Lily is my wildlife spotter. Last summer, while we were eating lunch, Lily was looking out the window. She very casually said, “There’s a fox in our backyard.” I thought there was no way a fox could be in our suburban backyard. But I turned around to look anyway, and … there was a fox! We saw him several other times that summer.

Earlier this spring, Lily asked me, “Is that a crow in our tree?” I turned around to look.

“No, that’s a hawk!”

I quickly rephrased that. “No, it’s TWO hawks!” (Somewhere, there is a nest full of hawk-lings, if you know what I mean.)

So when Lily told me in the middle of the afternoon that there was a deer in our backyard, I instantly looked out the window.

This is what I saw.

Our neighborhood has a lot of dogs, which were kind of freaking the deer out. I called the non-emergency number of our police station, (I already know our suburb doesn’t have animal control) and the officer who answered said that they were not equipped to handle deer. He advised to just leave the deer alone and let it leave at nighttime.

The deer jumped the fence, and spent the afternoon resting behind our neighbor’s shed. The next morning, there was no sign of her. I was relieved, but Emmy had a harder time. She wanted the deer to stay. “But I LOVE the deer!” she said.

I suppose we wouldn’t have to mow the lawn as often if the deer stayed around!

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