Nature calls: A plethora of deer the morning

I walked around the corner of the barn this morning to drop something in the recycling trailer (A small trailer with several sorting bins on it that we drag to the county recycling once every couple months to empty.) and created an explosion of bodies.

There were eight deer feeding in the small meadow on that side of the barn. I had seen them earlier this morning up towards the front of the property but they headed towards the county road and I figured they were going across to the ranch on the other side.

Apparently not! Once we all got over jumping a few feet into the air and sorted ourselves out the deer followed one another around behind the barn and headed on down towards the pond. The last one in line got distracted momentarily by a cat that was trying to slink away without getting trampled. (The cat was probably lurking around the bird feeder at the back of the barn and I often see the deer stomp their way step by step towards one of the curious cats to drive them off.)

We, us and the deer, often have encounters like this so once they reached the pond they settled right down and started playing in the water before moving on up the hill into the woods. This gave me a chance to snap a couple photos.

Some seem to like playing and prancing around in the water

while others are more interested in finding something to eat up there among the bluebonnets.