Sunday, with mountain and river

 A little 4-point buck was grazing in the woods by Stone Mountain. The dog and I stopped to watch.

Later, the Wise Woman wanted to get passes at the U.S. Forest Service’s Chattahoochee National Forest’s headquarters. Once there, we couldn’t resist hiking up the river a bit, listening to the sounds of water hopping over the shoals.

At one point, the song of the river was drowned out by a dozen Canadian geese. They were feeding — but also playing, I think. We watched them swimming in the fast water and floating on the eddies, sunbathing on the flat rocks midstream, drying their feathers — wings spread like cormorants — and diving for food. We also saw a troublemaker or two meddling his feathered neighbor. I’m pretty sure they were playing.

Leaving, we saw a small bunch of deer — six, I think. Three were fawns. One little one stayed behind the others and stared at the truck as we crept by. I saw more curiosity than fear in that face, but how could I know what he was thinking or feeling? He was a wonder to us. We must have been Martians to him.