They must have read "Across the Fence" in the paper and realized I was worried about their safety. On Thursday the story appeared that said I hadn't seen a deer since hunting season last fall. I feared the five deer we had enjoyed watching last year were all dead.
Thursday evening around 7:30, I was working in the basement when Linda said, "Come quick, there are two deer in the back yard!" I ran up the stairs and cautiously approached the large windows in our four-season porch. I didn't want to scare them away. There they were in the middle of the yard. Then I noticed two more deer at the edge of the yard. I looked around and spotted another larger deer, standing alone, off to the side. Five deer! What a welcome sight they were. It was as if they had gathered in our yard to let us know they were still alive and well.
They hung around for about fifteen minutes, grazing on whatever they could find. There isn't much to munch on because the grass is still a drab brown, and even the weeds haven't started growing yet. Maybe they heard we're planning to put in a garden and came to check it out. That should make life interesting this summer. When they realized the garden had yet to be planted, they wandered off into the corn stubble behind the house looking for something better to eat, It was pretty slim pickings there too. As darkness started to take over, they slowly made their way down toward the pond and eventually disappeared into the night.
What a wonderful encounter. As you might have surmised by now, we love living in harmony with nature and the animals and birds all around us. It's great living in the country again where we can look out a window and see Whitetail Deer grazing in the fields around our house, or see a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree next to the house. We have plenty of rabbits too. That will make trying to grow a garden interesting. Even so, having nature all around us is great.
I've got to admit, there were times when I felt like a caged animal living in the city. I realize the shift in population is away from country living to city living. That's a fact of life these days, but I prefer the country. Some people feel more at home away from the bright city lights, traffic noise, and congestion of the city, while others would feel lost and isolated if they had to live in the country.
Just as we need to live in harmony with the animals around us, city folks and country folks need to respect each other and live in harmony too.
A Letter To the Editor regarding my Combine and Tractor Trail story brought up some points of conflict. He said that farmers receive very little respect. Non-farmers don't like when slow-moving equipment slows them down and they often flip off the farmer when they can finally pass; they don't like that their animals stink up the countryside; and they don't like the fertilizers and pesticides farmers use on their crops. He said many of them use more fertilizer and weed killer per acre to have green, dandelion-free lawns, than a farmer uses on his crops.
It's the season when farm machinery will be traveling on the highways and side roads again. We all need to exercise a little patience when we get behind slow-moving equipment. That goes for Amish buggies and wagons too. A lot of Amish live in Vernon County and many people drive much too fast on the roads in Amish communities. We all need to slow down a bit and learn to live in harmony with all our neighbors, or it could lead to disastrous results.
I think there's a correlation between me living in harmony with the deer that inhabit the back forty of this farm, and farmers and non-farmers existing in harmony too.
I can accept the fact that deer and rabbits view our garden and plants as their personal food supply. That's their nature and I can't fault them for that. They don't understand that people plant gardens for their own use, not for the critters and birds. We can avoid some conflicts if we construct fences around our gardens to discourage them from getting a case of the munchies. Remember, good fences make good neighbors, and those animals and birds are our neighbors too, just like our human neighbors.
Sometimes living in harmony with the world around us can be very challenging. It's now 4:30 in the morning as I finish writing this story. I was awakened by the howling of dogs and couldn't get back to sleep. They keep up a constant, mournful howl, interspersed with barking. Perhaps they're howling at the full moon that's visible through the trees beside the house.
As irritating as the howling is, I can't fault the dogs. I'd howl too if I was imprisoned in a pen or constantly chained up. I said earlier that I once felt like a caged animal while living in the city. I can relate to how those dogs must feel. When it gets down to basics, we're all in this world together... animals, birds, and humans. We need to respect each others space and learn to live side by side in harmony.
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