Re: The supercharged deer.
The rain was pouring down and the thunder was rolling, but instead of being afraid, the deer seemed excited...almost super-charged... and were making big leaps into the air and just cavorting around while racing in a circle. Very exciting to watch.
There are a lot of poets on this thread, with a real gift for observation and description.
Let me blunder in here with a very prosaic explanation for the deer behavior. I would rather attribute it to the effect on the deer of a glimpse of the Great God Pan, but I think it was the effect of the negative ions that all thunderstorms release. Negative ions excite, whereas positive ones (released by air conditioning, for example) depress.
Personally, I'm with the deer: I love thunderstorms. They make me want to cavort, too. Dogs, on the other hand, are smarter than me and the deer; they know that thunderstorms can release deadly lightning as well as cheery-bumps ions, and so they instinctively look for a burrow in the ground to hide away in. (My old dog used to cower in the closet, and shiver so much he would work himself up into a fever.) |
