The Great and Secret Show

It is hot here, and it has been so dry lately that the grass is crunchy to step on it. We need rain desperately. But things are pretty lively these days on our acre, even without the rain. It's like freakin' Wild Kingdom here!

I went out in the morning to bring the hummingbird feeder down off the deck where it spends the night, and I startled the doe who's been hanging out under our deck. She jumped up and ran when I arrived at the deck for various reasons at 7:30, 10:30, and 4:30, and I really felt bad about it.

Between the doe and the meadow bunnies (also known as the Gremlin's Meadow Five), I have worried about upsetting our poor creatures who are simply trying to stay fed and in the shade. So I decided I would NOT go out one last time to bring in the hummingbird feeder at dusk.

But in the morning, I sat in the backyard with the hummingbirds, and I counted at LEAST four different birds, swooping and diving and chattering up a storm. At one point, I looked up and saw the chipmunk watching their aerial acrobatics, wide-eyed: "That's a LOT of hummingbirds," it seemed to be saying.

And so in the evening, instead of going out into the meadow, a little after 8 pm, I looked out the bedroom window, and saw a spotted fawn run through. A few minutes later, there were TWO fawns and their mother, snacking their way through the meadow.

I was just about beside myself, because they were walking RIGHT THROUGH the area where the baby bunnies were the night before. "Watch your step!" I said to the closed window; "Don't step on any bunnies!!!"

Then a few minutes later, I checked my watch: "We've gotta get these deer moving right along. We have the bunnies arriving for the second seating in about 20 minutes!"

And as we stood at the window watching the deer grazing, and the two fawns grooming each other in Gremlin's Meadow, I looked over to see a single hummingbird sitting on a branch of the big lilac bush, watching the deer with me, totally mesmerized: "What a great show!" it seemed to say.

And yes, it was a great and secret show indeed!!!!

The soundtrack song is this one: Bruce Hornsby, with The Show Goes On.