Walking the llama trail - The North Star Monthly

www.northstarmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2009 23>> Page 1side us.Then she disappeared for awhile, and when we finally sawher again she was limping badly.She had a huge welt on her rightshoulder, and couldn’t put anyweight on that leg. Surely, she’dbeen hit by a car and we wonderedhow she could possiblysurvive. It was painful just towatch her, and the hunting seasonwould soon be underway.There were hunters with treestands and blinds all around ourhouse, right by the apple trees,and more hunters would bepassing through. Indeed, we didn’tsee her at all until the seasonwas over. She must have waiteduntil night, joining the others atthe apples and leaving theground clean by dawn. If youcan stand it, and protect theyoung trees, this natural gleaningby deer is a great way of keepingan orchard relatively disease free.Within a few days after theseason ended she was back,cleaning up what was left of thegarden now; the stalks of theBrussels sprouts and the broccolifirst and then everythingelse. I use an “electro-net” sheepfence around the garden and themoment the fence comes downthe deer go in. It gives them anice boost as winter approaches,as do the tops of hardwoodswhich I fell at this time and leaveon the ground for a year beforebucking them into firewood. Wehave an interesting relationship,me and the deer, a love-hate sortof thing which has finally mellowedinto a benign acceptance.Hunting is a part of it, and hasto be.But that year, like the yearsthat followed, the winter cameearly and hard. Deep snows keptgetting deeper, interspersed onlywith freezing rains which put acrust on the snow, a cruel crustwhich the deer broke throughbut the coyotes did not. Thenthe cold would return with bitingwind and more snow forweeks on end. One evening Iwatched as the deer emerged in aline from their wintering placeamongst the cedar and struggledtowards the orchard with thepale hope of finding an applewhich they had not found before.It was like watching an olddocumentary film of the Siegeof Leningrad; six or eight deerin a row, struggling in the tracksof those ahead, bowed againstthe storm, one limping badly,and of course there were no apples.By March, I could tell by thecalls of the ravens that therewere dead deer all about, pulleddown by the coyotes which hadhowled through the moonlitnights, or simply starved. In afew more weeks I found theirbones back in the swamp andbeyond and also saw that notonly had the deer eaten my azaleasand blueberries but they haddecimated the woodland shrubssuch as moosewood too. Yet bythe time things were really green,“Granny” was back, and with afawn again. She was still limpingbut she looked pretty good otherwise,with a beautiful copperysummer coat. That fall I wassure she had been shot duringthe youth day, a young man tooka nice doe right where she usedto bed down, but it wasn’t herand even though the followingwinter was almost as bad as theone before she was back again inthe spring.But now, as I watch, I can alreadysee her ribs through hergray winter coat. This is not agood sign, and her leg has gottenso bad she can hardly move.She inches forward, bends overpainfully to reach apples on theground and cannot reach up forthose above her. This year’s fawnis grazing nearby. Then thefawn, full of youth and energyand delighted by the apples andthe golden evening light, boundsto her side. She turns slowly tolick the fawn, and their tails flutterwith mutual affection. I amreminded of my own grandmotherwho raised me and wasso crippled by arthritis herselfby that time in her life that she,too, could hardly hobble out tothe apple trees, and for a momentI, and she, and the deer areall one.