Gonna Bounce That Kid Right Out of My Yard

Any reputable obstetrician would have been appalled. Such behavior by a very pregnant lady simply wasn’t appropriate.

For most pregnant ladies, actually, it would have been impossible. When you feel approximately the shape and size of the Goodyear Blimp, you aren’t going to gambol about, making mad dashes hither and yon and kicking up your heels. Heck, you can’t even see your heels.

But these two pregnant ladies were doing just that. Literally. I saw one of them kick her heels higher than her head. This was after she had hurtled across the lawn, twisting and leaping like Tipperary bursting out of the bucking chute. Her unborn baby must have been hanging on by its fingernails.

Except it didn’t have fingernails. These pregnant ladies were deer. Their prenatal cavorting took place in broad daylight, right in our back yard. And it involved children.

The children were four or five of last year’s fawns (it was hard to count, they were moving so fast). Scruffy and uncombed in their shedding winter coats, they outdid the does in exuberance. They chased each other, ducked and dodged, bucked, dashed back and forth across the yard, raced laps around the trees and back, and bounced like popcorn on their slender legs.

This frantic activity went on for perhaps ten minutes. Eventually one of the youngsters galloped off across the neighbor’s yard and disappeared. Another followed. The others dashed off in various directions and didn’t come back.

The two does looked at each other, then settled down to placid browsing on the new green grass as if nothing whatsoever had happened.

And we were left wondering just what did happen. It’s the time of year when the does, getting ready for this year’s babies, send the adolescent fawns from last year off to seek their fortunes in the big, wide world. Is this the way it’s done? Did we witness a deer rite of passage—sort of a graduation minus the speeches?

It might have been a way to literally kick the kids out, except it looked like way too much fun. Was the point of all the frolicking to get the yearlings so hyped up that they wouldn’t notice Mom had sent them away? Was this a farewell party? Or did we simply see an outburst of sheer, spring-driven delight?

We may never know. What we do know is that it was great fun to watch. But for any pregnant ladies out there, just one cautionary note. Spring exuberance or not, please, don’t try this at home.