I was drawn back into the garden today. I went out to grab a book I left on the patio, and looked around the corner to see if the hummingbird I saw out the window earlier was still lingering in the purple flowers on the warm, south-facing wall. I noticed some weeds poking up again among the Kangaroo Paws plant and stepped over to pull them up. One thing led to another, and I was caught up in picking weeds and rearranging mulch and admiring the new blossoms on the bougainvillea.

For the past 12 years, our “garden” has  been at the mercy of the hungry deer that range through our neighborhood. They eat everything but weeds, favoring anything with flowers. A family of deer has made our neighbor’s back yard their ancestral homeland, bearing sweet little fawns in ones and twos, and raising them to return and make their own families there. Generations of deer families. An old buck with one cataract-glazed eye resting there was common, his massive rack poking above the shrubs, while the doe grazed her way through the hedges.

Several times, our dog Tie has seen the deer over our low, wrought-iron fence and put on his best show of bravado, only to have them mock him with a blank stare before lowering their heads to graze again. A few times, Tie has come bolting back in the house when a  protective doe didn’t like him barking at her fawn, and jumped over the fence to charge him. Many times, we have met adult deer on our stairs on the way up to our door from the street, and had to stomp and yell to shoo them away. They aren’t afraid of us. I’ve also heard stories of them charging people. A woman who was living with us decided to get back in the car and go spend the night with a friend rather than confront the buck blocking her path up to the house.

They are a nuisance. I call them the Damn Deer. To me, they are large rodents ravaging my yard.

As a group, I wish they would go away. Individually, though, they are cute, especially as babies. One spring, a white-spotted fawn got stuck in our little fence. The family had been chewing up our yard when they startled and ran. Mom hopped over the fence, but baby tried to go through it and got stuck at the hips.

It was squealing in fear. We couldn’t pull it back through because it was struggling so much, so my husband ran for a saw while my daughter tried to comfort the baby. We freed it by sawing off one of the rails of the fence (did you really think we’d saw off its leg?!?). It ran and hid in the bushes, a long, healthy life ahead to spend nibbling my landscaping down to the dirt.

Needless to say, we didn’t have much growing in our yard. There are some plants that are deer-resistant, but these deer didn’t seem to know that, and ate most everything, including ivy, which is supposed to be poisonous for them. Last summer, we decided to put a fence around our side and back yard. At last, we could plant freely; flowers, fruit, luscious specimens of all kinds. We did–it looked amazing.

When we got home after being away for two weeks, I stepped outside and looked around. Something didn’t look right. The blossoms had been chomped off of their bases, a broad, clean cut typical of big deer teeth. They found a way to get in. I saw them on the other side of the house, alerted by Tie’s frantic barking on the sun porch. There was an 8-point buck and a doe coming through the back way, up to no good.

The next Saturday, we pulled out a roll of wire mesh that we had used to protect our lemon tree (yes! they even eat lemon leaves!) before the fence went up. We secured it over the one spot in a thick hedge that we thought they could slip through.

As the blooms began to reappear, I watched warily for them to be mowed down again. The plants began to grow again and stretch out, luxuriating in the safe, cloistered space. Hummingbirds and bees flitted and buzzed. A few days ago, I got out my new little trimmers, pulled on my new gloves and went out to do some trimming.

I haven’t been much of a gardener in the past decade, but now that the yard is looking so pretty, I’m drawn out there to care for the plants. I think they may actually stay around for a while.

Don’t feel sorry for the deer; they still have my front yard to browse and enjoy–at least until we find a way to chase them away to greener pastures.