Familiarity Breeds Contempt

                              

Contempt, admittedly, is a strong word.  Familiarity breeds a ho-hum reaction is more like it.  I am talking about the visceral reaction I get these days when I see White Tailed Deer.  Spotting deer, when I walked around the bog on the Cape, used to be a rare event; a cause for celebrating.  I saw their tracks in the sand far more often than I saw them. 

Here in Texas, that is reversed.  The ground is too hard for tracks, but the deer themselves are “up close and personal”.  They stare in the windows, they come onto the front porch, they sample everything we have growing, even those plants labeled “super-duper deer resistant.”  “Artemisia, the perfect native plant to grow, for deer won’t touch it”, say the experts.  Mine was nibbled to within an inch of its life the first day I planted it. 

Which, I can partly understand- “Look, something new in the yard, something with tender young leaves.  Let’s try it.”  But even things that are awful, like my rather prickly Asparagus fern got eaten too.  I picture them lining up with a  “Have you tried that? It’s awful! Really, try it, you’ll see.”  At least that’s how I explain bits of Asparagus fern being all over the deck.   

The work of young deer is my guess.  First of all, we have a rope across the opening to the porch, but a young deer could no doubt pass beneath it and again, one not wise in the way of prickly asparagus fern might be willing to try some.  Either way, one by one my mostly-eaten, potted plants have been moved to the protected back yard where they form a graveyard of chewed off remnants.

The dog and I see the deer, not only staring in our windows, but crossing streets; fading in and out of the fields as we pass by on our walk. 

 Tucker has been good about not chasing them, but one day, while I was gone on my Maine trip, one angry doe chased him.  I imagine he stumbled on a fawn that was hiding in the grass, but either way, my husband said the dog came yelping, running at top speed out of the woods with a doe in hot pursuit.  He thought that Tuck had had his leg broken.  Perhaps the doe had struck out at him, for he wouldn’t put his foot down for days but he also has arthritis so any wild dash to get away would have pulled a muscle.   Now, you should see the wide, wide berth he gives any deer that so much as looks our way. 

I have read that there are more White-tailed deer in the Hill Country of Texas than anywhere else and I don’t think that is just TX bravado. It seems like it surely could be true.  All due to the fact that, not only are predators a rare thing here these days, but they eradicated “screwworm” in Texas by the 1960’s and from all of Mexico, and Central America by the year 2,000. 

I attended a talk on the eradication program but I will spare you the, more than gory, details that accompany any talk of this flesh-eating bot fly.  It used to wipe out 1,000’s of cattle and 1,000’s of deer.  Really, a horrific end for any beast that had the misfortune of having eggs laid in open wounds.  But, I promised to spare you this sort of info didn’t I?  But, they do say, that is why there are so many deer here today, perfect habitat, no predators and people ready to feed them at a drop of the hat.

There is a doe looking in the window as we speak, and although I am not one to buy deer corn, I bet before long, I will go cut up that watermelon just so I can toss out the rinds as a way of a) paying some protection money, but b) satisfying the “need to feed” that I always claim is part of my Italian heritage. 

(Luke Ormand photo credit)

So, contempt WAS too strong a word wasn’t it? For look at me, another sucker falling for those big brown eyes- watermelon rinds, coming up.