“Meadow Herd #2 – Second-year Buck”
8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas.
I’m currently working on a painting series of our “Meadow Herd” of 12 Columbian black-tailed deer – that’s right – 12! This one is of the sweet but persistent velvet-antlered buck that was birthed two years ago. He’s still here, along with a total of 11 others that seem to never stray far from the house. The other morning 9 were in the meadow at once. When we moved into the ‘Lodge’ back in the 90’s, hunting was still allowed in the ‘neighborhood’. The deer were here, too, but always moving, passing through, edgy. Early mornings, we’d sometimes hear gunshots down in the estuary and figure it was probably out-of-work ex-logger-types in a desperate situation and in need of protein for their families. Now there are no shooting zones here and in Port Townsend, and the deer are everywhere, calm, friendly, stopping traffic, creating gawking tourists who, at first, think they are mechanical yard ornaments (well, maybe they are).
Oh, and then there’s Nancy, happily feeding them apples, pears, buckets of oats mixed with molasses – right out the back door of the barn! The local feed store-guy told her that he sells dozens of 40 lb bags of the stuff each WEEK to Port Townsend deer-feeders, and she’s one of them. What, you say? You’re FEEDING them? But she doesn’t see any difference between the chickadee feeder and a deer bowl – and I get models for paintings. (The photo below was taken a couple of days ago from the office window.)
It takes patience to live with wildlife on the Olympic Peninsula. We sometimes forget that this isn’t just a normal American suburban place – we forget that wildlife is more plentiful here than people. I mean, there are only 9,000 people living in Port Townsend – but there are over 5,000 elk on the peninsula.
We have bats in the shingles (I washed the roof and 7 flew off of just one pitch) and we hear them come and go each night. Squirrels continually prob any weak spot to get into the attic or crawlspace. I’ve counted almost 90 different species of birds and critters either on the ground or flying over the property. If you count the deer, snakes, chipmunks, weasels, bobcats, raccoon and the rest, I’m sure I see many more critters than people in my daily life – and for a life-long painter of nature, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure the roses get eaten, the bulbs are chewed on, the flowers chomped down to nubs, but we also have 200-lb. deer going nose-to-nose with our freaked-out cat on the inside of the window. It takes Nancy’s breath away when a full-blown bucks just stands there as she brings him a bucket of oats – as he snorts at her from 24″ away. It’s a very high Quality-of-Life thing that I can’t imagine NOT having.
And so, this ORIGINAL painting of “Meadow Herd #2 – Second-year Buck” is an acrylic on canvas, 8″ x 10″ and $125 unframed. The custom wood frame makes it a total of $145 and shipping for either adds just a bit more depending on your zone. This is the original painting, NOT a print. And I’ll bet that one of you starts a collection of these – especially if you’re from Port Townsend. I have four finished with a fifth almost there.
Email us for details – and I can send you a photo of the frame.
Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert
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