Dummy Deer

I like where we live.  No houses can be seen from our place.  Not that we don't have neighbors close by, scattered among the farm fields and woods in our community.

Being an animal lover it's great to live on the farm.  I've finally gotten hummingbirds and rabbits coming near the house after years of trying.  We have lots of quail and wild turkeys, hawks and falcons, owls in the roads at night and beaver we never see. And two baby raccoons live in a tree at the stop sign at the end of our road.  We also have all sorts of birds but luckily few groundhogs (we don't like those or coyotes).  

The ten acres beside us is alternated as a soy bean field and a hay field.  Quite a few creatures like to wander about it and the creek makes for great hiding for the beavers, although I think someone has killed those off.  

I'll start this section by saying I’m not anti hunting!!!!  I cannot count the number of friends and family members who like to hunt deer and bear and wild boar and rabbits and doves and so on.  Our dogs, American Bull Dogs, were created to be catch dogs and we've sold several puppies for boar dogs.  

Hunting is okay in my mind.  I’ll even eat deer meat if someone has cooked it.  Not much though and that's not because it’s deer meat.  I just don’t like the flavor that much.  And no, it doesn’t taste like beef.  Chris is not a hunter and I'm glad.  I don't mind other people hunting but I like that our household doesn't.  Chris also knows I don't like the few wild animals on our property scared off or killed.  

I’m not some crazy person like those on “Animal Attractions”.  I just like glimpses of wild animals around our place.  I do not want them hanging around all the time like they’re tame.  I don’t even want to see them everyday.  I just like to know they are there and I might get lucky enough for a sighting. 

We have a doe.  Chris and I call her our dummy deer because she doesn’t seem to fear people.  She has been coming to the soy bean field every year for around four years.  She comes quite close when we are grilling on the back porch.  We've even talked to her a little.  I chid her for being a dummy deer and tell her she is lucky to have lived so long, walking into the open like she does.  

Last year she had a fawn.  It was probably her first, or first to have lived long, because we'd never seen her with one before.  She gradually allowed it to come further and further into the soy bean field with her.  I scolded her for being a bad momma deer and raising a dummy fawn that wouldn't know how to fear humans.  Maybe I’ve been in the wrong by talking to her.  Maybe I set her up this week.......

Chris tells all our friends in the area who hunt that they better "not kill Marna's doe.  She’ll be mad.”  Monday a friend from across the way who is a deer hunter stopped by the barn and told Chris "I think Marna's doe is dead.  There is a doe that has been shot and thrown in the ditch.  I think it's her."  I was quite sad and upset when I heard about our doe.  

To be honest I'm not a big deer fan.  It's nice to see them out and about in our area like all the other wildlife. But I don't go to Cades Cove to see deer-we have far enough around our farm--but rather to try and see a bear.  But my dummy deer had become like a pet in ways. I enjoyed the evenings seeing her near the house.  I'd watch for her and sometimes I'd see her watch for me. 

It infuriates me a little for people who are supposed hunters to shoot a deer and throw her out like that.  Everyone I know has the deer they kill processed or give it to someone who will.  What a waste to kill something that is edible and toss it away when there are starving people in the world.     

I’m hoping that my doe will show up in the spring, maybe with a fawn.  For four years she has been quite good at hiding in the winters.  We’ve never seen her out during those times.  So maybe that wasn’t her in the ditch and maybe she isn’t a dummy after all….