Gary, not content to carpet our backyard with nuts and dog food for the raccoons, bought a manger so he can feed apples to the deer. We assembled the manger without tears, so that was a breakthrough, and then positioned it so deer can just wander up, have a healthy snack, and be captured on the video camera.
Two days later Gary opened the front door and discovered two deer on the sidewalk, right at the edge of the porch, as if to say, “Trick or treat. We understand you have some apples in the backyard. Are those for us?”
Sadly, the deer ran off before Gary could answer, and so far apples have been patted by the raccoons and kicked about the backyard, but none have been eaten by deer.
I told Gary that he’s playing a dangerous game, feeding the deer the apples in the manger, because you are teaching them that suburban mangers are filled with edible things. Christmas is coming, and that won’t end well. I can see one of our deer spitting out a Baby Jesus head and complaining it tastes like plastic.
3 responses to “Deer”
I… have no words for how much I love this. Except those. Which seem dreadfully inadequate.
You might do well to bruise up those apples so they rot a little. The deer at my old house ignored the fresh fallen fruit under the apple tree, and went for the ones that were turning into hard cider.
Alison – His initial plan to feed the deer apples was to plant and grow apple trees. Evidently, apples trees are hard to grow in Missouri and it would take years before they would even produce one apple.
~Silk – I plan to bake some. I’m thinking since it’s about 40 degrees outside that’s essentially a refrigerator temp, so they won’t ripen.