once in a lifetime
a deer from my deer family
jumps the fence
into our back yard
and gives birth to twins

–

this happened very unexpectedly yesterday on the smokiest-worst-air quality day in modern history here…
I had seen Pasha in our back yard when I first got up and went out to gently try to coax her to go back out through our back gate but she was not interested and from lying down in one part of our garden she did get up and move to another more secluded spot where she lay back down. I left the gate open and went back inside assuming she’d find her way out. I wondered if maybe the extreme haze in the air had inspired her leap into our fenced back yard and was not sure why she had chosen to do this as she had never done this before in the four years I’ve known her. ( Pasha was one of Bessie’s twins born in 2019 ) She has always stayed close to Bessie even when Bessie tried hard to discourage her! Last year Pasha had her first fawns and now she has had her second pair. I discovered she had given birth when I went out with our compost bucket and saw Pasha standing near our shed and there , much to my surprise, were these two adorable tiny fawns testing out their little deer legs! 6-07-23