Why Am I Not Surprised?

There comes a point in farm life—somewhere between your first escaped goat and your fifth chicken with a death wish—when you realize you’ve stopped being surprised. And I don’t know if that means I’ve become “seasoned,” or if I’ve just finally been broken in like an old barn boot that hasn’t felt dry socks since the Bush administration.

Either way, when I walked down the driveway the other day and found a dead deer in Gus’s dog pen, my first thought wasn’t panic or shock or even, “Oh no.”

It was simply:
“Of course.”

Because when you live where I live, on the farm I live on, with the creatures I’ve been blessed—or strategically selected by the universe—to manage, there are no normal days. Only episodes.

It started with a walk down our long driveway to get the mail. Some people go to the mailbox and come back with adorable stories about cardinals and neighborly hellos. I, however, go to get the mail and come back to find a dead deer, and a dog acting like he just won The Price Is Right.

Picture it: three inches of fresh snow, crisp air, and that deep, magical hush that settles over the world after a gentle snowfall—the kind of quiet that makes you believe, just for a moment, that the day might actually behave itself. As I was shuffling through the snow I was soaking in the peace like some kind of backwoods Zen master… when the universe decided to interrupt.

There it was. A lump. A large, foreboding lump. A large, foreboding lump that wasn’t moving.

Now, a farm woman knows lumps never indicate anything good. There has never been a lump that turned out to be chocolate. Or cash. Or a neighbor returning a borrowed tool. No. Lumps mean trouble. Lumps mean work. Lumps mean God is testing your patience again because apparently you passed the last test and He wants to see what you’ll do next.

I squinted—the official old-person squint that makes you feel like a wise
elder even though all it really does is add forehead wrinkles—and thought, "Dear Lord, that lump has legs. And brown fur."

I walked closer. Still legs. Still not moving.

At this point my brain whispered, “Just turn around. Go back to the house. Pretend you didn’t see it.” But noooo. Something in me—the same farm-girl foolishness that thinks, “What’s the worst that could happen?”—pushed me onward.

And there it was. A deer. A dead deer. In Gus’s pen. Just lying there like she was waiting for someone to bring her a blanket and a cup of herbal tea.

Meanwhile, Gus greeted me with the casual innocence of a toddler sitting next to a suspiciously broken lamp. “Oh hey, Mom. Fancy seeing you. Don’t mind the, ummm… scenery.”

There was no blood in the pen. None on Gus. None on the snow. No signs of a chase, a scuffle, or a canine crime scene.

I’ve watched enough CSI episodes to know that means one of two things: 

Either she died somewhere else and this is a body dump (which is impossible, because Gus couldn’t have dragged her through the fence) or she’d gotten injured somewhere else, probably hit by a car, then ran down the driveway on pure deer adrenaline, launched herself over a four-foot fence (still incredible, but miles more plausible), stuck the landing like she was competing in the Farm Olympics, High Fence Division—took one look around and thought:

“This looks like a decent place to wrap things up.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

And Gus? Not a hair out of place. Not a speck of blood. That dog graciously waited until she was fully, officially, undeniably dead before helping himself to a polite nibble on her back legs. Honestly, for a livestock guardian dog, that’s practically respectful dining etiquette. And I swear he paused to say a prayer of thanksgiving that a full-sized adult deer had dropped into his pen like manna from heaven.

At this point I’m convinced the wildlife around here had a group chat:

“Hey, dare you to die at Sandy’s place.”
“No way.”
“Bet you won’t.”
“Here, hold my antlers.”

Meanwhile, hunters in town are out there in $500 camouflage, freezing in treestands for weeks, whispering to each other like they’re on a military mission. Me? I go check the mail and find fresh venison delivered straight to my dog’s personal dining room.

Of course I took pictures (but I won't show you because this is still a family friendly blog). These days, if there’s no photo, people assume you imagined the whole thing due to dehydration or low blood sugar. And frankly, this situation had just enough absurdity that I needed proof it wasn’t a hallucination brought on by winter chores.

So there I stood: mail in one hand, camera in the other, Gus licking his chops, deer peacefully deceased, and me wondering exactly when I crossed the threshold from “shocked” to “resigned.”

The deer is gone now. Jim dragged it out, cut it up, and put it in the freezer for dog food. Gus is extremely proud of himself. (Too proud, if you ask me.)

And my peaceful walk to the mailbox turned into an episode of CSI: Back Forty—Special Livestock Unit.

So why am I not surprised?

Probably because I live on a farm.
Probably because I’ve seen too much.
And definitely because if something bizarre, unexpected, inconvenient, or downright baffling is going to happen…

it’s going to happen here.

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