We live along a buried pipeline. (That orange pole is a marker.) It has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that we get to see things like this:

Close-up:

Watching a deer nurse is something else. The fawns use their snouts to “punch” her underside which I guess helps release milk. It’s hard enough that her back legs lift up sometimes. She’s not fazed though.

She had three fawns. Looks like there’s just two left now. A few weeks ago I caught a fox with a baby deer in its grasp. The baby was crying so loud I ran outside and startled the fox, who lost his grip and the two ran fast (unbelievably fast!) back and forth in wide circles in front of me. That baby could run! and it was about half the size of these here. It did eventually get back to its mother who was eating someone’s bushes across the street. That’s a disadvantage: herds of deer that pass through and consume, on a daily basis, all vegetation in their path. Oh, and these deer aren’t like Bambi. They’ll charge you if you get too close. I took this photo through the screen, very surreptitiously. If I went outside the mother would have approached me stamping her feet.

I should make a list of all the animals I’ve seen wandering along the pipeline: fox, skunk, wild turkey, possum, ground hogs, racoon, and the regular rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, voles, snakes (that make tasty treats for the owls, hawks, and vultures). It’s a pipeline ecosystem. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bear. And you can see how closely spaced the community is!