Tag Archives: Fence

Bambi, You Blew It

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Image from Jean-Louis Servais from Pixabay.

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?

Image by OTH Amberg-Weiden from Pixabay.

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.

Images for WikiImages from Pixabay.

I imagine their eating-out conversations:

Stag: I’m sick of corn.

Doe: Eat soybeans.

Stag: Same-o, same-o. Let’s go to Phillipses’ Golden Corral. Now, there are beans.

Doe: They’re wonderful, but the servers aren’t very nice.

Stag: That weird one swung a hoe at me.

Doe: Maybe if you tipped her—

Stag: Why? She’s an animal!

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.

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay.

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?

Uninvited

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“We are all of us from birth to death guests at a table we did not spread.”

—Rebecca H. Davis
Image by Robert Wegner from Pixabay.

Has an uninvited guest ever brought suitcases to your house? Plus, a hostile pet named Lovey?

When I was growing up in a pastor’s home, uninvited guests were the norm. Many brought suitcases and — if not Loveys — equally mean kids.

A penniless evangelist, his wife and five children spent several weeks. Again, my siblings and I slept on the floor. I worked overnight at Denny’s. Once, during a rare nap, a kid poised a pipe at my window and bellowed like a mastodon.

Another incident involved a lady preacher named Bunny who often stayed with us. One night, Dad, who also worked construction, arrived home after everyone had retired. He climbed into bed beside Mom.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay.

One thought, though, struck like lightning. Hadn’t Mom said Bunny was staying overnight?

His pastor’s heart stopped. Dad yanked covers from the huddled heap beside him.

Mom glared. “Bunny’s coming Friday, not tonight!”

I could hardly wait until college, where I’d take control of my life.

One weekend, an unknown force roused me from sleep, swinging me in circles. Surely, a nightmare. …

No. The girl — half my size! — swinging me was real. So was my roommate, giggling up and down the scale.

Image by Alana Jordan from Pixabay.

I gasped to the stranger, “Who are you?”

“I’m Vicky!”

“Vicky, please put me down.”

She deposited me on my bed, singing, “O Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Color TV?”

Other giggling, melodious strangers gathered. I took refuge in another party pooper’s room. Unfortunately, my discussion with my roommate afterward was not the last.

So … uninvited-weird-people incidents were not confined to parsonages.

That lesson has been confirmed again and again. Unlike our late parents, though, my siblings and I have placed gated fences around our lives.

Though uninvited, I couldn’t help welcoming these petunias that popped up between cracks on my patio.
Image by F. Muhammad from Pixabay.

Recently, I reflected on hospitality as I watered uninvited cosmos, seeded from last year’s planting. Volunteer zinnias inundate marigold borders. I never planted those petunias, yet they invade our premises, looking wild … and wonderful.

How did Mom and Dad’s uninvited guests ultimately respond to kindness? Perhaps some, like disruptive flowers, are blooming in the place God — not people — prepared for them.

Most humans need fences to ensure safety and well-being.

But maybe I’ll leave my gate open more often.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you react to the uninvited?