On the Road

Spring is in full bloom now and with all this glorious rain we've been having the world is so bushy and green it hurts your eyes.  My commute is long but very beautiful, especially the 15 mile leg on King's Settlement Road.  I do ten miles on the busier Route 8, a corridor coming out of Utica that goes straight to Sidney and Deposit where you can pick up Route 17 and head to New Jersey.  Once I turn on to King's Settlement I like to count the cars I pass in the 15 miles to Norwich.  Most days it's 3-4 coming in the other direction but some days it's only 1 or 2.  I have had days in the last 5 years where I've been the only one on the road.  The lovely spring weather sadly brings out the babies who are not very adept at getting themselves across the road in one piece.  I can only imagine the mother who tip-toes out, coaxing her babies along, but doesn't get them to hurry quite enough.  The horror and confusion they must experience when the baby is no more.  I've observed at least two tiny tragedies of newborn fawns in such a state.  Today I was rushing home on Route 8, just having crossed the Madison County line,  with cars behind me pushing me to go faster than the 55-60 I do.  The buggers sometimes pass me in sets of three on the straightaway by Woodchuck Hollow Farm.  I was rounding a curve and spied a small patch of brown on the yellow line.  I whizzed by then thought that's unusual.  That patch of brown wasn't squashed, it was just there, kind of fluffy.  I put on the brakes and turned around in the snowplow pull-over by the Unadilla River foot bridge.  I drove back and pulled up next to the fluffy bundle and saw two little faces, nose to nose.  To my horror I realized they were baby ground hogs who somehow were stranded in the road.  Had mama encouraged them to venture across the road with her, then couldn't get them to come all the way and gave up?  Was she watching from behind a bush?  I put the flashers on and blocked them with my SUV, opened the door and scooped them up.  They were soft as bunnies and didn't make a sound.  What to do, what to do?  I thought I should take them home, then thought better of it.  I walked over to the bank of the Unadilla and put them down in the grass.  They could drink water and eat grass.   Hopefully mama would come along and find them.  Oh, they are so cute.  So glad I stopped.