Anybody sick of deer yet?

Well, before I make you sicker, let me tell a brief object story.  To the ladies who sat behind us at IHOP yesterday (an older lady and her even-older mother):  You came in halfway through our meal.  You made the waitress comeback twice before ordering.  You asked questions like, "Do you have waffles?" instead of reading the menu.  Deliberated over what was in the drinks you were ordering.  As we were finishing up, you asked your waitress (God bless her), "Is our food about ready?"  She told you, "It's almost up."  Waiting till she turned her back- but not until she left earshot- you said, "Well, I hope so!  I'm glad we're not punching a clock! We want to eat!"  Seconds later, as we got up to leave, your waitress came through.  Do you realize how much I wanted to trip her just so you could wait longer for a new set of your orders?  I controlled myself- but I did tell Laurie as we were leaving, "Maybe if you weren't in so much of a hurry to STICK MAMA BACK IN THE HOME, you might not be so impatient!"

Oh, and I had this shared with me on FB last night and about fell off my chair.  What a PERFECT description of my week!  I shared it too, and now, here for you...

Okay, on to last night's walk.  It was a typical trip- through our "hidden side entrance", down the new trail, across the bridge to the ravine trail to the hidden entrance on California Rd.  But I was in no mood to go past the thousands (well, dozens) of screaming socceristas along our usual route back, so we bopped over to the main trail's southern terminus and retraced our steps. 

Here's a map so you can kinda follow what I'm talking about.  Google World isn't current, and the patch to the right of the "Big Tree" is the meadow they tore out to make the two new soccer fields that they haven't finished yet.  The greenway road we usually would take home runs to the right of all the parking lots.

Anyhow, we hadn't seen anything on the way up, and thus I wasn't expecting much on the way back.  But right before the new trail turns onto the left side of the woods...

The younger doe, and one of the bucks, were going south towards the creek.  A large pile of debris was between us, and they split as soon as we got in the clear.  So we went on down, and about twenty feet onto the side trail...

Yup, Mama deer.  She stood there and posed, and we sat and took pics until she was done servicing her admiring fans.

So she went into the woods, and we started down the trail.  About ten feet later...

...here comes the female fawn.  The boy was hiding in the ditch on the left.  He bolted, taking sis with him, seconds later.


Scrappy determined that they followed the old ravine trail ( the "deer road") straight north along the side of the woods.  A while later, we proved he was right.

  After that, we took a turn into the woods so's I could sit down and catch some wind.  And where I was sitting..

...we found the teenyest, tinyest little berries I ever saw.

Amazing the dumb things the camera will focus on instead of what you want, LOL!