Just Walkin' the Dog 2

Up before sparrowfart this morning, feeling unusually alive and aware, and I drank my single cup of coffee almost impatiently, itching to lace up the sneakers and hit the pavement.  Bud could sense my eagerness to be gone and hunched at my feet, his eyes never leaving my face and snapping to attention as I tipped the cup high to drain the last drops.  Joyful, high puppy barks accompanied me to the bedroom where the flipflops were exchanged for Bud's favorite shoes - my walking sneakers - and out the door we went.

It was cool but a slight haze of fog shimmered in the light of street lamps, a sure sign that it's going to be warm and humid later.  A single robin in the first bush Bud chose to annoint warbled sleepily as we moved on and one smallish racoon squeezed its body through the impossibly narrow gap in the rain drain across the street . . . Do they live under the streets?  Or do they just use the drains to travel safely under the city?  I've always wondered . . .

We crossed the street and Bud urged me up the small ridge to the row of evergreens lined up neatly - everything is lined up neatly in West Des Moines, have you noticed that?  Bud likes to stand at the top and gaze into the Beyond, pretending he is the lord of all he surveys, and I'm content to stand there chewing a fresh pine needle until he's ready to move on.

We must have been unusually quiet for an unusually long time today because it shocked us both to hear a startled 'Huphffttttt!' to our immediate left.  I jerked, my heart suddenly beating somewhere in the area of my throat and Bud dropped to a crouch, eyes wide, as we stared straight into the face of a deer . . . No, wait! THREE deer!  Not ten feet away, poised between the trees.  I don't know if they were does or bucks - no antlers, but bucks shed their antlers in the spring, don't they?

I stood still as stone for a couple of minutes and so did they - until Bud popped up from his crouch and growled just once, low in his throat, that is.  Then all hell broke loose.  Three frightened deer leaped three different directions at once, fortunately not toward us, and were gone so fast it was hard to believe we had seen them at all.

This is why I love walking early in the morning . . . the unexpected excitement and occasional miracle.  Waaaaaay cooler than watching TV.  Not to mention the air smells fresh and unused, practically pristine in the wee hours before sunrise. . . Wishing you a lovely day!