You Kids Stay Off My Lawn!

Even though I consider the neighborhood deer a bunch of annoying, destructive hooved locusts, I have to admit to a certain sadness this time of year when the fawns lose both their spots and the terminal, anthropomorphized cuteness that, up to this point, has largely protected them from the wrath of my BB gun.

The routine is always the same, because we're suckers. We usually start seeing the fawns early to mid-June, and all summer long the tiny little bastards come bounding into the yard on those impossibly spindly legs, look at us with those big, baby eyes, bat their eyelashes a time or two, then calmly snip the bloom off a geranium. And instead of outrage, we'd go "awww, isn't that cute!" Because of course, it was. Then.

But it's fall now, and they're not cute little fawns any more, they're deer. And as such, they're about to be introduced to my Red Ryder. You can't see it in the picture, but when I took it, the fawn in the background was merrily chewing up and consuming the archery target I have hanging from a tree. Little does he know that in eight days he's going to be a target himself.

I kid, I kid... I never have and never will hunt yard deer, and truth be told don't do much bowhunting at all any more. With the exception of meat-hunting, I largely prefer birds to deer these days, but that certainly didn't stop me from slowly putting down the camera, picking Mr. Rumpbuster up from his spot by the back door, and sending 4.5 millimeters of shiny steel asspain his way.

Vacation's over, kid. School's started and you better start taking notes, because the next armed guy you run into will probably be flinging more than a BB your way.