The Similkameen News Leader
Editorial
October 07, 2008
I"D STILL BAIL HER OUT
The cooler weather has changed the deer activity in our neighbourhood.
Instead of them just walking by our yard on their daily trip to the river for a dip or a day at the beach, they have taken notice of the fine job I have done in my sporadic lawn-cutting and weed-whacking chores.
The other night we arrived home to find a mother and her two fawns snoozing. We had to cut through their campsite to get to the back door, and like your average weekend camper they looked a little disturbed by our disturbance but put up with it for the duration of time it actually took.
Then one day I'm shown digital photos of deer munching on the vegetation I missed with the weed whacker and one creative youngster on it's hind legs pulling fruit off the only tree in the yard.
Sure, they are cute, but they are pruning just a little too much off the top as far as I'm concerned.
Then it happened. A couple nights later I'm watching a deer pull the same stunt in the same tree with my own eyes.
I mentioned it to my wife (the photographer of the digital photos shared days before) and we share a moment watching this really athletic deer pulling fruit off the tree standing almost straight up on it's hind legs.
We chat that small talk a couple uses as if we were admiring our own children saying things about how big they've grown and how much they are improving in certain tasks now that they are older.
"You know, it would probably be a lot easier if we just went out and pulled the fruit off the tree and left it on the ground for the deer," I said and as soon as the words were out I realized what I said and added, "But I wouldn't want start feeding them or we'd never get rid of them."
I left it at that and went back to what I had been doing earlier.
I thought maybe I could pretend I had never said those words.
Then minutes pass and I start to wonder where she is, so I checked outside.
There she was, with the dog, pulling fruit from the tree and dropping it all to the ground.
"That was a great idea of yours," she said.
"Keep that up and I'll call the bylaw enforcement officer," I warned.
I expect a visit sometime this week.
And I promise I'll bail her out.
