Pre-Trip #31:
Oh, Deer Me!
Last Halloween I was out trick-or-treating around our neighborhood with Billy and Tricia (and Aimee). We were walking along, kicking the leaves and making swirly designs on them with our flashlights when Aimee suddenly began to growl, low and deep in her throat.
I looked up and saw an ominous-looking figure coming toward us, walking in the middle of the street.
“Heel, Aimee!” I said, thinking it was a dog that had got out of his yard and was coming over to investigate us. As it loomed closer, however, I could see that it was way, way too large to be a dog. It moved into the light of the streetlamp and I could see that it was a magestic-looking buck with a huge set of antlers. It stopped for a moment, looked distainfully at the silly humans with their mouths hanging open, and then turned around and loped off down the street.
“Mommy, did you see that?” Tricia exclaimed.
“Yeah,” I said. “
That kid’s costume is
awesome!”
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This morning as I was getting the kids’ breakfast ready, I casually looked out my kitchen window and saw a
small herd of deer cross the street and tentatively make its way across my front lawn. Now, depending upon where you live, that may not be such an unusual event for some of you DISers, but it certainly stopped me in my tracks for a moment!
Oh sure, for years we’ve seen the occasional one or two off in the trees if we’re driving by a wooded area and, unfortunately, we would sometimes drive past one that had been hit by a car and was now just a lifeless form on the side of the road. But this was the first time that I’ve seen so many deer on my own front lawn in broad daylight! There were about seven of them, four adult females and three older fawns. This is a very developed (some would say over-developed) suburban area of North Jersey. We’ve got plenty of trees, but I wouldn’t exactly say we have any kind of forest nearby. I guess the deer simply have nowhere left to go.
As mentioned in a previous post, Ed and I have been really busy over the past few weeks trying to formulate a game plan for next summer when we remodel the house. We really have no other choice than to completely vacate the house for July and August. (That’s how I’m getting the super-unbelievable-bonus trip to
WDW in August.)
Our original plan was to rent an
RV for both months and spend July camping in the
Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, but the cost of the rental turned out to be prohibitive. Not to mention it would be unrealistic for Ed to be able to take so much vacation time at once. (Please, don’t even ask me how the doctor is going to take it when I tell him I won’t be able to work either July or August!)
Besides, two months is an
awfully long time to live in a confined space with two active kids and a Lab!
Anyway, we decided that we would probably do better if we
rent a cabin in the eastern Pocono Mountains for the month of
July. Ed can commute, staying with friends here in town for a few nights when he works three 12-hr shifts in a row, and then he can spend all his days off with us in the mountains.
August will be split between camping in North Carolina and at Fort Wilderness Campground in WDW.
So now I am looking on line at all kinds of summer rental properties, with the hope that we can get one for a reasonable rate. Of course, the listings all feature glamour shots of the various vacation homes in the snowy winter, the colorful autumn, or the cool, shady summertime. The thing that struck me most about these photos was the love affair these owners seemed to have with
deer. Whether they were offering a humble one-bedroom log cabin or a contemporary ski chalet that sleeps twelve, I’d say about 80-90% of them had at least one photo showing multiple
deer on the property! Apparently this is viewed as a highly attractive feature as it is listed along with all the other ammenities…
“Gaze out the large kitchen window at all the
deer cavorting in the yard!”
“Relax on our deck and watch as the
deer come up and say Hello!”
“The
deer will eat right out of your hand!”
Now, I love nature and all that, but I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I would prefer that the wildlife
stay off the deck, if you please! They are welcome to pass on through like the herd I saw this morning, but I’d rather that they not get too close. I am not a big fan of
ticks and
fleas. We don’t have a garden, but those that do have to protect their plants and shrubs from the voracious appetites of grazing deer. Around here, they are seen as pests, not perks.
Perhaps the deer in Pennsylvania simply have different expectations of how they will be treated by vacationing humans. I get this mental image of a crowd of deer knocking on the patio door and pressing their faces against the glass sideways so they can peer inside....
“Anybody there, Gladys?”
“I dunno, Harriet, it sure looks like someone’s home!”
“What do you make of it, Ethel?”
“Try knocking a little louder, I’m hungry!”
“Hey, you renters in there! Come on out so we can
eat from your hands!”
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So all this talk about living in the
mountains and camping in the
woods has really got me thinking, how are the kids and I going to handle the inevitable close encounters with the local wildlife? We’re accustomed to seeing birds, squirrels, and the occasional bunny rabbit in our yard. (We used to have a lot of cute chipmunks in the area, but the neighbors’ cats made short work of those.)
Soon we’ll be living with
black bear and
deer and
oppossum and ….and heaven knows
what other kinds of animals!
…and
snakes, let’s not forget about the snakes. And the
field mice. And the
bugs. And the
huge creepy spiders.
The other night, some kind of fast-moving, cricket-like bug made the fatal mistake of entering the house under the kitchen door. Ed was summoned to terminate it with extreme prejudice. I ran out of the kitchen, but Tricia stayed. When Ed opened the paper towel to see if it was dead, it started wriggling and I’m sure her terrified screams could be heard a mile away!!
Huh boy! I just can’t
wait to get out there and get
closer to nature.
Well, at least when we’re in the motorhome there will be some small measure of protection from the untamed wilds of the
Fort Wilderness Campground. (I don’t think I could ever camp in a tent…even at Disney! I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep thinking about what may be crawling into my sleeping bag!)
I’ve read about lots of animal friends that we will probably meet at the Fort: lizards, toads, armadillos, rabbits, and of course, ducks. There’ve even been a few alligator sightings! Peacock used to roam around, too, but they’ve since been transferred to the
Animal Kingdom Park. Something about them pecking at campers...
I love the Animal Kingdom Park! Because of that wonderful Disney Imagineering, the boundary between Man and Animal is blurred but remains distinctly present. A prime example of this is the Safari. We “feel” as though we’re bouncing along on rutted roads, gazing about at all the animals peacefully co-existing in their natural environments. But in reality, it is all an elaborate set that includes unseen moats, landscape barriers and fences that contain the animals so they remain safe from each other and we remain safe from them.
(I don’t know about you, but as much as I desire quality educational experiences for my children, I wouldn’t want them to actually witness one of the lions taking down an impala and sinking her teeth into its neck just a few yards from us!)
And I can say with complete conviction that I strongly prefer audio-animatronic
bugs to the real thing! When I think of Florida in August, I have to say that I’m more frightened of meeting giant creepy-crawlies than of meeting alligators. I’m pretty sure no one ever found the latter in her room at Pop Century! (Yes, Karla, I saw that picture!)
And Floridians, FYI, you aren’t fooling anybody. The rest of us know darn well that “Palmento Bugs” are ROACHES!! Ewwww! God help me if one of those gets inside the RV….Tricia’s screams would wake up the dead! And as for me, the only thing you’d hear would be the sound of my feet flying down the gravel path!
Yes, I truly am looking forward to camping at the Fort next summer, but I think I will enjoy the rustic luxury of the
Villas at the Wilderness Lodge a whole lot more come this November!
And in case anyone’s interested,
That's only six weeks from tomorrow!! (Yay!)
Kathy
.
I always loved that. My wife is horrified by this news as our daughter has played at their house. 
I grew up with deer and bear and even bobcats roaming around. In fact, we even had a skunk a a pet when I was little. Yes, we truly did. My parents found it at the SPCA. It had it's scent glands taken out. I didn't remember it very well, because I was so little, but my parents said it was like having a cat.
We used to live in North Carolina - some scary bugs there, if you ask me!!
Hope all is well with you and yours.... looking forward to an update when you can 
