When we are not looking

Four deer are nosing through the pine straw for acorns the squirrels might have missed, barely shimmering against the background of russet-brown and dappled snow. Where have they been all week? I expected to see them out in the snow, but maybe some instinct tells them to stay hidden when the ground is pure white. What do they do, then? Huddle in the deep woods? Stare dumbly at the white stuff, trying to remember where they’ve seen it before? Sit by the fire, the bucks watching basketball on TV and the does working on their knitting? Grumble to each other that the weather is proof that global warming is just a liberal conspiracy to take everybody’s SUVs? Which would be a good thing for deer, because the small cars can more easily dodge them, but being only ruminants they are easily swayed by cable news reports?

I imagine up north they just suck it up. Like everybody else.