Deer At Home on the Range

I used to think seeing the deer in our backyard was romantic. I was a victim of having seen Bambi and read the Yearling as a child. Then my son got Lyme disease. It took the whole summer to diagnose and was very painful. Watching my son receive shots and IV’s for weeks, those deer morphed into very large rodents in my eyes, bringing the equivalent of the black plague into my home in the form of a poppy seed sized insect. I combed over my children like a crazed chimp after a day of play for any signs of the critters and am proud to say I have pulled off more than ten in my careful searches.

Two more children caught Lyme disease in the following year, but we saw the bulls eyes around the bites and promptly got antibiotics. The problem was the deer rendered our half acre lot a constant danger for outdoor play. We needed to send Bambi and his friends packing.

We tried spraying “Deer Be Gone” on the bushes, but truthfully, I felt I could almost hear the does saying, “Oh look honey,” to their favorite bucks, “The Italian restaurant is putting out a new vinaigrette on the Hosta, we should go to Antonetti’s tonight.” Those bushes always seemed to get munched first.

Psychological warfare didn’t work either, for the month of July, we bar-b-qued every night. I wanted the smell of smoked meat to permeate the woods adjacent to us as if to warn them, “Carnivores live here.”

Assembling the family, we instituted “The Call.” If anyone saw a deer on our property, they were to yell, as loud as they could, “DEER!” and everyone young and old would stop what they were doing and make a charge out the back door at the creatures, screaming a’la Braveheart style and waving their arms. The deer would startle a bit and move on in a leisurely fashion as if to say, “How rude, we were eating here.”

Our collective charge had the emotional weight of someone talking on a cell phone at a restaurant. They couldn’t quite blow us off, but it was close. We tried using pots and pans and toy drums and instruments. My son’s trombone playing didn’t even require a cautious head raise by the lead doe. When he finished blasting out the Notre Dame Victory March, the deer casually walked out of our yard with scarcely a tail flick.

“Must be Michigan fans.” I thought.

We needed a battle plan.

Watching some nature show with my children, inspiration struck. Using branches that had fallen during a thunderstorm the prior weekend, my oldest son and I tied them antler style to the front grill of our Suburban. That weekend we waited eagerly for the Deer to arrive.

It was Saturday morning, 7:11 am, when the unfortunate buck stepped out of the forsythia to get some morning blueberries, freshly planted. I was in the kitchen starting breakfast and writing up the schedule for the day when I saw him. He was a picture perfect 8 point buck, straight out of the Disney studios, standing against the yellow blossoms, eating my berry bushes. I got my car keys and sneakers and stole out to the big blue SUV. I got in quietly. I buckled up. I turned on the ignition with a roar. The deer looked up, alert.

I swung the car into gear and drove onto the grass, flashing my lights, antlers waving and beeping my horn. That deer practically flew out of the place. I could also hear the satisfying thicket crunching sounds of many of his friends clearing out. “There’s a New buck in town.” I crowed at the fleeing pests, as I got out and patted my car. “Mine are bigger than yours!” I sang as I took the branches off my car and proceeded to do a victory lap around the back, wearing the branches like a crown.

My husband took the opportunity to re-park the car. “I’m sure that was against the Home Owner’s Association rules.” He said quietly.

Okay, so it probably was a bit over the top and the deer have since returned in force, unimpressed by my more creative antics. Recently, I gained perspective on the whole situation. My brother-in-law bought a house and the painter that was putting finishing touches on one of the rooms called him because a large black bear was grazing about his back yard. Suddenly, the deer seem pretty benign to me. I may not love them, but I can live with them. Nothing brings about peace like some third party with a bigger stick.

Homeostasis...be it ever so Humble

Author's Note: This is an older piece that never oddly enough, found a home. I hope you enjoy it. --Sherry

We lived in a middle aged home from the time we were a family of six to our most recent child. There were at least 15 projects we could do, caulking, the hole in the kids’ room from that “it wasn’t a fight” incident and replacing the roof of 20 years would be amongst my first of the honey we need to do list. The plaid wall paper I meant to tear down the day I moved in, kept getting put off for that unknown time when we’d have more time. Faulty wiring in the kitchen ceiling made the lights flicker whenever someone upstairs jumped. The bathroom desperately needed some newer color than Colonel Mustard yellow. Given unlimited time and money, I would have worked to make our first home more hip and hospitable, but merely beginning the process often lead to unpleasant discoveries of how much more remained to be done.

We were planning to transform the garage into a master bedroom, surrendering the upstairs to the children. We had a contractor come in to look at the possibilities but discovered the garage had no foundation or footers. It was four walls held up by a roof and no small amount of faith in the seismic stability of Maryland. To do our plan, we’d have to knock down the garage, pour a foundation and add a sizable 50K to our budget.

The bathroom was also on the short list for revising when we discovered the tub was substandard and there was no actual room to use to put in a normal tub unless we wanted to surrender a toilet. The avocado green shrinky dink tub stayed.

When we got serious about repainting the upstairs, we decided to do it ourselves. For the boy’s room, we had chosen white paint with a dark blue trim. My husband and I had been working on the boys’ room for two days when our oldest, then eleven asked if he could help. We agreed and he happily went upstairs without us. Half an hour later, I heard a scream. The scream was one of pure agony from an adult at something unthinkable. Our son had reversed the colors and as such, there was a wide 6 foot large ameoba shaped blue swath across a once white wall, with no small amount of blue speckled on the floor. I took the children out to McDonald’s while my husband did damage control.

We had needed to replace the carpet anyway so this just accelerated the process.

Replacing the yellow smoke filled carpet with hard woods, I discovered that “new stuff” in an old home doesn’t seem to cope well. I never worried about spilt juice with the old carpet, or about mud or much of anything, it was so sad and old it had become useful in that one couldn’t hurt it.

Staring at the pretty white planks of freshly cut wood, I barked at the kids to remove their shoes and made them use sippy cups even if they were over the age of 4. I swept and dust mopped it every day. I was married to the new floor for as long as it screamed “I’m new!” at everything else. Normally, my children provide sufficient abuse to any object to erase that “new” smell within a week. In this case, they showed great restraint and it took over three months. Relief came finally when my two-year-old daughter who loves to draw, found the one permanent marker in the house and used it to play tic-tac-toe on the floors. It stunned me how little I cried. I put away the marker up high and put a coffee table over it, but not before showing her how to draw the line through the three X’s. I didn’t sweep that night. Now I could relax, the floor was part of the family.


As we struggled to maintain homeostasis in our old home we told ourselves, “Our next house will be new.” When we started looking for a bigger home, viewing those gleaming walls and bare rooms in the suped-up McMansions and the soaring prices made me nervous like I was a kid who had entered an antique store. The homes looked like the HOA would fine you if your blinds need dusting.

We finally settled on a gorgeous house that looked as though it had never experienced a stray crayola mark. For a pristine place to become ours it would have to accept the possibility of crayons and fingerprints everywhere. I suddenly felt at least grateful for our old broken-in home that held layers of memories in addition to all the coats of paint and do it yourself wall patches. For all its flaws, that old home could take on my family and my family was equally unafraid of taking on it. Still, we needed to move.

Our new home with it’s brass and crystal chandilliers and Tuscan colors I think sometimes winces as the toddler plays the piano with her bottom or the eight year old sends parachutes down from the second floor and floats homemade spaceships with balloons to the cathedral high ceiling. I hope as it comes to cope with the many sized hand prints that grace it’s walls, it feels more than the grime and residue of my children’s latest snacks, it feels like less of a show pony and more of a home.