White deer

I just returned at midnight last night on my own from Polonnaruwa, driving in the heavy rain for more than half the way from the time I left and got to Godagama in 4 hours 30 minutes.I was up at 4 to empty the cab of its contents, namely 200kg of rice the last of my last harvest white nadu variety, boll wee from the latest harvest to feed the free range chickens, rice bran for the cows, mangoes and oranges from my trees and murunga, a vegetable from a neighbours tree. Not much variety this time. I filled the cab with 500 king coconuts and drove on my own to Colombo, 250 for the Golf club and the balance to other traders on the way and in Colombo. I left at 7.30 am and finished the job by 10. First time I had attempted this on my own, seemed to manage without straining my limbs, just buckets of sweat.

I was at the Kaudulla National Park on Thursday and saw the baby white deer, an albino no doubt still being fed cows milk. They will probably send it to the Dehiwela zoo where it will be an object of facination. One wonders what the future holds in store for an animal made famous for an abnormality at birth!!

As a postscript I must note that this poor fellow on being transferred to the Dehiwela Zoo kdied shortly thereafter due to a instestinal disease possibly due to contaminated milk given to it. I am sure if he was kept at Kaudulla he would have had a better chance of survival. I was told yesterday, the 18th October 2007, by my friend at the park that he saw a whole herd of white deer with his own eyes so I believe there are a whole lot of them and the deer is not alone.