At 4 a.m. this morning, I woke in the dark of the night to pee. On the way back to bed, I saw a shadow outside the window. It was a bright night, with white snow on the ground, and a clouded sky backlit by a full moon. I opened the curtain and saw that the shadow was a small deer by the bird feeder. It was investigating the seeds on the ground below, and perhaps the water in the heated bird bath. Then it walked toward me and made its way through the orchard, passing over to the side of the house and then toward the road.
So beautiful. Things that are hidden, and then revealed. I had seen deer tracks since the snow fell a few days ago, but we rarely see the creatures themselves as they pass through our yard. What a thing to be awake at 4, and gazing toward the windows. As I lay back down in bed, I wanted to remember the blessing of the moment, not lose it to sleep. So I fed phrases to my mind, like “that which is hidden” and made associations, like, “I should pull up the small green fence around the licorice patch, so the deer won’t get caught in it if the snow covers it.” I took this photo this morning. Of course, the deer is gone, hidden again. But some tracks remain, reminding me of all that I cannot see.
All of this also made me think of a photo I recently discovered, that I had never seen before. One of my relatives had posted it. It is a picture of my grandmother Yvonne (née Tremblay), with grandfather John Hochreiter and their two oldest children, about 1921. I had seen a photo of Yvonne when she married, in 1916, and a photo when she was holding me as a baby, sometime before she died in June of 1954. But this one brought to life a young woman in her early twenties, surrounding by her family. So much of her life was hidden from me, not by any conscious decision by anyone. My mother was the youngest of eight children, so perhaps this time before her birth was hidden from her as well. What a gift to get a small glimpse into their lives, over one hundred years ago now.
Last night before I fell asleep I prayed to the Spirits I have known. The moon, the cardinals, the frogs, mother Earth. Is seeing the deer a sign of connection? That my prayers are heard? Spirits, thank you for the gift of seeing that which is usually hidden. May we always remember that so much is hidden.
One thing I love about the snow is how it reveals the lives of our animal neighbors. Here is a squirrel highway, a path between two mounds. Now, I had actually helped to create that path the day before, before the snow. The day before that, Margy got a call from a local arborist that he had some wood chips we could have. For permaculture gardeners, wood chips are a boon, especially hardwood chips, especially lamial hardwood chips, which are from the small branches and leaves of the tree. They provide nutrients to help create the kind of soil that is best for fruit trees.
So the wood chips were delivered. The next day I noticed that where the big pile landed had kind of blocked off the pathway on the edge of the food forest. Last winter, I had strung a small string across the edges of the food forest as a gentle deterrent to deer who might possibly wander through. We had seen deer tracks before, though we didn’t actually see any last winter. But the idea was to leave one area free for them to traverse, hoping they’d choose that path on the way between the street and the back of the yard.
Finding Our Way Home 