At 5:30 one morning recently as I was leaving for my bus trip to Bar Harbor, I glanced to the center of our dooryard.

There, eyeing me carefully, was the biggest buck I've seen in years or possibly ever. He looked to be at least three years old with massive shoulders and everything else looking to be in command -- as guys like to appear.

He turned suddenly and gracefully bounded across the yard and across the road before I'd even had a chance to say, "Good morning." He paused on the other side, then leaped still so gracefully but majestically up the far side of the road just at the forest edge. At the top of our property, he bounded back across the road and along the woods at the top of our yard.

Then he was gone.

The only word that came to mind -- for the rest of the day, as I thought about him -- was "magnificent."

That brief encounter, which left me speechless after I didn't have time to greet him, made me think about deer hunters. I used to be one years ago before I decided that these beautiful creatures had enough to contend with just to stay alive. They didn't need me to shoot them dead. I never did shoot one. I wasn't that good.

Which thought also made me think that the reason most deer hunters go after that "big buck" is the craving for that same thrill, caused by a big, beautiful buck leaping away into the forest.

Those hunters' dream is for his beautiful antlered head to hang on their study wall.

I read recently that the average buck in Maine never lives beyond two years.

Sad. Shooting that young one means not seeing a really magnificent one.

I'll never forget that one so early in the morning.

Dolores has named "our" doe Gracie.

I have come to believe that while the buck is magnificent, noble, and likes to show off his might with great leaps into the forest, Gracie is smarter. Makes me wonder about bucks and does of all varieties.

This doe may or not have been Gracie, when she visited us last winter. If she was Gracie, she has grown a fair amount between then and now this summer when she "chats" with us from our dooryard. Milt Gross photo.

Last winter and this spring we had a young buck, then a couple of skippers, an occasional doe, and then Gracie stop in to see us in late afternoon, early evening, or later at night.

The grain we don't put out for her is in a small pile about eight feet from the porch. Gracie appears and nibbles the grain and some sunflower seeds that are for the birds and squirrels.

One of my bus passengers the other day said that as they drove past our yard one evening, one of his sons called out that there was a deer in our yard. The deer was standing at the foot of the porch steps, looking toward the front door, the passenger told me.

"That's because Dolores was on the other side of the door, talking to her," I explained.

Gracie and Dolores have doe/Dolores conversations often.

We also have to whisper and tiptoe around inside the house while Gracie is there.

I got into the act by accident, again early one morning as I was putting down sunflower seeds for the little critters.

Gracie looked at me briefly, ran across the yard, looked both ways and crossed the road, entering the woods on the other side.

"Gracie," I called after her, "you know I'm not going to shoot you -- maybe you know. Why don't you come on back and finish your breakfast."

Gracie leaped back across the road, but then went into the woods below our yard to hide from me.

I finished putting the sunflower seeds down in little piles, went back inside, and in about ten minutes left for work.

The next time Gracie and I saw each other was during an evening not long after. I had put down a few seeds for the night critters, including Rockina the raccoon and her two little ones. They would show up after dark, the little ones fighting and screaming as usual.

I went out back to close the cellar door and bring in a suet cage from a tree. When I came back around front to the porch on the end of the house, there was Gracie.

"Now, you don't have to run, you know," I said to her.

She looked at me carefully, apparently trying to decide if I were going to shoot her with the suet cage. She must have decided I wasn't going to, because she put her head down and continued nibbling.

Gracie and I have had similar evening encounters several times since. She watches me carefully. You never know when a homeowner might shoot you with a suet cage.

She also visits a neighbor who lives in a subdivision across the woods from us, the woods on the other side of the road.

Yesterday our neighbor told me that as he was getting ready to leave for work in the morning, his wife told him there was a doe in the yard.

"Is it Milt's?" he asked her.

She didn't know, he said, but when he looked out he knew.

"The doe was leaving our yard in the direction of yours," he told me.

"It's Milt's," he said he told his wife.

That magnificent buck may be out there, cautiously wandering the woods, nibbling on whatever deer nibble on as they wander, avoiding the coyotes and the pickups that come speeding down the road, and enjoying his status as King of the Magnificent.

Meanwhile, Gracie eats well. She appears to be over two years old, solid shoulders, and a growing body. Not the dumbest deer in the forest.

And we have our evening chit chats together, Dolores, Gracie, and I.

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

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011