This blog was written by my husband, Cary Johnson a couple years ago but I thought it was worth reading.
I am not prone to write essays or short stories but today’s event moved me to write. My wife and I and two dogs live in a semi-rural area and have basically taken over the habitat of many white tailed deer. Along with my neighbors, we have a love/hate relationship with them since our shrubs and other plants are some of their favorite food.
We fence off as much as we can, but success is limited. The deer are urbanized, meaning they are not afraid of us or our dogs and do not move unless we get very close. Generation after generation have lived with us and around us and their increasing numbers show their adaptation to living with humans. We have several groups of does with their yearlings that move through our yard 2-3 times a day and with the heavy snow, they root up the undergrowth around our tall spruce trees. They climb on our front porch to eat the yews planted there such that I never have to prune them except where the deer can’t reach.
When I take the dogs out at night to do their business, several are always standing or laying under the trees and watch. The dogs are not bothered and neither are the deer. This Super Bowl Sunday morning, my wife took the dogs out as usual and told me a deer was laying in the front yard under a spruce tree and was barely moving. She said she walked up to the doe and her ear twitched and her eye looked at her but she did not get up. I figured she would move along soon enough but after breakfast I took a look. The doe had moved only a few feet into a patch of sun and died.
Initially I was angry since what to do with a dead deer in my yard? Then I asked myself, why did she choose my yard? Perhaps she was born here as we have had numerous fawns in good cover areas over the years. She may have raised several twins in our area over the years as well and felt safe even with our dogs. She no doubt knew our yard had provided food, shelter and was along the well trodden path of her companions. Interestingly enough, I normally see the
group all around our corner, but not today as if they left her in respect. I too will treat her with respect and return her to the earth. I am somewhat humbled by the experience that these creatures choose to live with us and die with us and I guess we do the same.