We had not been out to the country for a couple weeks. We had a surprise waiting for us when we arrived for the weekend. There is a little side yard next to the cabin that is fenced off. A young baby deer was sleeping in the tall grass there under some trees just twenty-five feet from the house.

Saturday evening we grilled hamburgers out on the deck for our Sunday School class and the little fawn was the life of the party. He watched us from his vantage point under the trees with big eyes. We watched him back from the deck. Every once in a while he would get up and forage in the grass, accompanied by “oohs” and “ahs” from his audience. Some of them had never seen a deer that close up before.

One of the guys at the party surmised that the doe had known what she was doing when she left her fawn there. It was a made-to-order playpen. Maybe he was right. Today I watched another fawn following along behind a doe. This was a bigger fawn than the one in the side yard, possibly the one we saw a couple weekends back. The property is completely fenced and has an electrically-operated gate. The gate opened to let a car out and the fawn loped off in that direction. All of a sudden the doe changed course and headed the fawn off before it could get to the open gate. Seems to me they understand fences pretty well and know just how to use them to their advantage.