You never know what you’re going to see in Allen County, with the possible exception of some tropical beast such as a wild elephant — although woolly mammoths once plodded the Great Plains.
Don’t think so? A couple of years ago skeletal remains of one of the ancient cousins of today’s elephants were found eroding from a bank of the Walnut River near Winfield.
Early Tuesday afternoon I noticed an interesting aside by animals at the other end of the physical scale. In a toot to get home and to whatever chore wife Beverly so graciously had available, I took a shortcut on a country road. As I topped a rise, I noticed what I thought were two dogs cavorting in the road.
As I drew nearer, the thought evaporated — like a delicious Schwan’s ice cream sandwich in my paw — and I saw the animals for what they were, two fawns without mom in sight. It’s a good bet she wasn’t far away.
About the size of a coyote without the muscle texture and longer hair, the two fawns, pretty as a picture, leaped at least their height over road-side weeds and then stopped in a clearing to return my stare.
Humans are the only creature Mother Nature permits to have a say in their appearance, which is a crying shame for the most part.
To wit: You see one fawn in the wild and you’ve seen them all. They have beautiful markings that unfortunately go away as they grow — in a few months — to adulthood. Meanwhile, you see a human, and you see an original, which isn’t always fodder for a tale to write home about.
Who am I to question individuality, though. I have an earring, which found its way into my left ear lobe at the urging of three persuasive granddaughters, and remains as evidence of their unwavering influence.
The fawns stayed only seconds within easy sight. Animals, quite fortunately, have an inborn fear of humans, even though many could render us a cowering heap of torn flesh if they so desired.
That wouldn’t be a fawn, though. The young deer are among nature’s more poetic creatures. They move with grace and sure-footedness that would have a professional ballerina colored head to toe with envy.
The adult versions of deer are just as capable of amazing physical feats. I’ve seen many clear a six-strand fence as though it were no more than a twig. Conversely, I once watched a huge-antlered buck, with hunters in pursuit, slide under a similar barbed-wire fence as easily as if he were no larger than a typical barn rat.
ALSO, IF space permitted, I could tell you about the tortoise we noticed trespassing on the South Johnson Ranch (at the east edge of Humboldt). It was as large as a dinner plate and could scurry like a squirrel — of which we have several, thank goodness; my old-man routine is to sit on our back porch and watch the little rodents eat corn left to sate their appetites.
Or, I could report about the two hen turkeys that put on a show along the old highway north of Humboldt Hill. They started to run across, with great strides, before deciding the better part of discretion was to take flight. Reminded me of Jimmy Doolittle and his boys in their B-25s, as they defied gravity taking off from the deck of the USS Hornet, en route to retribution, however cursory, for the sneaky Japanese raid of Pearl Harbor 4½ months earlier.
