Deer vision

As Sweet Pea matured into adulthood, I worried about Sam’s attachment to this wild Whitetail deer. Sweet Pea’s hooves grew sharp and her affections toward Sam grew more amorous. From our research we knew the real possibilities of injury and death from domesticated deer that turn on their human caregivers at any moment without warning.

Our dear deer continued to thrive. While somewhat confined, she got exercise, fresh air, sunshine, good nutrition and supplements. She wasn’t going to get run over by a car or shot by a hunter here. She was well protected from the threat of coyotes. Our two goats in the barn still had their horns.

Goats have horns for good reason. A year earlier Sam had walked into the barn in the morning. Blood and guts from floor to ceiling but the nanny goats were content, unscathed and eating. A coyote who ventured into the barn lost a fight with two horned goats.

That fall we harvested field corn but Sweet Pea wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about the crop as she had been the year before. Salt and mineral blocks went untouched in November.  We tried a sweet crunchy 16% protein feed with some molasses and beet pulp that seemed to stimulate her appetite.

Then I noticed she didn’t eat her carrots and apple. We didn’t talk about it, though we had noticed a shift in Sweet Pea’s behavior.

“Sweet Pea is blind in one eye. I think she may be losing sight in her other eye,” Sam said one evening before dinner in early December.

I dashed out to her pen. The iris in her left eye had gone a ghostly blue overnight. She seemed to stumble around. She turned her head so her right eye could see me. It looked cloudy. She sniffed my hand with her nose to make sure it was me.

I got on the internet at the library and started searching for information, if not answers. The University of Georgia-Athens had several experts on deer vision in their vet school with whom we consulted. We found other deer farmers and wildlife experts but no one had heard of such symptoms.

Sweet Pea wouldn’t eat. She paced back and forth, round and round, this way and that. Despite all the wonderful people who offered us advice, research, references and referrals our Sweet Pea went blind in both eyes within a week. She was wasting away.

Our farm vet didn’t know much about wild deer except how to hunt them. She tried her best, but Anne couldn’t save Sweet Pea. She’d run blood tests and examined her, but nothing obvious showed up and she’d called upon her resources at Cornell University and the large animal vet community.

Wild Whitetail deer do not tolerate anesthesia as well as other large mammals. The antibiotics and other drugs given to domesticated species are known to be poorly tolerated by wild Whitetail deer. We had to let Dr. Anne put her down to stop the suffering of our baby deer.

For 18 months Sweet Pea lived with us. Sam told me when he found her that he had heard growing up that a man who could catch and tame a deer would live forever. The day she died, Sam didn’t want to live another day without Sweet Pea looking him in the eye and nuzzling his moustache and beard. Living forever seemed like a curse.

My throne has an oak seat

In 1992 Sam took the month of August off from trucking. Same month and year I moved from Athens, Georgia, to 11 acres right around the corner from his folks. He started building a cabin near the pond on the back 40 acres of his parent’s farm. He went back on the road trucking but spent his time off working on his new home with what he could afford. He spent years on the road living in his truck; without paying rent, utilities, groceries or other home expenses. With his savings he invested in his little house on the pond.

The following August he spent another month finishing the cabin, building a table and bed, and constructing a goat shed. In August 1994 Sam came home for good. He sold his truck, bought four solar panels and batteries, moved into the cabin and set up farming operations with a couple goats and his dog, Buddy.

While he drove thousands of miles cross country as a truck driver, Sam came up with a floor plan for the original 20 ft. X 14 ft. cabin. It included a main room, small bedroom and a lean-to kitchen. Sam didn’t need blueprints because he’d built the entire thing in his head on the road. He did sketch the floor plan on graph paper in a composition notebook for reference.

The board and batten siding match the rough cut lumber used for interior walls. A 6 ft. X 20 ft. porch off the front of the cabin faced southwest along the shore of Warren Pond. Eventually Sam framed in the porch with floor-to-ceiling triple-pane windows. He laid stone floor, over water tubing placed in sand, so we could have radiant floor heat.

The cabin is our home. Our bedroom is the length of our full size mattress. The room is 5 feet long and 10 feet wide. There are built-in shelves above our feet and storage under the bed. An open, steep, staircase angles up over the bed to the loft above.  A corner shelf boasts a white antique water pitcher and a framed 8 X 10 inch mirror.

The main room has two woodstoves; a large cast iron cook stove and an old Ben Franklin stove. The table Sam made from pine; built-in benches sit over the storage batteries for the alternative energy we generate. Two straight back chairs are used by visitors.

A stainless steel sink sits in a washboard cupboard Sam built. Hot and cold water come out of a Pitcher Pump for the kitchen faucet. Above the sink are shelves filled with tin plates, bowls, cups, glass mixing bowls, coffee mugs, glasses, and glass decanters of flour and sugar. His grandmother’s wooden butter bowl rests safely on the very top shelf. The handle on the hand-crank coffee bean grinder is bright red back in the corner left of the sink. The silver tray and knife racks are next to the bean grinder. Cast iron skillets, pots, griddles, pans and colanders hang on the wall behind the wood cook stove. The rough cut lumber walls have nails pounded in to hang up antique farm tools; old saws, drills, chisels, levels, hammers, hatchets, and such.

Staring at these rough cut lumber boards on the walls, Sam has drawn in pencil several full scale renditions of animals using the grain, knots and texture of the wood. He highlighted the images that popped out at him from the wood. One drawing of a goat stares at you from one side of the room and as you move to the other side, the goats’ gaze follows you; a shifting double perspective.

The water closet is literally that. A white porcelain toilet sits immediately to the right of the bathroom door with two shelves above it. A propane hot water tank is immediately to the left.  The bath tub is above the bedroom in the loft. Fed by gravity, the well forces the water upstairs where there is an old claw foot porcelain tub. The loft is additional storage space for all my arts and crafts, out of season clothing, photos and memorabilia.

Originally the cabin had an outdoor outhouse. It still stands, but it doesn’t get much use anymore. I wouldn’t commit to farm life without an indoor flush toilet. My throne has an oak seat. As a backwoodsman, Sam claimed for years to enjoy the start of everyday by going out to the privy.

“Fresh air in your nose. The sunshine in your face. Wakes you right up!”  Sam said.