As the Woman and I were getting ready for work this morning, she glanced out the window and noticed a deer in our backyard. There’s really no better way to start your morning. Well, unless that deer is followed by two more who wander out to start grazing on your “lawn”. I put the word lawn in quotation marks, because I’m pretty sure a stretch of ground needs to be at least 50% grass-covered to qualify, and I think that may be a little too high for the current state of the back.
Back to the deer. The first time we saw any in our backyard was the Monday morning after our wedding. That’s right, our first morning in our house as a married couple and we saw a deer and her kid seeking shelter on our unkempt property. After I left that morning, the Woman even got to watch the momma deer nurse her young ‘un. Amazing.
This morning, the three deer were moving back and forth between our yard and our neighbors, looking for choice greens. I managed to take some photos after cracking a windows open just a few inches. When I tried to approach down the side path, the lone remaining deer heard my clumsy footsteps and stood up in a completely unmenacing way. Nevertheless, I soon envisioned myself becoming the first person in the neighborhood to be mauled by a freakin’ deer. So I let him be.
Every time I work on our yard (which is, like, twice a year) I think about how much it needs to be cleaned up. Clearing out a lot of the… brush is the only way to describe it… would make it so much more inviting for humans. But for now I prefer it being more inviting for wildlife. That’ll change when we plant some veggies and suddenly we find ourselves chasing off those “pesky” deer. 😉
Airing this fall on [adult swim], “Thom Goes to the Backyard”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG7G6hk-wxk