Babies!

Like the title? Haha, gotcha…no, no humans that I am related to are pregnant, thank goodness…this entry is about deer…

Okay anyone that has known me for any length of time already knows this – I HATE DEER. Hate them hate them hate them…O WHY? Do you ask? They are so cute, they are pretty, how can you hate Bambi? What’s wrong with you woman???

Well, here’s the thing, I’ve be “blessed” to live in areas with a surplus of deer for most of my home-owning life. Deer are destructive, and dangerous. They eat plants. In Missouri they ate our tomatoes, our strawberries, our daylilies…heck, they came right up on the patio and ate my hostas! And they wandered out onto roads willy-nilly, leaving damaged cars and sometimes injured drivers and passengers in their wake.

And if you get up close to them, they really aren’t that pretty. The deer in Missouri were fearless and came right up to our bird-feeder, peering in the kitchen window curiously, so we could see their mangy, parasite-ridden coats.

Our neighborhood in the hill country of Texas is absolutely jam-packed with deer. They don’t seem to bother to wander out on to the highways that much; they’ve got it way too good off in the secluded hills and valleys where subdivisions have flourished around Austin in the past 30 years. Many of our neighbors have tall, spiked wrought-iron fences, the better to be able to grow a flower or two, and maybe keep the deer from falling into their swimming pools, who knows. But we don’t have a fence, at least not yet. They’re expensive, and since we don’t know what the future holds…but I digress.

A couple of weeks ago, we discovered a mama deer and her new-born baby hanging out under our trees. I mean, a brand new baby fawn, barely able to walk. Now, even I thought this was pretty cool. So, we’ve been following the progress of the baby deer. This mama actually has a pair, twins I guess. I’ve been dying to get a photo of them. The other day I was coming back very early in the morning from taking Lee to the airport and I saw them, right around the corner from the house. I quickly put the car in the garage, grabbed the camera and walked back up the street. They were still there and I began snapping away, but dang it, it was too dark for my little camera. This morning I was on my way to run and saw one of them crossing the street. But alas, I didn’t have my camera with me.

You can see the deer eyeballs in this picture, but not much else!

I tried a different setting, so you can see a blurry picture of a baby crossing the street, but there still wasn't enough light.

I’m conflicted. I want them to walk across our yard so that I can go out on the deck and get a picture of them. But yesterday I went out to see how our plants were doing, and discovered that the deer have been eating some of our new bushes! Rats! So I got out the Liquid Fence (a repellent) and sprayed it along the perimeter of our yard. That will keep them out for a couple of days, hopefully. But last night I thought I heard something creeping through the yard behind our house. What’s a matter with those animals? I thought…don’t they know that stuff stinks?

So, no good pictures of the baby deer yet. I’m going to try to be more diligent about bringing my camera with me and maybe I’ll capture them before they turn into completely annoying grownups.