my commute I've seen a lot of deer, rabbits and the occasional fox. When I drop down to the canal and take it the last 5 miles home I can see cranes and turtles and sometimes very large birds of prey - owls and buzzards (the big kind).

That's not to say that you'll find me in some small village gathering moss and watching nature do her thing.   I like my city life too. And that's the great thing about where I live, I'm a few miles from either.

The unfortunate part is of course that we have to intermingle and too often the poor creatures meet with one of the dreaded cars and we know who wins that engagement.  This morning one of the poor creatures came close to engaging a bicycle and I'm not at all certain who would have won that one.

I had just peaked a bridge over the beltway and was on the down side, going at a good clip. I had just checked my mirror for the dreaded cars and when looking back at the road saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was big and brown and coming straight at me from the right.

A deer had jumped the railing to cross the road and was midair and about to take the stuffing right out of me. Well. I like my stuffing and was fairly certain the deer liked its stuffing just as much. I soon was fist full of brakes and rear wheel sliding out into the road. I came to a very wobbly stop and the poor creature had landed a few feet in front of me and seemed quite startled as well as it's legs were flailing in all directions. We exchanged a brief glance. It recovered it's balance and bolted back over the railing and disappeared to from where it came.

I guess we were both too busy looking out for the dreaded car and didn't notice each other.