“I Shot Bambi. Okay, Bambi Lives…But It Crossed My Mind.”

This means war.

A beautiful Saturday morning while cradling a warm coffee cup, I took a lazy stroll around the house to give all my potted beauties a drink from the hose. Turning on the spigot, I approached my planters on front steps.

Carnage! Where once fertile sweet potato vines and flowers blossomed nothing more than dirt clods and purple stubs remained. Plant parts, bits of pink flower flesh strewn everywhere. The INHUMANITY! Once again, I had fallen victim to that devil-horned, cloven-hoofed, brown-eyed, tick-infested marauding Mongol herd.

I hate Bambi.

What have I become? I hear my mother’s voice, “The Bible says you must never hate.” But the Bible also says the devil prowls to and fro stalking the earth as a lion. I know differently. The devil skips and jumps and prances invading the pure earthly bodies of Bambi and Mama each dark and sinister night.

Late spring held much promise. Like the sea calls to a sailor, the soil of my side yard whimpered to me. With the help of Lofton Taylor, who has been in charge of our yard for decades, I cleared, tilled and raked the land for my garden. All 6 x 10 feet. I planted peppers from the Preschool sale. Tomato shoots from Rose Mary Hughes. Corn grown from seed by my 5 year-old. Squash, watermelon, eggplant and okra. Spent countless hours sweating and weeding. Though apologizing profusely in social situations about dirt under my fingernails, secretly I reveled in my new life mission.

Farmer. The land and I were as one. I smelled of earth and it smelled of me.

We both smelled. So earthy.

Then one morning I awoke to all little green tomatoes gone, squash nibbled to stubs, corn stalks shredded. Visions of frying okra brutally dashed against the white shores of Lake Rutledge.

Lofton asked “What happened to your garden?” I unloaded my rage. Talking with my husband Lofton observed, “Jamie sure doesn’t like those deer.” Shaking his head he mumbled, “I’ve never seen her like that.”

I live on the I-20 of deer travel. Droves of pillaging deer-people camping up on Park Lane stampede by our house every night traveling to the lush underbrush behind the Newton and Hunt places. At my door they stop, wash their grimy paws, use the restroom and dine on the vegetable plate. Curses! I’m the Cracker Barrel of Deer World.

I’m not a violent person. I just feel violated without so much as a thank you in the morning light as the invaders steal away. No, there will be no fresh vegetables by my own hand this summer. Though alas…in quieter moments, I do realize Bambi can’t help being Bambi.

It’s just hard to accept. And most tragic of all, I have lost any excuse for dirt under my fingernails.