The reason it's called Deerfield

Driving on Deerfield this afternoon, I glanced to my right to see a full-size deer flying through the air toward my truck. The grown doe hit the top of my right front fender, bounced off and landed in the grassy shoulder. When I got out of the truck the deer began pulling itself with its two front legs into the woods. I'm sure it's back was broken.

I was safely within the 25 MPH speed limit on Deerfield, but it wouldn't have mattered what speed I was going. The deer T-boned me.

We love to see the deer grazing in Deerfield. We have seen as many as seven in a neighbor's apple orchard. We sometimes see them from our kitchen window.

Buzzards and turkey vultures will start circling the woods in Deerfield soon. I'll get the truck fixed and life will go on -- minus one beautiful creature.

The cry of the hawk is a lovely sound

Of all the different types of wildlife inhabiting Deerfield, my favorite is the red-tailed hawk. I shot this photo yesterday around noon from our front porch.

Most of the time when I bush-hog, I see the hawks circling in the sky keeping an eye on a fresh snack that may scurry away from the tractor. I like to hear a hawk cry after it has made a kill. The cry sounds both gleeful and mournful at the same time, just like the tune "Ashokan Farewell."

A red-tail hawk weighs around three pounds. Hawks mate for life with both sexes incubating the eggs and feeding their young.

Our family often made a game of seeing who could count the most hawks sitting on trees or wires along the interstate. Many a time I have stopped the car to try to take a photo of a hawk, but as soon as the car door opens the hawk takes off.

Deerfield hawks seem a little more congenial, almost like they don't mind me living on the land they oversee.

WEATHER UPDATE: For once, I'm in sync with the weather prognosticators. A gentle rain started about 5 a.m. today, starting the process of germinating the grass seed I planted on Wednesday and Thursday. Two more days of steady rain and we are off and running.