Up close and personal, deer...

We went for a family walk (I'd call it a hike, but due to the swampy nature of the trails at present we stick to the paved path for now...) last night at Harrington Beach State Park. We are blessed to live pretty close to this small, but beautiful park. It has so much to offer as it is literally on the shores of Lake Michigan but also has a small lake that was once a quarry, a pond, prairie, deciduous and evergreen forest, and plenty of trails. It has a large population of deer most of which are pretty tolerant of people. They are wary, but allow us to get decently close and watch them.

As she always does, Kailin wanted to go right down to the water's edge. Steve took her down, but asked me to keep Colby as the lake was pretty riled up and he is FEARLESS. I managed to get a picture of Steve and Kailin and one of Colby and me. I love them both.

Next we explored a little waterfall that is created by spring runoff every year. The kids love to watch it and Steve and I are intrigued as well.

Then we rounded a bend in the path where the terrain opens up to a beautiful grassy knoll dotted with several deciduous trees. We sometimes see deer on the knoll and yesterday we spotted a doe and her twin yearlings. They took note of us but then went on about their business. Then it almost seemed as if they were edging closer to us. Then we were SURE they were edging closer to us, but we weren't sure if we were just at a natural intersect point in their path to get across the trail or if they were truly interested. One of the yearlings got even braver and boldly walked toward us, nose in the air, sniffing. Steve turned and asked me if I really thought the deer was checking us out. I said I thought that it was. It got probably about 15 feet away and we were marveling in our encounter with it when we heard someone whistle. It was only a minute or so before the deer turned and headed in the direction of the whistle. We looked over to see a man offering the deer apple cores. So they weren't checking us out - they were waiting to see if we were their gravy train. It was still a cool experience for the kids, but I'm disillusioned and frankly a little annoyed that the guy is feeding them. There is fall hunting in that park and the deer don't have a fair chance if they have no fear at all of humans.

We rounded out our walk along the path and Colby got into a coughing fit and then said that his tummy hurt, so I picked him up and carried him the rest of the way. I'm so glad we went yesterday. It was one of those simple everyday sorts of things that end up dotting the fabric of our lives with a beautiful pattern.