Neighborhood deer

I wanted to address the deer situation that seems to be happening around Whitefish. I love seeing them in my yard and walking down the street like a family of a different culture.

A few weeks ago I heard frantic running back and forth under my bedroom window late at night while I was reading. I got up and went to the front porch and there was a fawn in the front yard. I watched quietly from the front porch as it tried to leap the hurricane fence surrounding my yard in the front. It could not make it over and hid in the corner, its heart beating so hard I could see it.

I slowly stepped off the front porch and walked to the gate opening it then returned to the porch.

“You can go out the gate now,” I said quietly, and out the gate he ran.

An older deer, (perhaps the mother) and two others appeared from the street and surrounded him and away they loped. I returned to my book.

A beautiful friend of mine has lots of deer around her house and a fantastic organic garden. Outside the fence they put up, deer come and munch the trees in the wooded area beyond.

This friend noticed last year that a deer in the tribe had an injured leg and looked scraggly and thin. She fed it apples and produce from her garden. The deer came every day and ate what she gave it. It got better and better and fatter and fatter and was doing wonderfully.

The little buck left for awhile but returned this summer and again they struck up a relationship. The other day she called to tell me her little guy was injured again, a leg that looked as though he was hit by a car. She feeds him apples and other good food and feels sad that he may die.

I know it is unusual that the deer are wandering around the neighborhoods in such quantities and probably not so great for people’s gardens and flowers, still there is always that moment when I see them and feel a happiness that they are here. I always whisper “be careful” to them. They probably do not yet know what happens to wild things when they come in contact with us.

— Ruby O’Bain