deer

Stupid deer," I said, embarrassed about being startled. "We need a ladder.""I think they're easier to shoot with a rifle.""I'm not talking about the deer," I said, hitting Milo on the back of his shoulder. "We need a ladder to look over the wall.""Or a catapult," Milo said seriously.

She has a memory of trees and fields and nothing more.

Was I the only one who became unsettled and swoonish at the sight of a large, inverted carcass hanging from a tree, its vital organs strewn about like children's toys, the occasional pack of hunting dogs fighting over a lung, another one looking for a quiet place to enjoy the severed head? It happened all the time and nobody else seemed bothered. People just walked up to the bloody carcasses and carried on entirely normal conversations, as though a man wasn't standing there squeezing deer feces out of a large intestine and small children weren't playing football with a liver.

That night she dreamed of the deer. Strangely, the animal was holding her. She cuddled close into the soft fur and touched and kissed it gently. In the morning her pillow was wet with tears.

I sure wasn't going to ask Aunt Sally, because if she told me once that getting your period was like a moth becoming a butterfly, she'd probably say that sexual intercourse was like a deer getting antlers or something.

The deer scent the wolves and stand silent and watchful. They turn and leap off like ballerinas, their plume-like tails raised in alarm.

Xuan smiled at the thought of men sleeping peacefully next to those they would try to kill in daylight. Only humanity could have conceived such a strange and artificial way to die. Wolves might tear the flesh of deer, but they never slept and dreamed near their quarry.

Poppy took a deep, appreciative breath. __ow bracing,_ she said. __ wonder what makes the country air smell so different?_ __t could be the pig farm we just passed,_ Leo muttered. Beatrix, who had been reading from a pamphlet describing the south of England, said cheerfully, __ampshire is known for its exceptional pigs. They__e fed on acorns and beechnut mast from the forest, and it makes the bacon quite lovely. And there__ an annual sausage competition!_ He gave her a sour look. __plendid. I certainly hope we haven__ missed it._ Win, who had been reading from a thick tome about Hampshire and its environs, volunteered, __he history of Ramsay House is impressive._ __ur house is in a history book?_ Beatrix asked in delight. __t__ only a small paragraph,_ Win said from behind the book, __ut yes, Ramsay House is mentioned. Of course, it__ nothing compared to our neighbor, the Earl of Westcliff, whose estate features one of the finest country homes in England. It dwarfs ours by comparison. And the earl__ family has been in residence for nearly five hundred years._ __e must be awfully old, then,_ Poppy commented, straight-faced. Beatrix snickered. __o on, Win._ ___amsay House,__ Win read aloud, ___tands in a small park populated with stately oaks and beeches, coverts of bracken, and surrounds of deer-cropped turf. Originally an Elizabethan manor house completed in 1594, the building boasts of many long galleries representative of the period. Alterations and additions to the house have resulted in the grafting of a Jacobean ballroom and a Georgian wing.__ __e have a ballroom!_ Poppy exclaimed. __e have deer!_ Beatrix said gleefully. Leo settled deeper into his corner. __od, I hope we have a privy.

I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.

What do you call yourself?" the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!"I wish I knew!" thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, "Nothing, just now.""Think again," it said: "that won't do."Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly, "I think that might help a little.""I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on," the Fawn said. "I can't remember here."So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me, you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

Your growing antlers,' Bambi continued, 'are proof of your intimate place in the forest, for of all the things that live and grow only the trees and the deer shed their foliage each year and replace it more strongly, more magnificently, in the spring. Each year the trees grow larger and put on more leaves. And so you too increase in size and wear a larger, stronger crown.

Each October I walk into the woodslooking for bones: rabbit skulls,a grackle spine, the pelvis of a deerwith the blood bleached out. What diedin the lush of roses and mintshines out from the tangle of twigsthat bind it to the placeof its last leaping. The living lackthat kind of clarity. In late April,when the water spreads out and outtill everything is lilies and seepage,there is only the mystery of tracks,a rustle receding in the many reeds.And so the bones accumulateacross my windowsill: the flightlesswings and exaggerated grins,the silent unmoving remindersof where the glories of April lead.

It's one thing if your hobby is to put ships inside a bottle, but a deer in the headlights!... That's a real talent

The master and mistress of the house and the rest of the Blood -even the Crux himself- brought our food, poured the wine, did our bidding. The centerpiece was a roasted stag. crowned with gilded antlers and stuffed with songbirds; they had hunted well. We were forbidden to kill the deer that fattened on our coleworts and stole our grain, and the venison tasted all the better for the salt of revenge.

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.

What do you want? What do you know about it? What are you talking about? Everything belongs to Him, just as I do. But I, I love Him. I worship Him, I serve Him. Do you think you can oppose Him, poor creatures like you? He's all-powerful. He's above all of you. Everything we have comes from Him. Everything that lives or grows comes from Him.

Bambi was inspired, and said trembling, "There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.

The most dreadful part of all," the old stag answered, "is that the dogs believe what the hound just said. They believe it, they pass their lives in fear, they hate Him and themselves and yet they'd die for His sake.