Lost Fawn, Glorious Goldfinches and Celebration of Family~

It has been a hard nature week for me personally.  First of the week was the failure of the second Red-shouldered Hawk nest of the season.  Then on Thursday afternoon, my 8 year old grandson and I had gone on a nature walk and we came upon some Vultures.  Always a bad sign.  Sadly the little fawn that so many of you all commented on several days ago, was dead.  It had traveled 9 acres from where I had last seen it, just the day before.  I took some graniy images through the thickets and did not look at them until last evening.  The reason that I know this was the same fawn, is that in those last images, it does not appear to have any wounds that I could detect, yet the rump end of hair had large green flies on it...not a good sign.  Even if I had seen these on the fawn on Wednesday, I doubt that I could have reached it.  The thickets where it was hidden are full of thorns and poison ivy.  It had to have come in contact with, or chased by one of the neighborhoods roaming dogs, to have gone so far, in one evening, at such a young age. Thomas stood sadly by, as I buried the remains of this lovely fawn.  No one knows how often in the wild these tragedies take place, yet it is way more than we could ever imagine, I am sure~

Today is our Family Day Celebration and it is a day that I look forward to with much anticipation. As many of you know, when the children are grown and married, on regular holidays, one must split up their time with in-laws, and such. If there is a divorce situation in the mix, then the sorting out gets even more complex and at times in recent years, I felt a little bit cheated. When our youngest daughter was born 25 years ago, I selected June 22 to celebrate family, and, or the closest Saturday to the date. We always made it a special time for the girls and we made many sweet memories. Now that two of the girls are married with children and one daughter lives thousands of miles away, this might not be a possibility any longer, or at least for several years it has not been the case. I found out that our youngest daughter would be in town and that was when I set the date for today. Food preparations are just about ready, the weather is picture perfect and the American Goldfinches are in their beautiful glory...what more could I have asked for~