An email from a friend about wild deer got me thinking about the time I spent at my grandparents' farm while I was growing up.
My grandparents had what we all called "yard deer." The deer would vault over the 4-5ft fence and graze on the lawn. We'd find their tracks, and sometimes we'd actually get to see them through the kitchen window.
My grandparents did not allow hunting of any kind on their farm, which is about 110 acres and includes a large, tree-filled pasture with a creek running through it--perfect deer territory. There have been "no hunting" signs posted on that farm for at least 70 years. My stepdad Walt used to go sit out there with a shotgun of his own during hunting season, just to make sure nobody got any ideas.
After my grandmother died a few years ago, my cousin and her husband bought the homestead including the house and outbuildings, the pasture, and a few acres of cultivated fields. They've continued the tradition of not allowing hunting; at one point Bruce put up sign saying "our deer shoot back," and he often patrols like Walt used to.
They've restored the windbreaks that were initially planted in the '30s but had since been cut down. They've reclaimed a lot of the land surrounding the house which in the past 20 years had cleared for farming. Large parts of the property are now full of native and cultivated plantings, with some areas allowed to go wild again.
The result of all this good stuff is, the critters are coming back. The yard deer returned about 3 years ago, which thrills my cousin no end. Her husband got to see a bobcat in the treeline last year, about 10 feet from him, and my mom saw one up by her acreage this past winter--the first bobcats seen there since my mom was a girl.
There's a flock of wild turkeys that hang out in the trees and on top of the chicken coop; they imprinted on my cousin's son when he was about 15, and they still follow him around the property like baby ducks. They also have chickens and ducks, sheep, and pigs. All this livestock means predators, of course, so they've added a Great Pyrenees to the critter mix.
My grandparents had a small orchard a shortish distance from the house and yard, with maybe 10-12 trees: apples, cherries, apricots, plums, and peaches. They also had a badger, who'd dug a den at the base of one of the trees. Us kids weren't allowed in the orchard unless we were in the bed of the truck; only the adults were allowed to get out of the truck, and they always kept an eye out for the badger.
It being forbidden territory made it irresistable to us, of course. My cousin Johnny and I were out there playing one day, probably around age 10 or so, and stomping around and whooping and hollering like kids do, and we royally pissed off that badger. Man, that thing could MOVE! It came straight at us and we both scampered up the nearest trees, with the badger pacing and growling and huffing down below.
It was summer, and for once in her life my grandmother actually had the windows closed and the A/C on, so she couldn't hear us yelling for help. After awhile, she realized she hadn't seen us for quite some time--we were usually in and out of the house getting something to drink, or just cooling down for a minute--and came out looking for us. When she heard us screaming from the direction of the orchard, she drove the truck into the orchard, and we jumped down into the truck bed, very relieved to be rescued. She didn't know whether to yell at us for being so stupid, or laugh her ass off at us for--well, for being so stupid. :D
My cousins have planted a new orchard out there, and I dearly hope it gets its own badger; the old place just won't be the same without one.
When I was a kid, my cousin and I both wanted to escape the country and live in the city; I swore I would never live that life again. Now she's back on Grandma's farm, where we spent so many happy hours as kids. And me? After years of being a city girl, I've got my own little acreage out in the country. I listen to the coyotes and the owls hoot at night. During the day, I feed the birds and the bushy-tailed squirrels. We've got deer and elk in the neighborhood and, farther up the mountain, bear and cougars. And I drive past waterfalls every day when I drive the six long miles to my office.
OK, Mom, you can stop laughing any time now. :)
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Comments
I better stop here or I'll make myself unhappy. I'll just say good for you for leaving San Diego and living out your dreams.
We do have the beginnings of an orchard here. There were two young apple trees (Macintosh, I think) when we moved in; we added a Fuji and a Granny Smith, as well Bing and Black Tartarian cherries, this year. Next year will probably be plums and/or peaches, and we're also going to put in some blueberry and thornless blackberry bushes.
I want chickens but haven't been able to talk the spousal unit into it. Well, he agrees on chickens, but thinks we should raise them to eat. Nope, nope, nope.
We only have an acre up here, but that's plenty for us--there's enough to do looking after the flower gardens and the trees (we also planted 30 cedars and a kousa dogwood last year), and tearing up the himalayan blackberries and the ivies.
I am envious of the llamas. I love llamas. As long as I'm out of spitting distance. :D
Love the yard deer! My parents have some at their house. I love watching them when I'm visiting.
Anywhere else in the Portland area, we could've gone 5 miles from town and been in the country, but eventually town would have followed us. But since we live about a block off the Historic Columbia River Highway, which is a federally protected scenic byway.
It took *five years* for a local couple to get permits to open a restaurant/hotel in an existing building that had been a restaurant/hotel since the '30s--and they finally had to take the Gorge Commission to court to get the final OK. Another guy we know wanted to build a house on a plot of river-front (Sandy, not Columbia) property that he's owned for about 30 years; it took him 4 years and about $75k in permits and legal fees before he could get the go ahead.
The Gorge Comission is very very protective of everything on the highway and in the Gorge. That's a pain if you're trying to build a house, or open a business; but for us, it just means that our area will never be an overdeveloped suburb. We'll always be in the country, just five miles out of town.
We so lucked out. :)
Vegetable gardening is much easier than you might think. It all depends on your soil; the better the soil, the healthier your plants and the more able they are to fight off pests. Until we moved here and when we lived in San Diego, I always had a vegetable garden and typically an organic one. I wish it wasn't so damned hot and dry here. If it wasn't, I'd be in the garden every morning after throwing hay bales to the ruminants.
The Cook's Garden is a great place to get organic and heirloom vegetable seeds. Farm on!
It made me feel grateful, too. Your country experiences echo mine, right down to the marching lines of wild turkeys, and the Great Pyrenees (ours is named Angel, and I'm in a bit of denial as to how long in the tooth she is). You made me glad again, that we moved to the country.
I remember waking up my long-suffering husband at about 2 a.m., a couple of days after we moved here, to point out the wonderfully large animals walking down the street... ...deer!
I don't wake him up for that anymore, but we do IM each other for the raccoons, squirrels, and many different kinds of birds (Stellar's Jays are my favorite; any day I seem them is a good day).
You sound like you live in a similar place.
Anecdote: within a week of moving here, six different people told me the name of my neighborhood: Hippie Hollow.
No wonder I feel at home.
I appreciate the kind words, especially when they're from somebody whose writing I like. :)
@EasyWind: Oh, aren't Stellar's Jays the best! I had never seen one before I moved up here. We have a little resident flock of four that visit the ground under the bird feeder every day. They are just magnificent.
I grew up in Nebraska, then lived in San Diego and Houston, and now Oregon. I am seeing birds I have never seen before and bought a bird book to help me ID some of them. So far I've identified black-capped chickadees, western scrub jay, dark-eyed junco, red-breasted nuthatch, song sparrow, varied thrush, and house wren (in addition to the ever-present house sparrows, robins, crows, and hawks that fly over too high for us to ID but are probably Red-Tails). We have also had flocks of what sure as hell look like common blackbirds (thrush), even though they're not supposed to exist over here. And I have seen a nest of osprey on the Sandy River (all hanging out together, looking like juvenile delinquents smoking by the corner of the 7-11), and had an eagle fly over me from a mass of cottonwoods and out over the Sandy River. That one just about made my heart stop!
I love the Hippie Hollow. We are living in more of a redneck area (or as they say, "typical oregon redneck"), but they're more the ornery, "don't tell us what to do" variety, so we feel like we fit in pretty well. :)
C.