Dealing with Deer
~ by Jeff Tryon
I
live at the end of a long wooded lane, on the edge of the Brown County State Park, and often when I make my way home in the evening or early in the morning, I will encounter individuals and groups of white-tailed deer.
Sometimes they bolt— bounding over creeks and straight up steep hills with an amazing alacrity and a smooth grace that demonstrate all the beauty of nature in raw form.
Sometimes, if I’ ve been creeping slowly down the drive as I sometimes do, the deer will just stand there and study me and my vehicle. When they do this I usually lower the window and turn up the music.
People and vehicles have become commonplace to them, but they don’ t get that much recorded music out there in the boonies, I think they are somehow charmed by it. They seem to favor classical music.
Of course, living where we live, it doesn’ t seem that unusual to look out the window and see wild deer in the yard, or up on the hill just beyond. In fact, that’ s becoming a more and more common sight no matter where you live.
Bloomington is overrun with the pesky white-tailed ruminants. A couple of years ago, a dog was barking at a deer that had wandered into a Bloomington yard to sample the landscaping and the deer stomped the dog to
40 Our Brown County • Jan./ Feb. 2018