Minnie-the-mooch

This has been a long, hard winter in northeast Ohio for both humans and other animals. Today I was standing alongside the trail when three or four deer walked out of the woods. This one walked steadily toward me until I could have reached out and touched her. Because feeding the wild animals is frowned upon by the "establishment," I gently waved her away, explaining (in a soft voice) that I could not feed her. I turned my back and walked a short distance down the trail, searching for some birds to blip, but something told me I was not alone. Glancing over my right shoulder, I discovered the doe had followed me and was standing about two feet away. Once again I explained the situation. "No, I cannot feed you. It isn't allowed, and anyway I didn't bring any apples to share." (I didn't bother to mention the bird seed in my pocket because I was pretty sure she knew it was there as her nose was only inches away from it).

Fortunately for the deer, two other walkers had come down the trail, and they did have a bag filled with cut up apples and other fruit. As you can see from the picture, the story had a happy ending for the deer...and I made some new friends too.