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Deer John (true story - posted for miscellanea)
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Deer John (true story - posted for miscellanea) |
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divine chaos Senior Member
since 2006-07-09
Posts 617dancing 'neath the moon 
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Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away called Misty Mountain, there lived a crazy man, who we'll call John, and his family. One day, John was out mowing the field on the tractor. We had a huge field, well they still have it actually, but I dont live there now so I have to say "we had" -- anyway! They live on a 64 acre farm, which I may have mentioned in previous John stories. Wow y'all are distracting - lost my train of thought. Okay, got it back. So, anyway, John was out mowing the hay (which is dried up grass, for all of y'all non-countryfied people) 'cause now that they don't have cows anymore, they sell the hay to people that need it. For what? you ask -- well for their cows, of course. Geez y'all ask some silly questions. Anyway! While he was mowing, a doe (that would be a female deer, in this case a mama deer) leaped out of the tall grass and took off into the woods. John stopped the tractor, climbed down and went looking around for a fawn (which is a baby deer *grins*). Mommy deer teach their babies to stay very very still and quiet so that they stay hidden, then they create a distraction, like running off into the woods - which is kinda dumb 'cause then they leave their babies out there unattended and what if they were hidden really good and then the mommy couldn't find them -- then the baby would grow up thinking it was abandoned by it's mother and have psychological problems and have to go to deer counselors and years down the road the mommy might go to the Oprah show or something looking for her long lost baby, and then be reunited and just find out that the mom was really just dumb and misplaced her baby! Um, yeah -- so, back to the story. John looked and looked for a baby for about 45 minutes and didn't see one, so he figured the doe was just a spaz and he got back on the tractor to continue mowing. Apparently, mama deer - you know, the dumb one that was eventually going to cause her baby to need counseling - had hidden the baby, who was only about 3 days old, very well, because after about 20 minutes John hit it with the tractor and ended up cutting one of his back legs off. John, being the animal lover that he is, did his best to stop the bleeding and raced down the hill to the house and called a family friend, who was a physician, and had him come up to the house to stitch the little guy up. When my sisters were very little, John had built them a playhouse, a replica of the house we lived in (which he also built) .. and this playhouse became a home for the baby deer until he was healed up. All of us were a part of his recovery and his raising. We fed him goat's milk from a baby bottle and the girls named him Freckles - 'cause fawns (for those of you that don't remember, that's a baby deer *giggle*) have little white spots on them when they're babies. Well Freckles became a part of the family pretty quickly. He was very tame, very playful and thought John was his mother. He would come bounding onto the front porch and stomp around when he wanted to play and we were all inside. He and the dog played tag for hours out in the front yard -- but if John was outside, which he normally is during the day, Freckles was right on his heels, just content to be close to him. We all loved our little deer very much, he was just precious. But as he grew older, John thought that he needed to be back in the wild with his fellow deer. Everyone that lived around us knew about the deer and that they were to leave him alone when they were deer hunting and such - and just to make sure, we tagged his ear with a big orange tag so people would know that it was him because he wandered further and further from the house as he got older. John decided that, after about a year, it was time to teach him to be afraid of humans - the first step in returning him to the wild. I was not privvy to this information; well, actually he probably told me this and I wasn't listening. At any rate, I didn't know that this was his plan. So, one day on my way home from work, I drove up the long dirt road to the house and as I rounded the bend to the driveway, there were John and Freckles out in the front yard. John stopped what he was doing, looking rather startled and turned around toward the car, freezing in place, except for one hand which was held behind him at the belt of his jeans, flicking his hand at the wrist (a human deer tail). Freckles followed suit. I watched them curiously, wondering, "What the heck is he doing now?" As I passed the Poplar tree, John bolted, his hands up on either side of his head, fingers wiggling (his deer ears) as he ran for the tree-line with Freckles on his heels and they dove into the trees. By this time, of course, I was laughing so hard that I nearly ran my battleship on wheels right into the barn. Just as I started to compose myself, I glanced towards the woods and up popped two heads - one sable deer head and one with a leather hat and wiggly finger ears which, of course, made the giggling start again. I, miraculously, managed to get into the house without dissolving into hysterical giggling because of all the head popping action going on over at the tree line. I looked at my mother and said, "WHAT is he doing out there?! He nearly made me wreck the car!" She rolled her eyes with a bemused grin and said, "He thinks he's a deer and is teaching Freckles to be afraid of humans." I just stared at her for a minute before bursting into laughter, and spent the afternoon watching them out the window. This odd behavior continued for a few weeks, one never knew when one might see two little heads popping up from behind bushes to see what was going on, and it always made me giggle to see him doing it. But, surprisingly enough, it worked. Freckles joined a small herd of deer that stayed right around the pond in our front yard. He'd come to visit every once in a while, would sidle up to us out of nowhere wanting a pat on the nose or to nudge us playfully, or for a twilight game of tag with our Golden Retriever, Annie. A couple years passed, we saw our little friend less and less, and eventually he quit coming altogether. We know what probably happened to him, but we like to think that he's moved on to greener pastures and is still frolicking with his buddies in the woods surrounding our little piece of heaven, Misty Mountain. |
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| © Copyright 2006 Sheli Carmichael - All Rights Reserved | |||
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
Delightful story.Thank you. martyjo |
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miscellanea Member Elite
since 2004-06-24
Posts 4060OH |
Sheli, You are a delightful writer and the story is precious! I love the sense of humor you've used, yet still, this one gave me goose bumps near the end! Thank you for posting this! Glad I was able to take a read! I like how you set your story in motion--never a dull moment. You know, I thought that my family had done some pretty unusual things like finding a young wounded hawk and reteaching it to fly (as if it didn't know!!!); oh, yes, we even tied a kite string to its legs so that if the other birds were trying to get it again that we could reel it in! (not too smart probably, but it worked) And then there are the baby skunk stories... That's a stinkin subject to this day! Maybe I'll write about it some day I have some time. So refreshing to see other animal lovers share their stories! Thanks again, Sheli! miscellanea |
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divine chaos Senior Member
since 2006-07-09
Posts 617dancing 'neath the moon |
glad y'all enjoyed!  I'm debating on whether or not to post a couple more. I've never written a prose-y kinda format, I've always just posted my funny little stories in my online journal for friends and add them to my notebook called "The Absolutely True, Only Slightly Embellished, Story of My Life" that I'm saving for my daughter hehe  -- so I'll keep debating lol misc .. rofl .. a stinkin subject? I'd love to read about it sometime! *grins* hm, I have a few more stories (unwritten as yet) about life on the farm with John he rode a cow backwards once (he was an unwilling participant in that), we performed surgery on a cat (I almost knocked myself out with the ether as well as the cat), I'd say my family and yours woulda gotten along well as far as animals were concerned *grins* ~*Sheli*~ By words the mind is winged ~Aristophanes~ |
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miscellanea Member Elite
since 2004-06-24
Posts 4060OH |
sheli, You do Prosie just fine! Post them. Farm life is obsolete in some areas, let alone, the crazy stories that sometimes accompany it. It's kind of a legacy that needs to be left to those who haven't had the experience or privilege... (Just my thoughts on it...) cathy misc |
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