I saw them within the first weeks of moving here – summer 2012, barely unpacked. A doe with her fawns at dawn, moving along the strip of forest that separates our property from the neighbors. Then again in autumn, eating the fallen apples and plums alongside the hedgehogs and foxes. Roe deer – a doe, usually, sometimes with fawns. A buck who wanders through alone. Occasionally the whole family unit together, browsing their way across the meadow like they own the place. They do, in a sense. They were here first.)
When I started foraging mushrooms in the forest across the road, I learned quickly that the easiest paths in and out were the ones the animals had already made. The deer trails. You can spend twenty minutes fighting through underbrush, or you can follow the route that generations of hooves have worn smooth. I chose the practical option. So now I walk their paths through the forest, and they walk theirs through my garden, and somewhere along the way we came to an understanding.
I don’t know when the Agreement started, exactly. It wasn’t a decision. It was more like… noticing. Noticing that the raised beds went untouched even at peak growth, when the corn was tall and the peas were heavy and there were more greens than any reasonable family could eat. Noticing that the deer passed right by all of it and kept walking. Noticing that the only time I saw them actually in the beds was this autumn, nibbling on dead stuff – the things that were already finished, left there specifically for the wildlife and to keep the ground covered.
The previous owners had wire mesh around their vegetable garden. I tore it out to build the raised bed system I wanted. Forty beds now, spreading across the property in ambition that’s grown exponentially over the past five years. No fence. No mesh. Just… trust, I guess. Or laziness. Honestly, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.
When I planted the baby apple and pear trees, I put plastic collars around them. For protection. The smart thing to do. Then I planted the cherry and the peach and… didn’t bother getting more collars. Too lazy. Figured I’d get around to it.
I never did. The trees are fine. The deer leave them alone. That’s when I realized the Agreement was real. Not because I’d tested it on purpose, but because I’d accidentally run a control experiment through sheer lack of follow-through.
The old plum tree next to the bird feeder has become a kind of buffet.
When I clean out the pantry – which happens more often now that I’ve started actually looking at expiration dates – the items that are past their prime but still safe for animals go under the plum tree. The wildlife night shift takes care of it.
Last month’s offerings, from what I’ve started calling the Great Pantry Archaeological Dig: cream crackers from 2017, a tube of tiny toffee pellets, mango slices from 2018 that had gone jelly-like but still smelled okay, dried baby bananas, expired polenta, seaweed snacks, stale TUC crackers. Some pea and ham soup that was nearly two years old and had clearly chosen its destiny. Things that would go in the compost anyway.
Before that: the failed arepas. I’d pulled out the P.A.N. flour without checking the date – several years expired, it turned out – and they cooked up fine but tasted absolutely foul. I hurled them into the garden like hockey pucks, and by morning the evidence had been cleared away. The night shift handles my kitchen disasters with the same efficiency they handle the fallen plums. No judgment. Just… disposal.
The pumpkins I bought for Halloween will probably join the buffet soon. They were supposed to become pie after they finished being decorations, but then the holidays happened and I got busy and now they’re going soft. The deer won’t mind.
I think about how this looks from their side, sometimes. The blue and white house where the humans leave food under the plum tree. Where no one chases you. Where you can rest by the flower garden in the evening and watch the windows without anyone banging on the glass. Where your mother brought you as a fawn, and her mother brought her, and the rules have been the same for as long as anyone remembers.
I should say: I also buy venison from a local hunter. I’m not being precious about feeding Bambi. But there’s something that feels almost full circle about it – respecting the ones here on our property while knowing they’re part of the chain elsewhere. That’s just how it works.
The deer populations have been growing lately – more white-tail encroachment than our native roe deer, but still. More deer means more wolves, and we’ve seen tracks occasionally. Never close to the house, but around. Those we’d prefer not to have as neighbors. As long as everyone does their business and stays out of each other’s way, though, we leave it alone. It just requires both sides to keep holding up their end, year after year.
I look forward to seeing who shows up each spring – the doe I recognize, the new fawns, sometimes older sisters still tagging along with the family group. One day there’ll probably be some young buck who decides the rules don’t apply to him, and we’ll have to renegotiate.
Then again, maybe not. Part of the reason I plant extra of everything is so that we have enough to share, and I can afford a bit of nibbling. For now, the mothers keep teaching their daughters: this is the house where you can rest. This is the tree where they leave food. This is the garden you walk through, not the one you eat.
Take what falls. Leave what grows.
Little Blue and White House 