My neighborhood is not exactly wild country, but it’s spread out and pleasantly scruffy, compared to a standard subdivision. Some folks have chickens. There’s a goat at the end of our block. There are plenty of freelance animals, too: foxes, skunks, roadrunners, a gazillion lizards, hawks, rabbits.
And then there are the deer. Having herds and hordes of deer around is too much of a good thing. Imagine a fantasy world where you get pretty sick of tripping over elves all the time. Instead of being these lovely, etherial creatures you glimpse in the distance, they camp out on your lawn and eat anything that isn’t behind a maximum security fence.
The plus side of deer, though, is fawns. There’s a little sunken corner at the back of the yard that we literally never set foot in, so it’s an ideal spot for soon-to-be mama deer. Every year we have at least one fawn, often two. One year we had two sets of twins. We don’t feed them and they move on after the babies are big enough. I think the mamas want to keep our yard a relative secret for the next time they need a nursery.
But this time of year, we get to enjoy watching the fawns. It’s easier than growing vegetables anyway.