We live on a hillside at the edge of the woods. It’s a beautiful setting and the woods around us are alive with all sorts of creatures, from bears and bobcats to deer and raccoons. Most of the wildlife seems to fend pretty well for itself but, somehow, beautiful Bambi tugs with special tenderness at our heartstrings. Winter is the toughest time of all when freezing temperatures drive the succulent shoots, grasses and berries into hiding along with the snakes and bears.
I know we’re not supposed to feed the deer but sometimes the bone in my head that says, “Apply common sense here,” simply comes loose or even disappears completely. So I built a sturdy wooden trough, filled it with hay and waited. Well, we didn’t have long to wait.
Within a mere matter of days we had waves of livestock thundering through our yard including several herds of deer, a number of foxes, a few things we couldn’t identify and even the odd bear, who I thought was supposed to be hibernating. They had all come to take advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then, the hay wasn’t enough. The deer began to eat the shrubs and bushes, destroying nearly all the vegetation I had spent so much time and effort planting the previous year. They even had the pine trees at the edge of our property looking thin and spindly.
A bear destroyed our picnic table, raccoons spread garbage everywhere and all manner of feces overwhelmed the area to the degree it was nearly impossible to bring hay to the trough any longer. The time had long since passed when I could provide enough nourishment to equal their demand. The brazen wild turkeys began to screech and peck at our windows all hours of the day and night, if they were not happy with the quantity or quality of the food supply. Even those gentle, cow-eyed Bambi creatures were beginning to show a mean streak, although we had been feeding them and this whole cast of characters out of our own pocket.
Finally, after running out of patience and admitting that our good intentions had backfired, I cleaned up the mess, created a space indoors for the garbage and took down the feeding trough. Before long, our property was like it used to be: quiet, serene and with no one demanding the right to a free meal.
Now, wait just one minute. Our government gives out free food, subsidizes housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to automatically become a citizen. Word spreads and illegal aliens come storming across our boarders by the millions. Suddenly our taxes go up to pay for these free services, small apartments are housing five families and you have to wait six hours to see an emergency room doctor. Your child’s second grade class is learning well below par because more than half the kids don’t speak English, Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box, you have to press ‘one’ to get your bank balance in American and people waving flags, other than ‘Old Glory,’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.
If that’s not enough, this unskilled, uneducated horde has not only broken all sorts of laws getting into this country but they’re about to break the Medicare, Medicade and Social Security systems as well. And, if you happen to object to any of this, or to illegals instantly obtaining more rights than legal citizens have, you are accused of being a bigot. Even the President has become so mired in politics that he tells us we’re “hurting the country” if we’re against the current amnesty bill.
Maybe it’s time for the government to face facts, clean up the mess and take down the feeding trough.
R.S.F.
0 Responses to “Oh, Deer!”