For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Romans 8:19 NLT
Sometimes while I’m pushing snow around the yard we get some interesting visitors. My wife took this picture from our dining room window a few years ago.
I’m not sure if the sound of the shovel scraping across the ground is something so unusual that the animals come by to check it out, or if they wonder who in the world is out there making noise in the cold. Maybe they’re just naturally curious. Or maybe they’re looking for something else, as the above Scripture verse implies.
This doe had occasionally come by our home during the prior weeks. Usually she would stand off at a distance and just watch as I pitched one shovelful of the white powder after another. It always helped with my snow-shoveling attitude to see her nearby. I felt that to be able to move snow around with this kind of audience was a bit of a unique privilege. The snow gets heavy after a while, but seeing her stop by and visit gave a much welcomed lift in my spirits.
On this particular occasion I saw the doe walk around the corner of our home. I said hello to her, then kept pushing the snow away from the house. I stopped when I noticed her staring at me. I set the shovel aside, and she cautiously made her way over. A couple of seconds after this picture, I slowly held out my hand and she touched her wet nose to the tip of one of my fingers.
I’d never touched a live, wild deer before.
I still remember the feeling.
It was surreal.
(Please don’t touch young animals however, including birds. Your scent may make the animal easy prey for predators, and the adult may reject it due to your scent.)
This doe had a little white star on the front of all four legs, right above her hooves. I’d see her every now and then as winter wore on. From what I could tell, she made it through the season just fine.
I wonder what Adam felt, to have the Lord bring the animals to him so he could name them:
Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. Genesis 2:19
Imagine that for a moment.
And one day it’s all going to be restored. How cool is that?
I can hardly wait.
There isn’t much that is more humbling than to have direct contact with a wild animal. Somehow my sister got wild birds to come to her hand to pick up peanuts. She took me on the path into the forest so I could witness it myself. Even as a first time visitor, I had both chickadees and red breasted nuthatches land on my hand to take a peanut. They felt like postage stamps with claws. If you closed your eyes, you could tell which one was on your hand by the feel of their toenails. God created them a bit differently, for their own purposes. Thanks for sharing another marvel.
Hi Rocky,
Thanks for the comment.
I have tried to get birds at our feeder to land on my hand but no luck. Been very close, and have been about eyeball to eyeball with them, but none have landed on my hand.
Yet.
Except – I have had many hummingbirds land on my fingers when I put them on the feeder perch. Talk about tiny! The hummers also liked to buzz about four inches in front of my eyes and hover for a while as I felt the wind from their wings on my face. A bit unnerving, as they do have a rather sharp beak and like to dart this way and that.
This happened years ago as I must have lived in a migration route for hummingbirds or something. I still treasure the memories as there were several dozen hummers around at any given time of the day. Getting them to land on my fingers was something I never grew tired of.