Herd is now welcomed presence in yard
The following article was originally posted on Courier Record website.
If you ask people about the deer in their yards, unless they hunt, there are usually rolled eyes, sometimes a damn, and they often start reciting plants these creatures won’t eat.
As I’ve watched herds wipe out my hibiscus, azalea, crape myrtle, and pansies, all the while telling my husband we should just plant cactus, I have decided not to give up. I have had a change of attitude.
For the last few years, six or seven deer often appear early in the a.m., before I have had coffee, or at dusk. And sometimes it seems like they are not on such a strict schedule.
I have reached the point where I walk through my house at dinnertime, expecting to see the twin bucks, two does, two fawns, and a visitor either jumping over the wall or grazing in a bed of clover or trimming my grass.
Before I go to bed, I wonder if I should go outside and say goodnight. Or perhaps it’s time to give them names — or at least nametags. And when I can’t sleep, I look out the windows and most nights, there they are, pale as ghosts and ruling the street.
Sometimes I see a neighborhood cat sitting in the middle of the herd.
In a word, it’s a little hard to think about what kind of fence I should put up or to find out when bow and arrow season starts when I can clean up dinner dishes and watch a doe nurse her fawn outside my kitchen; the doe is as calm as a distant pond on a windless morn, the fawn, jumpy, tugging, excited for more.
In the beginning, as the deer started to move into my neighborhood, cars, my dog, and loud noises — maybe an airplane or “the sound of freedom” from Ft. Pickett – would cause them to scamper. Not anymore.
In the evening I can go outside to walk Dolly and 30 feet away, the deer just stare. I guess it’s now God’s wish that we are en famille. And my husband and I have to be careful when we drive into our driveway, or we may hit one.
I hope this isn’t the beginning of me not wanting to eat venison insofar as my husband makes the best chili.
Sometimes I stand behind a curtain in my living room and study the herd while they are feeding. To see this scene under a full moon — the opaline light, the elongated shadows, tree branches and fall leaves framing the scene — it takes my breath away.
As we approach the golden years, we start to slow down, pause for reflection, and study what is around us.
What do we see, hear, smell, and remember? We appreciate the little things, the special moments, the beauty. Quietly. As a teenager, how long would I have watched a doe lovingly bathe her fawn?
I have learned that slowing down and even boredom can be healthy mentally. Now I know why I see so many rockers sitting on people’s porches while I drive around Nottoway County. As Albert Einstein once wrote, “Joy in looking and comprehending is Nature’s most beautiful gift.”
ABOUT THE WRITER
Tyler Scott has been publishing her articles and essays since the early 1980s.
