First, with apologies to T.S. Eliot, I must disagree with his assertion that APRIL is the cruellest month.  Here in NH, March takes the cake.  Second, with thanks to Ernest Hebert, I have to say that it wasn’t until I read his wonderful book, The Dogs of March that I realized just how cruel the month could be. 

The phrase “dogs of March” in his book refers to the packs of otherwise sane, domesticated dogs that gather and roam the woods and fields of NH in March, traversing the barren landscape and running down the weakened, starving, and snow-slowed deer.  By March, many in the deer herds are hanging by a thread, waiting for some green sprouts to shoot up after the long, long winter.  Quite a few will die of starvation before those shoots appear – especially if, like this year, the snows are still piled deep as of March 19th.

The quality of the March snow is different, too.  The melt is beginning and often there is a hard crust across the surface, as the day’s melt will freeze over at night.  This leaves the dogs of March with a nice, smooth track to race along … while the deer, with their greater heft and tiny hooves, break through the crust and into the deep snow with each step.  In their already-weakened condition, they are quickly exhausted and then easily run down by the ravening packs of dogs.

After much debate we decided to start feeding the deer here.  We’d had four that were regular visitors to our birdfeeder where they foraged for seed – three females and a youngster.  So we started putting corn up on the hill behind our house a little more than a week ago.  It took several days for the deer to find it, but as of this past Monday we had the original four, plus two other new visitors, browsing and nibbling. 

Meanwhile Willie, our sweet-tempered lab, has apparently found a deer carcas somewhere way back in the deeper woods behind our house.  He disappears several times a day, if we don’t keep an eye on him, and proudly returns with a deer-part.  It’s an offering … a gift.  The other day he came back with what appeared to be a liver, and later a foreleg.  He’ll deposit it proudly at the door, or at the feet of anyone who happens to be outside.  He’s a retriever, after all!  But it’s March and he’s had blood in his mouth.  I notice that his hackles seem to rise more quickly these days, and his growl sounds more gutteral.  A dog in March is different .. even Willie, it seems.

So it’s a cruel, cruel month here, as we trudge up the hill with our corn … in our small way trying to help the deer herd through these final, tough days.  Meanwhile, Willie does his canine work with the deer who couldn’t make it through March to April.  We bag his “offerings” with sadness and with a renewed sense of the power of nature – something easily missed while hanging out indoors massaging NCAA basketball brackets, watching American Idol, or planning for spring planting … and waiting for April.