Momma Doe checks out Dolores to see if they should become coffee-clatch friends. (Milt Gross Photo)

One evening this week when I arrived home, Dolores told me that three of "our" deer, the original doe and her current two skippers, had visited for a late afternoon snack.

The two skippers were standing side-by-side, Dolores related, one with his or her -- not sure which sex and they don't say -- nose in a pile of that molasses-dipped grain they love so much. The other was standing by, waiting its turn.

But the wait didn't last long. The second one reared up a bit on his or her back legs and poked with a front hoof at the rump of the one that was chowing down.

"Move over, deer," the poking he or she urged the chowing-down one, according to Dolores.

It didn't, and the hungry one continued to wait his or her turn.

In case you're wondering and aren't close up and personal with the deer waiting in the woods near your house for some of that molasses-dipped grain, of course deer talk to you -- if you're listening carefully.

Besides, would Dolores tell a fib?

Whether or not one of those skippers name was George or Georgia, we don't know -- and neither said -- but Dolores thought so after she watched the next performance. George or Georgia -- maybe -- decorated with powdered snow atop his or her shoulders and rump, meandered toward the edge of the woods.

Head down, he or she, came to a small snow-covered branch, which brushed against his or her face.

George or Georgia started. leaped back a bit, and exclaimed, "Whoa, what's this?"

Then he or she entered the woods and became a deer, the real kind, the kind that wander the woods.

The discussion came up on our bus ride home from Jackson Lab Friday night about deer habitat. One passenger questioned whether Acadia National Park was really a good deer habitat, since many of the deer there tend to be quite tame. The one that waved the bus down one morning by standing in front of it and refusing to move wasn't quite tame. I could tell because it didn't get on the bus.

I told the passengers that one of the two or three deer that hang out on the lawn at Jackson Lab might actually be wearing a Jackson Lab identification badge. At least I thought that's what might have been suspended from a small chain around its neck.

I remember one, a doe, walking along about 50 feet into the woods alongside the Acadia National Park's Park Loop Road while I walked along the edge of the road. We chatted for about 200 feet before she apparently got hungry and stepped deeper into the great Acadia forest. I don't recall the conversation in detail, just it's happening.

A skipper looks at our front door to see if more molasses-dipped-grain is coming soon. (Photo by Milt Gross)

The very first deer I heard was another skipper when I was about 12 years old and wandering in a wooded conservation area near the Pennsylvania home in which my parents chose to raise me -- or at least raised me, whether they chose to or not. I stepped out of the trees at the edge of a meadow and found myself within 60 feet of a doe and her skipper -- only in Pennsylvania they're called fawns.

"Wow, what's that?" the fawn asked his or her mother.

"Just some gimpy kid," the mother responded. "Watch this."

Mom took about five steps toward me, and I was gone, racing through the woods, knowing my life was about to end when I was run down by that angry mother.

She was a regular mama bear.

And I was running through the woods.

I long ago related the tale of the one in South Paris, a young buck, who hid behind a six-inch-diameter tree as I walked past the day before deer-hunting season began. My volunteer task was to take care of the trail system in an approximately 50-acre wooded area.

"Tomorrow you had better find a bigger tree behind which to hide," I said, being careful to not end a sentence directed at a deer with a preposition. Deer in South Paris are intelligent.

"I'll think about that," the young buck replied, I think I remember.

What I definitely remember, after writing about that encounter in my Down the Road a Piece column in the next week's paper, was people stopping me in the street for about a month.

"Do deer still talk to you?" they would ask.

"Of course, don't they talk to you?" I would reply, as they tactfully would back a few steps away from me.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com
Milton M. Gross Copyright 2007