Image Credit: Stock Exchange
This weekend, we honed our quiet observation skills. My daughter can be quiet. It’s me who isn’t prone to being quiet and sitting still!
The long-awaited bike ride arrived on Saturday, a cloudy day that was just right for a bike ride in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve. My daughter has new wheels: a bike that has gears, which means that we can make our way up and down the hill from our house.
She was nervous about the ride, but I must admit to pushing. I have such wonderful memories of the wildlife we saw as I trained for a marathon in the same park a few years ago. A mother bear and cub, a line of ruffed grouse, and so many woodpeckers and deer.
On the way back, we saw it: a deer happily munching on the new salmonberry leaves. We stopped, an we got a little closer. The deer was unmoved by these wheeled animals, and it kept on eating. We got even closer, since we saw it was not spooked by bikers coming from the opposite direction. We spent at least 20 minutes watching the deer from just a few meters away. My daughter was enchanted. I don’t think that she’s ever been that close before.
Me, I was enchanted and then itchy, surrounded by swarms of mosquitoes that just love my blood. But she wanted to stay, so we stayed and watched, a lesson in quiet observation even under duress.
