Wild life on the road

These days I am working long days.  I am trying to work only four days a week, or at least four and a half days.  This way I can spend Friday with my husband who I don't see at all during the week, since our work schedules and sleep schedules keep us from getting to spend waking hours together.  I leave home around sunrise and head home nearing sunset.  The days getting shorter is making it increasingly true.   While I don't generally see many (or any) cars on the road, I do get to see a lot of animals.  Eagles sit atop the utility poles surveying the land.  Little birds flock together near the road, maybe for the heat, and all fly up together, just barely dodging my windshield sometime.  The cows aren't included in my understanding of wild life, but one stretch of road is open pasture, and occasionally a cow will be standing in the middle of the road tempting me to turn him into ground beef.   And of course, there are deer.  Lots and lots of deer.  I did see a big, big elk cow this morning, not far from Miami Lake, but I think they are rarer to see.  And the antelopes are abundant out in the fields, but I haven't seen any get close to the road.  Not like the deer.   This morning a whole family of deer were moving across a meadow to cross the road and get to the creek area on the other side.  I saw a lone buck hanging out a little further down.  I even saw a lone fawn in the yard down the road...hopefully the doe was nearby.  Sometimes I can cruise on by, but most times I slow down to make sure they aren't going to throw themselves on the hood of my car.   I much prefer the wild life to the DOT trucks that are graveling the highway.  If I didn't work a long day, I surely would be following those dump trucks and waiting for flaggers all morning.