The doe in the yard is small – and righteously so. About four years back, her mother was hit on the road – so from August on, she grazed and hung out around the mill with her grandmother. The early weaning interfered with her growth – I used hay to build a place where she could sleep, alongside her grandmother, and took out the saw to drop trees so they could eat the needles. There was a lot of competition from other deer – but the two stayed close to the sawmill.
When I climbed the ladder to put a roof on the sawmill shed, the little doe tried to keep me from climbing the ladder. I think the idea of ladders just didn’t fit with her idea of safety. I secured the roofing as she looked on – not everyone has a small deer who thinks the humans need protection.
This year, she’s in the yard every night with her fawn – who is now only a little smaller than she is. Last night, he was extra close, by himself, and he’s missing a patch of hide the size of a playing card on his right hip – just below the back. His mother was missing last night, but is back with him tonight. I didn’t realize how relieved I was to see her back in the routine.
I suspect that if I had Remi’s little goats (Nigerian Dwarfs) in the yard, and if the deer watched them being hand fed, I would have a pair of self-domesticated white-tail deer. They know that the woods have danger, so they spend a lot of time in the yard. And I like watching them.
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