The Fawn

Donna and I were eating lunch earlier this week. Suddenly, from the back patio, there came a screeching that we really didn't recognize. My first response was that we had a cat fight on our patio. 

I went to to the back door and looked out and spotted -- to my utter surprise -- a little fawn. It continued calling, obviously trying to get the attention of its mother. I looked around and saw nothing else unusual.

Donna and I went outside to check things out. The little rascal was very scared, as you might imagine. We knew enough not to touch it, but were concerned why a baby so young was left alone. We watched for a while, and the fawn moved around and found a hiding place on the patio where it felt relatively secure.

The little fawn hid under one of our planter stands while it visited us.

Donna and I eventually moved inside and pondered what to do. I made a couple of phone calls and finally reached our local Texas Parks and Wildlife office. The young lady took my information and said she would contact a game warden. She cautioned me not to touch or feed the fawn, and she told me the mother was probably not far away. Sometimes a young fawn will lie down to rest and the mother will stray away some distance. I guess the baby woke up, could not find its mother, and became distraught. 

Our pretty little day guest.

I can't imagine why the fawn came to our porch. We have lots of deer out here, as you've seen if you've followed my blog. But usually they are settled for the day someplace shortly after sunup. This occurred at lunch, so I can't figure out exactly how this happened. I was concerned that in this heat, the little thing might suffer too much at such a young age.

The fawn thought it was hidden here.

We kept checking on the fawn throughout the day. It never cried out again, but it did stay hunkered down in its hiding place beneath one of our planter stands. The last time I saw it was about 3:45 or so. When I checked about 4:30, it was gone. I guess mama found it; at least, I hope she did.

I was disappointed that no one from TPWD ever contacted me. I guess they don't watch Lone Star Law on television. 

And speaking of deer . . . .

Those scamps have had a good time with our plants this year. We've had several roses start to bloom, but they only last a day or so. The deer find them, and the next day there's nothing left but a stump. Below are some roses just beginning to bloom, but I doubt they will last long. Bambi and its mother will probably stop by for lunch.

These yellow roses are just beginning to bloom. Deer have eaten all the blooms so far this year.

Almost Summer

Summer is quickly approaching. Technically, the solstice occurs at 11:32 PM on June 20, and that marks the official start of summer in the northern hemisphere. It has been getting light around 6:00 AM each morning, depending on your definition of light. Soon, it will be later and later when the sky begins to brighten each morning. I enjoy walking early, so I'll miss those early morning walks. 

We've had some occasional showers, though we are still roughly about 2½ inches below our normal rainfall for this time of year. And even though summer does not start for a few more days, we've had some hot days. In compliance with requests from the electric companies, we've raised our thermostat and turned off any appliances we don't use regularly. We are avoiding the use of high energy appliances during the heat of the day (dryer, oven, etc.), and are eating more "cool" dishes, such as sandwiches. Gosh, a nice bowl of gazpacho sounds good, doesn't it?

We continue to feel more comfortable with the COVID situation. Our numbers are low in this neck of the woods, and I continue to be grateful for that. We still wear our masks when we go out. The main exception to this is when we go to our community clubhouse. Since hospital teams came to us to vaccinate our community, we feel good when we are around our neighbors.

I'll leave you with a few pictures I've taken recently. Stay safe, everyone!

We recently had an early morning storm. We sat on the back patio and watched it move through. We found this cloud formation to be interesting, especially the thin horizontal thread above the darkened portion of cloud in the center of the picture. The wind was really kicking up, and the clouds were moving quite fast.

The sun was just rising as I approached the entrance to our community on a recent walk. I like this picture, with the colors of the sunrise and the attractive street lamps lining the street.

I snapped this photo just a few moments later. I love West Texas sunrises and sunsets.

I came across this rascal on the curb during a walk. I tried scooting my shoe closer so I could zoom in more, but I frightened him and he darted away with amazing speed.

Getting Back to Normal

We are slowly getting back to normal here. We've done some things in the last couple of weeks or so that we had not done in a long time.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Donna and I went to her hometown of Conroe to see her 3 brothers. This occurred the weekend of May 7th, almost one month ago. We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights, and we ate in a restaurant for the first time in well over a year. The group decided to eat at Rudy's BBQ in the Lake Conroe area. It was a good choice. The place is very open, and we felt comfortable there. To top it off, the brisket was great!

We attended grandson Xander's graduation on May 20th. That was difficult for me, as there were so many people there. It's going to take a while for me to get used to being in a crowd; I never have cared for crowds, though.  But we couldn't miss his graduation. He's off to conquer the world now. One down, two to go. Hope we're around when Camden and Jensen graduate.

Donna and I celebrated our 44th anniversary last week. We had been discussing whether or not to eat out. For weeks, we had been watching Red Lobster. We'd drive by while running errands at various times of the day and noticed the parking lot was never very full. We decided it was a safe choice because it is so roomy inside. We got there for a late lunch, sometime after 2:00 PM. Only a few people were there as they were only using a few tables. We had to wait for 10 minutes or so, then were seated. Only about 4 or 5 other tables/booths were occupied at the time. 

We've always liked our Red Lobster. The environment is nice, service is usually very good, the salads are great -- I especially like the Caesar salad -- and the biscuits are wonderful. The only thing about Red Lobster we really aren't crazy about is the seafood. But it's certainly adequate. We had a nice meal and we felt safe.

This past Saturday, we went to the clubhouse for bingo. The clubhouse has gradually been reopening the past few weeks, and local activities are re-starting. I'm not sure how many people in our community have been vaccinated, but I feel that a large number have. I know on the days we went for our 2 shots, quite a few people were there, and we were scheduled in alphabetical order. It was nice to see old friends again. Donna returned to the clubhouse earlier this week to play cards.

And we have trips planned soon. We will probably take a couple of trips this summer. If things continue to improve, then we will schedule more trips for the fall.

It's nice to be getting back to something resembling normalcy. 

In closing, we've had scant rainfall in town this spring; in fact, on the news last night, it was reported that we were over 4 inches below our norm. Now, when you don't get much rain to begin with, 4 inches is substantial. Areas around us have had good rain. Fortunately, most farms in the area have received rain. It just seemed that we weren't getting much rain in town.

Late yesterday, a storm began moving into the area. However, it just grazed the northern part of town and moved on. I thought we were missing out again. Then, sometime after midnight this morning, a storm moved in and seemed to settle in the area. I think I even heard some light hail, but it must have been very small. This has been a good rain. I checked the gauge about 7:45 this morning, and it registered a little more than an inch. I had hoped for more, but I'm thankful for this much. After all, beggars can't be choosers.

Stay safe out there.