Farm Journal, June 7, 2007: PM

   For the past week, I’ve been seeing a baby fawn pop in and out of the woods as the dogs and I walk – I thought I saw the mother briefly about a week ago, but only once. Of the dogs, only Rose noticed, of course, but she did not give chase. I almost got a picture of it, and thought it was rare to see a baby deer hanging around, especially around dogs. The fawn would pop in and out of the woods, almost as if he or she were keeping up with us. But still, keeping a good distance. It was small, no more than two or three feet high, with spindly legs and huge eyes. Annie and I were walking in the woods when she saw something and yelled for me to watch out. It was the leg of a fawn, lying in the path. Rose took off in the woods, and later, Annie went to see where the body was, maybe thinking it was still alive, and found the rest of the body, just near the meadow where the sheep are spending the summer. It was the spot where (almost certainly) coyotes had caught up with it, and killed it.
  They must have been stalking it, and I tried to imagine that scene, especially so close to the sheep meadow. I hope the electric fence in the meadow holds the coyotes off. I could see Annie was upset. Later, she showed up with a wounded robin in a cage. She said she found it on her lawn, and didn’t dare leave it at her house because of the cats. In my more than half-century of life, I have never found a robin lying on the ground. Annie finds them all the time.