An Idyllic Morning

This morning at about 8:30 a.m. I looked out the kitchen window to see a dozen wild turkeys roaming across the driveway and then travel the length of my house.

I grabbed the camera and took shots through the backdoor window. After the turkeys disappeared, I slipped outside to see if I could take a few pictures without the glare from the glass interfering with the shots.

The air was crisp and still; a delightfully cool 63 degrees. I felt a slight breeze blow up my thigh through the slit in my dressing gown as I quietly moved to the far edge of the deck.

I stopped after only a few silent steps, for before me stood several does. I cautiously raised the camera, surprised to see a turkey pass before the lens and near the does. I scarcely breathed for fear of disturbing these beautiful creatures in their natural setting.

A doe spied me and her head popped up. Her ears stood like teepees against the sky while she tried to discern what manner of intruder I might be. She shied nervously away toward the woods, her brethren following, and vanished.

The turkeys, however, were unperturbed and their heads continued bobbing in the long fescue grass as they sought their breakfast of insects.

I had scarcely settled myself on the picnic table when the does came back into the field from the woods. She eyed me warily but her white flag of a tail never rose in alert. Instead she moved down the fence line, a shadow on legs, seeking the cover of the golden rod and ragweed.

I watched her vanish and then turned my attention to a small spiked stag following in her wake. He posed for me, the sun slashing half of his face, before disappearing into the pine growth.

Several other does followed him. The camera lay lazily on my lap as I watched them, entranced by their ability to move through tall weeds and grasses with scarcely sound or movement. Several of the deer moved down from the fence line, and the curve of the land meant I could only see their heads.

Then I spied it. The crown of horns flashed once in the sun, brilliant bone reflecting Helios, and I counted eight tines before the head disappeared as if it had never been there.

The deer moved through the dead leaves with a faint scuffle of leaves, and then silence.

But not silence. I leaned back, listening to the sounds of crows in the distance, their cacophony a reminder of societal sounds. A woodpecker hammered away at a tree. A squirrel scurried up an oak, his path wild and noisy. An acorn dropped with a ping on the metal trailer behind the shed.

The smells and sounds of Autumn assailed me and I felt the rays of the sun god kiss me, heating my hair and hands while breezes curled around my ankles.

A new day, a new season. A new beginning.

Time to start anew.