Coming to Terms with the Deer

   
   "Diana, you must have a garden," declared my friend, noting the delight I took in the bouquet she had brought me from her garden and the deer-thwarted efforts of my own yard. ³Youıre a gardener; you had a garden once; you love flowers. Why donıt you put a fence around your whole place to keep the deer out?² She suggested I put it deep in the woods where I wouldnıt see it, and she admitted it would be expensive, ³but,² she said, ³think of all the money youıve already spent feeding the deer.²
   Now, that was true.
   So I thought about it. I envisioned my house and garden enclosed by the unseen fence. But in that vision no opossums or porcupines ever wandered past my house any more, nor did I ever hear the nocturnal cooing warble of a raccoon calling to her babies from below my garden. I never again saw a cougar prowl through my back yard ; I never startled another bear in the woods behind the house, and there was no chance, now, of ever seeing a fox here or a coyote. Birds still sang from the treetops at dawn, and bats caught insects at dusk, but I never again disturbed a young buck napping on the bare ground of the path to my house and watched him rise casually at my approach and amble off. I never again saw, as I did yesterday, two does tiptoe past my house followed by two tiny, white-dappled fawns. I had put up ³No trespassing² signs for the wildlife. I had made a demarcation between me and them. I had cut myself off from my surroundings to live in my own, different, separate world, as inappropriate as an island paradise in a desert.
   I didnıt like that vision, so I concentrated on the accompanying vision of the paradise, my little cottage surrounded by its English flower garden. It was quite beautiful; I was growing bountiful flowers and luscious vegetables - but it was all possible only by the fence. And I didnıt want the fence. I wanted to live with the wilds as I always had, and luscious English gardens donıt grow in the wilds. The two concepts are incompatible.
   And so I have come to terms with the deer at last. The deer may stay. They may wander through my yard and eat what they want, and I might get exasperated, and I might yell at them from time to time, but the deer are as welcome here as the hummingbirds in the honeysuckle, the moonlight on the lawn, and the bears in the woods. Iıll keep the deer out of my petunias with individual chicken-wire fences. Iıll plant more of the flowers I have that I already know they wonıt eat: peonies, Shasta daisies, red-hot pokers, foxgloves. Iıll trellis my wisteria, honeysuckle, and climbing rose out of their reach; Iıll put planter boxes on my decks and fill them with lettuces, tomatoes, and drooping swoops of trailing lobelia. Iıll probably still be lured into buying pretty flowers at the nursery only to find Iıve spent the money just to feed the deer, but Iıll think about the cost of a fence, and I wonıt mind.
   When I see the Western tanager flashing yellow and red in the cherry tree as it gorges on my fruit, I donıt begrudge him that food. I share the foxgloves with the bees and the daisies with the butterflies. Iıll share a little of my flowers with the deer, too, and maybe we can all live here in the wilds in peace together from now on. It is our paradise, not my island. Welcome, all.