In all the ways I ever imagined meeting my end (old age, disease, bar fight with jealous girlfriend), “Death by Stampede” was never on the list. But, there I was, restocking the suet feeder, when I heard the rustle of leaves, the breaking of branches, and the thunder of hooves. There were a thousand does running all around me. Okay, maybe it was 8, but it happened so fast, who’s counting? Something had spooked them, and they were tearing down the ridge like…well, like something had spooked them. One of them, in particular, was headed straight for me.

Now, let me dispel a common myth right here and now. Your entire life does NOT flash in front of your eyes at that moment. What goes through your mind is the 5,634 choices of action you have. Everything from “run like the wind”, “stand as still as possible”, “scream loudly and wave your arms” to “curl up in a little ball and kiss it goodbye” passes through your brain in a split second. The closer she got, the faster the thoughts ticker-taped their way through my cranium. The irony of this is that all those choices were moot anyway, since I was paralyzed with indecision and fascination. When she was about 5 feet away, and still coming right at me, I became acutely aware of the look on her face, and realized, I probably had the same wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights expression on mine. So, there we were deer-to-dear, and both probably thinking the same thing. “What the @#^*! do I do now?”

Fortunately for me, and hopefully for you, dear readers, she made a sharp 90-degree turn at the last minute and blew past me, white tail high in the air. I can truly attest to you that had I been dispatched to meet my Maker, my last thoughts would have been. “How cool is this?” and “Why didn’t I have my camera with me“? My next thought, however, was about what had spooked them, and was I about to have a confrontation with something even more dangerous.

Living in the woods is truly a yin-yang kind of life. While you are presented with amazing opportunities to experience wildlife up close, it is sometimes way too personal. You have to constantly remind yourself that you are not Snow White in a little Disney classic where all the animals dance around you in perfect harmony. They are, after all, wild animals, and many of them present a risk, regardless of how benign YOU may be. So, torn between possibly getting a close up look at a coyote, or maybe even a bobcat (how cool would that be?), and opting instead for the safety of stone walls, I went inside and surveyed the situation from a sensible location.

After all, that’s why God made zoom lenses.