Oh Deer.....

[Dagney]

While my Gramma was alive, she loved to sit in her bed and look out the window into the backyard of the house she lived in with my Aunt and Uncle, Mom, and the multitude of furry critters that call that part of the cul de sac home.

Shortly after they all moved in, we started seeing deer in the backyard around sunset. My aunt and gram are both softies for the (pun intended) doe eyed creatures, so they started tossing out the odd apple here and there. Knowing that winter was coming, and the animals would be dependent on what they were being treated with, the occasional apple turned into apples, pears, acorns, deer corn, oats, mushrooms, and the occasional protein lick - mostly when the weather's bad. We really don't want them TOO dependent on us when there are state game lands close to the house, and lots of woods with berries and bark right behind the property.

Every day, the deer would come in - almost as if they were visiting Gram. They seemed to 'know' when she would be awake, and planned their visits accordingly. Noonish, late afternoon, and shortly after dinner. They'd come in ones or twos, the dinner visitors generally being two females with three younger deer, our assumption being a set of twins and a single, and the family groups stuck together for 'protection'.

The day gramma passed, no deer. They came back the next morning, and stood at the fence, watching. It was something we'd not really paid attention to until a day or so later. Now, the deer come by frequently. They stick around a little, and almost stare in the window, as if checking up on those of us left behind.

Both of my grandparents loved animals. Both of them have now been cremated, and we're waiting for the anniversary of their marriage - it would have been 55 years this August - to sprinkle their ashes together, along the deer trail that comes up behind the house, along the creek, in a bare place, where we'll plant a male and a female holly bush, set up a small bench, and create a memorial to them both.

I think they'll like it. Heck, I can't help but think, maybe somehow - they've become part of the flock that visits us.