Dance of Nine Bucks

Oh deer, once again I am debating whether to embellish the open space surrounding this buck. I just can't bring myself to clutter it up. I love seeing the grain of the wood, keeping the buck in his natural habitat. Yesterday I drilled the holes for the rope hangers and I put a clear coating over the top of the five pieces I've completed. I have another piece waiting for the acrylic paint to dry. I brushed on polyacrylic which is a water based urethane. The wood is even more beautiful now.

One morning bright and early Gary and I were driving out of our neighborhood when we noticed up on a slight hill in a grassy area nine young bucks together. It's unusual to see bucks in a group. Bucks are normally solitary and reclusive except during the rutting season. Even more unusual, the bucks were frolicking and kicking their back legs up and bouncing around in a circle. In all my years I have never seen a site like this in nature.

Even though we were close to the group of bucks, they gave us no never mind. We stopped our car, mesmerized. The bucks were prancing and bucking, round and round they went. Even though the bucks were close to one another, almost on each other's tails, none of them ran into the other. Every so often one of the bucks would enter the center of the circle, leap and cavort about in a solo, then exit. Nary a buck faltered in the group's synchronized repertoire. As we sat in awe, I noticed the bucks were not the same age. Some sported more than one or two antler points, yet they all played together in celebration. It was as if their dance was choreographed by Martha Graham.

I wonder why there were nine bucks? Did the number nine mean anything? The numeral nine has much significance throughout history, but I prefer to think of the 'dance of nine bucks' as representing the nine muses in Greek mythology. The nine Greek muses were inspiration for literature, science, and the arts. The muses are Calliope for epic poetry, Clio for history, Euterpe for lyric poetry, Melpomene for tragedy, Terpsichore for dance, Erato for love poetry, Polyhymnia for sacred poetry, Thalia for comic and pastoral poetry, and Urania for astronomy.

I'll never forget the 'dance of nine bucks'. What about you, do you have an unusual occurrence in nature you discovered?