As a child, did you watch the Walt Disney film, “Bambi”?
I didn’t, but my second grade class read the adorable fawn’s story. I hoped a friendly deer like Bambi would let me ride on his back. However, sightings during the 1960s in Indiana, even at my family’s woodland cabin, were rare.
Years later, when deer overpopulation resulted in state park hunts, I was appalled. How could they shoot Bambi?
A herd in Oregon’s Willowa-Whitman National Forest helped me realize why. Our children opened car windows to pet them. Those hijackers tried to poke their heads inside. If Hubby hadn’t closed the windows, we’d have lost both kids and upholstery.
Also, my dad’s truck and a deer collided. With big-time damage to the animals, as well as vehicles, you’d think they’d look both ways.
Riding our tandem bike, Hubby and I have managed to spot deer before they get too close and personal — except for one incident, when a fawn ran alongside our bike for 100 yards.
Lovely creature, with trusting eyes.
He almost reconverted me — until we and our garden moved near town’s edge. Groups hang around our nearby church. Holy instincts? No. Those thieves never learned the Ten Commandments.
I imagine their eating-out conversations:
My weirdness as well as deer repellent haven’t saved our green beans. One deer apparently stuck its head in a tomato cage. Hubby and I, puzzled at the cage’s disappearance, searched without success. A neighbor brought it to us, mangled almost beyond recognition.
Have the deer learned their lesson?
In a word, no.
The Internet bristles with suggestions of how to get rid of them: grow marigolds, garlic, lavender and mint, or hang soap, old CDs and pie pans nearby. Avoiding chemicals, gardeners spray concoctions of egg, liquid dish soap, garlic and/or hot sauce. Engineering types suggest motion-activated flashing lights or ultrasonic deer repellers. Others build ten-foot fences.
I could add a watchtower. And order a bazooka from Amazon Prime.
Bambi, you blew it.
This “server” is about to get serious.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Is Bambi still your BFF? Why or why not?
