One of the beauties of living in Northern Wisconsin is seeing lots of deer and other wildlife.
Alas, it is one of its dangers as well. The deer have no sense of the danger moving cars pose to them. They don't understand why a car that was "far away" just seconds ago is suddenly so close. They tend to panic and jump right in front of the car.
I live on the Eastern edge of the City of Rhinelander. I work at the North-Eastern edge. I can take a shortcut, a very nice road, avoiding the downtown.
But I work at night. Depending on the shift, I either start or end my work at midnight. Several years ago, while driving to work before midnight, taking the shortcut, I had the unpleasant experience of having a deer appear out of nowhere and jump in front of my car. I slammed my brakes, but could not save the deer. The deer hit the front of my car and saltoed to its death while also damaging my car.
My car still drives, mind you, but the deer has long since gone to a different life. I don't want that to happen again, so ever since then, whenever I drive at night, I drive through the town.
I have just come home from work a couple of minutes ago. Guess what. On my way, I saw a young deer walking on the road, right in the City of Rhinelander. It was crossing the street in front of a Catholic church. I honked my horn, flashed my lights, but nothing. The deer generally react to that and run away, but this one was young and apparently did not yet understand. It just kept crossing the street. It is good the front of the church is always bathed with light, so I saw the deer and was able to slow down.
Only after the deer crossed the street did I notice another, bigger, deer on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. The bigger deer looked at the young one with loving eyes. Perhaps a mother and a child, or just deer friends. Or should I say dear friends? At any rate, it was a lovely view. Just another one of the little beauties of the life in Northern Wisconsin.