The Return of the Bold Deer

Just as has been true of ants, I have learned that movies also mislead us about deer. As a child, I cried and cried during Bambi. Once, I longed for a dotted fawn when I read Marjorie Kinnan Rawling's lovely The Yearling.

Now that I have lived with deer every day since December 2002 (I once counted 13 of them one Sunday in my front yard) and now that I personally know two people who have suffered from Lyme disease (happily not here from our deer) and now that I have spent more than $200 on plants that have summarily been eaten to the ground, I think of them as pests, not as pets or cute Disneyesque figures. I have also learned that chuffing loudly at them while simultaneously stomping my feet on hard ground will make them turn and run. The problem is that they come in droves anyway -- at night, in early morning, during the day -- and munch away and munch away and munch away. Ach du lieber!

Today's visitor to the edge of my yard tried to stare me down. I won.

(By the way, the Terro terrorized the ants. They have now disappeared!)