Outside my kitchen window this morning: deer

I was sipping my morning coffee, with young Teddi behind me on the balcony, baking himself in the sun. I noticed movement outside, through the windows and screens: two deer, walking up the side of the hill toward my patio area. Just ten feet away. Took some snaps. The deer noticed movement, too. Wary, they wandered further up the hill and away, through the avacado trees, into the morning.

At the Bauer Compound, the deer seem to be around somewhere about half the time. It's a deer haven, and even my dad, an animal lover like the rest of us, accepts that fact, despite these creatures' habit of eating the fruit and vegetables, which erodes and complicates that love. Normally, he is in the thrall of some anthropomorphic war with competitors in the harvest of same. I think my mom's love of the deer has modified his primal dog-eat-dog perspective about the competition. He is rendered semi-civilized by love. (I'm in the habit of telling him: family Gopher staked a claim here long before family Bauer ever did. But it does no good. He hates those little guys. To him, my sentiments are just College Boy nonsense. But they are not.)

When I come across the deer on our road, I just stop and let 'em by. They seem to understand this. Often, they're in no hurry to flee. Occasionally, they just stare at me, freezing time and action, residing in the eternal present, like God.

Those are some big ears, man. And they really use 'em.

Always loved this song. From 1968.