The Devil Living in My Yard

My husband thinks I might be the only person in America who hates deer.  In my defense, with good reason.  This year I actually have a bumper crop of apples in my yard.  I was so excited until the deer showed up.  It is a little buck about two years old.  He has little horns with nubbins.  He was here Sunday night when we got home from being gone all weekend.  I told him he could stay the night in the back yard and then he had better be gone.

Monday--He was there when I woke up, came home for lunch and got back after work.  When Alan got home he suggested I try to scare him away because he was eating apples and then headed to my garden to gobble up my strawberries.  That did not sit well with me.  I have struggled to get my garden going a midst the local city wild life of squirrels, raccoons and the stupid crows.

Going off of the husband's advice, I started hootin' and hollerin' at the deer.  He just stared at me.  I started running around on the deck and making noise.  He went from the apple tree to the garden again.  I was pissed!  I flew down the stairs and yelled as loud as I could.  Nothing.  He just kept eating.  I screamed louder.  I tried yelling in a deeper voice.  The deer took notice and inquisitively turned his head to look straight at me.  I again made same booming noises and ran towards him.  My arms extended towards the sky so I would appear larger (I have heard you should do that wildlife.  It doesn't really work).  Frickin' deer just glared at me and then.....charged me.  He started running towards me.  I had no other choice but to turn around and run like hell back up to the deck with Alan.  The deer then just stood in the yard with an evil eye turned towards me before proceeding to eat again.  Husband said it could smell the fear in me.  Sure thing!  Like I want to be hoofed to death or worse--maimed in the facial region for life.  Holy Buckets!!!

Tuesday--Tried again.  Same results.  My sister suggested I ask him nicely to leave.  I did so hoping he would abide.

Wednesday--Go out to feed the devil cat that lives on the porch and he is STILL THERE!! Aargh!  This is going too far.  Lunch he was there.  After work he was there.  I decided to take matters into my own hands.  This is a deer.  A stupid little one too.  I should be able to outsmart it.  Scare it away in some manner.  If he would just stop eating my apple tree which by this time has lost 50% of its leaves and is now loosing apples non stop.  Damned deer can't just eat the ones on the ground.  NOOOO!

Step 1:  I go out and make more noise.  I more or less yelled at him like I was fighting with one of my siblings when I was a teenager.  Didn't work.  I was defeated.  He just lays down under the tree across from the porch.

Step 2:  I dig through Silas' confiscated goods that we keep in our room.  No cap gun only caps.  However, I did find those annoying snappers that you throw on the ground to scare people.  Armed with a bag of the snappers I headed outside.  The deer must have known something because he got up and walked to the other side of the picnic table on the patio.  I started hucking the poppers on the deck.  Then the stone walkway.  Then I walked to the patio about 3 feet from the evil deer.  I started throwing them around me and he didn't even wince.

Step 3:  I am freaking out now.  I am mad.  I picked up a piece of wood and threw it at the deer.  He stepped about 2 feet the other direction but made no attempt to even act surprised by the crazy women having a freak out 5 feet away.

Step 4:  I go to the driveway and gathered two handfuls of gravel.  When I got back to the apple tree area the deer must have sensed something so by now he had sauntered over to the garden and was again munching on the greens of the strawberries.  He even ate the flowers off my poppies!!!!  The nerve!!!!!

Screaming and running towards him I launched an all out army style assault and pelted him with rocks.  I know I hit him but my throwing skills must be weak because he really didn't flinch too much.  He kept eating although he was getting antsy.

Step 5:  I am ready to cry.  I am a girl.

Step 6:  Desperate for something to work I started the lawn mower.  He looks up.  I run towards him while pushing the lawn mower.  He runs to the opposite side of the yard.  I do too.  He zigs the other way.  I zagged.  He circles around the fire pit.  So do I.  Mind you I am pushing a running lawn mower.  He goes to the garden, I follow.  We circle the garden then back across the lawn towards the apple tree.  He actually started to sprint!!!  Yes!!!!!  Although he stopped when he got to the trampoline.

Step 7:  I run with the lawn mower towards him, let go of it on the patio, grab a pile of sticks and pine cones and start launching them at him.  Finally he runs through the open gate.  Victory is mine--for about 30 seconds until he lays down under the pine tree in the front yard.

Step 8:  I realize what an idiot I am when I see how the lawn has a crazy path mowed through it.

Step 9:  I mow the lawn in the back yard.

Step 10: I mow the front yard.  The deer is clearly annoyed with me and walks across the street to Eva's yard.  Well, at least he isn't in my yard anymore.

Step 11:  Not having any deer deterrent spray or any wild game urine like numerous websites suggest I grab a package of fabric sheets and hang them on the branches of the apple tree.  Deer supposedly don't like soap or fabric softer.  We will see.....  At least now when I sit on the bench under the tree I get a nice spring rain scent.

Yellow River.....

There are certain jobs that I just won't do regardless if turning them down would disqualify me from collecting unemployment each week.  Those jobs as we have come to know most likely involve animals, poop and blood.  I suppose I had left out urine.  Here is an announcement from good ol' Careerbuilder about a job in my area--even though it was categorized as not a good match they sent it to me anyway.  I have posted it below as proof. I am not a doctor.  I will never be a doctor.  I have not ever been a doctor nor a urologist.  I don't work with the yellow kind of pee-pee and I don't work with men's pee-pees or women's hootchies.   This job is definitely not for me although it would be a good match for any urologists you may know looking for work especially if they are trained in the computer program listed.  

BTW--I used to have a job that worked with urine.  Not a fun thing to do.  I worked in a probation office and one of those "other duties as assigned" included watching females urinate in cups and verifying that they had not tampered with the urine about to be sampled.  Two people were required to do this for safety and liability--as you might suppose, it would be rather easy for a person to say someone acted inappropriately while watching them pee.  Strength in numbers.  In addition to watching a person pee or watching the person watch the person pee (I preferred to watch the watcher), I was lucky enough to be the one who packaged the urine samples and sent them off via Fed-ex.  This duty as assigned involved wrapping the pee in ultra-absorbent barriers so as not to leak about the box should the lid come dislodged.  The worst part was that while I waited for the Fed-Ex carrier to arrive, the pee samples sat on my desk.  Yep.  Right next to my coffee.  Good times.  I will divulge that the whole reason I went back to university was because of this job.  I wanted a job where I NEVER had to deal with pee again.  Now I just deal with the crap that comes along with unemployment.  Aargh!