Snowdance

It's not the first snow of the winter. We've had a couple short-lived dustings before now, however today it was enough to cover the grass and reflect the moonlight once it got dark outside. But it all started earlier in the day...

Just about 2pm, as I geared up to fill bird feeders and seed buckets from the new bag of seed I picked up yesterday, I saw a flake, then another. It started as a lazy, half-hearted flurry, the kind you have to look closely to be sure is really snow and not just stuff in the air. In less than ten minutes, it became a pretty, but steady snowfall, the ground rapidly whitening around me as I topped off feeders for the noisy customers waiting impatiently in the brush. 

Once the seed was stowed, I took the bag of apples with me to the octagon of the deck - my favorite place for salting the lawn with deer apples, the woodland version of an Eostre egg hunt.  I lobbed a half dozen Empire across the back lawn, from the cedar deadfall to the side hill, then another half dozen for good measure. I hear they are hungry, not many acorns in the woods for them to eat.

Back inside, with shepherd's pie made and waiting for dinner and a hot cup of cider, I watched the birds converge on the feeders, the woodpecker on the suet. It was only about an hour before the four legged diners arrived, not quite enough snow on the ground to completely hide the apples and they found four or five before wandering up into the brush of the side hill.

They wandered back down again later, didn't seem to find any new apple locations, and eventually made their way out the back towards the power lines behind us.

Dinner time for the humans came and went, with dishes washed 'camping style' (heating hot water in the tea kettle) while Himself finished installing the new hot water heater. Returning to my office, the yard out the window glowed with snow in the dark and there - off at the edge - were long legs.  Off went the lights and I sat in the dark and watched the two of them, nosing again in the now-deeper snow and finding still more treasure.  

The most entertaining thing of all...the young one, plowing snow with its nose, head tilted sideways, would start to gambol about. The movements so reminiscent of a young goat, with the long legs going in so many directions and invariably ending with an attempted head butt of the mother, an invitation to play that was ignored until it was rebuffed, by a hoof on the head.  Off the young one went, back to snow plowing, then kicking and leaping, then another try at getting mom to play.  I watched them for fifteen minutes easily, sitting there in the dark of my office, the young one dancing in the snow and the mom going about her serious business of browsing before some noise startled the youngster off into the brush, with mom following sedately along behind, in her own time.